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- [00:07]
A
Hi, Cora.
- [00:07]
B
Hi.
- [00:08]
A
Thank you so much for being here.
- [00:09]
B
Thank you.
- [00:10]
A
Tyler, based on your conversations with people who are on the ground in Iran right now, what do you think is the biggest misconception about what life has been like there since the war started, or is there something that people would find kind of surprising, given the rhetoric in the US and from Trump?
- [00:27]
B
I think what's been most surprising is the sustained level of hope that a lot of people still have. It surprises me every day when I hear from people who sound very scared when they're surviving from bombardments one day, but then the next are still celebrating the death of Khamenei, the supreme Leader, and are talking about how they're hoping for the days when they can come back to the streets and protest again.
- [00:54]
A
That's Cora Engelbrecht, who just wrote a piece for the New Yorker about what life has been like for the Iranian people during the war. Ever since war broke out in Iran and across the Middle east, so much of the coverage and conversation has centered on the global effects of the conflict, how the region has been destabilized, why the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is threatening an international energy crisis, or whether the American people approve of Donald Trump's handling of the war. But something central has gotten lost in all of this, which is how the Iranian people's daily lives are being affected by the US And Israeli bombardments and how the Iranian regime is using the war as an excuse to crack down even harder on civilians. I wanted to talk with Cora about what her reporting has revealed about the day in and day out for the Iranian people, how the dissident community who were in opposition to the Supreme Leader and his regime before his death are thinking about the war and how they're hoping the conflict might resolve. This is the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggatt, and I'm a senior editor at the New Yorker. You know, I feel like there's been so much coverage of the Iran war, and at the same time, there have been so few stories about what life is actually like on the ground for Iranians, you know, civilians who are there experiencing this war. And so I thought that we could start by just having you talk a little bit about why it is so hard to even get in contact with people who are in Iran right now, and how you were able to navigate those obstacles in order to report your most recent story for the New Yorker, which was a very in depth, intimate portrait that was told through a series of dispatches that were sent to you from one Writer and dissident on the ground who you refer to as hottie.
- [02:38]
B
Yeah, it's been a process since the very beginning when the blackouts started. I think because these blackouts have been so total and have reemerged throughout the course of the demonstration since, you know, late December.
- [02:53]
A
You mean by blackouts, do you mean Internet blackouts?
- [02:56]
B
Internet. Internet blackouts, yeah. It's been really hard to keep in touch with someone consistently, I would say, since the start. When the demonstration started before January, I was in touch with a lot of dissidents, a lot of people who had fled Iran and were outside the country and were still in contact with people inside. And because they were dissidents and had vested interest in what was going to happen in the future of. They were in touch with a lot of people who had Starlink accounts. And that's how I started reaching out. I began hearing from the dissidents who began putting me in touch with people inside the country. And those were the most sure consistent links for information, because these are people who sort of set up for this moment. They were primed for this moment, for the lights to go out. Hadi, who we nickname in our story in this most recent piece, I connected with him early on when he started attending a lot of funerals for demonstrators that were killed in these mass killings in January, January 8th and 9th. He was attending a lot of these services, and he wanted someone on the outside to understand how they were being surveilled by security officers. He was going to a lot of cemeteries that were being guarded by security officers. He was meeting with a lot of families of dissidents that were killed who were being harassed by security officers, being pressured to cancel or limit their ceremonies for their relatives who were killed. He was in touch with a lot of families who had no idea, had been left completely in the dark about the whereabouts of prisoners, people who had been arrested during the mass demonstrations in late December. And so he was sending me a lot of material around the time of these funerals. And then the war happened, and everyone else I was in touch with disappeared immediately, but his light stayed on. And that's how we started corresponding in the first three days after war. Just tell me everything. Tell me what's going on. Whenever you can, update me. And that extended for about two weeks.
- [05:15]
A
How risky was it for him to keep you updated? I mean, you mentioned that Starlink is the main way that he was able to sort of stay in contact with you throughout the Internet shutdown. But what were the potential consequences if the authorities had caught him using Starlink to send a foreign journalist information about what's happening inside of the country.
- [05:35]
B
The consequences are huge. We've been hearing about this since late December. We've been hearing about this since the 12 day war. There was a huge crackdown after the 12 day war from Israel and the United States. And the regime arrested tens of thousands of people after that crackdown, calling them infiltrators, very worried or determined to basically stave off another military intervention or event, and wanted to make sure that they had stamped out any opposition or any organizers. So all the evidence was there. I'd say after the mass demonstrations, more laws were enacted specifically surrounding the use of Starlink and sending information to any foreign media that was going to be treated as a very serious offense that could lead to a death sentence. I would say in the first two days that we were corresponding after the bombardment started, Hadi started sending me these messages that he was receiving every day, text messages from the government and from the police, reminding him that sending any information to foreign media surrounding the war would be met with a very severe sentence. So, no, he was doing this at great risk, I would say. He's part of a community that, as we write in the piece, they're used to living these invisible existences, and a lot of them have lost their fear.
- [07:16]
A
Just thinking more broadly about this concept of trying to report on Iran while Iranians are in the midst of a regime imposed Internet blackout, I mean, could you talk a little bit about the story that you reported back in January about the mass protests that turned into massacres, essentially?
- [07:37]
B
Yeah, that was really difficult to get a handle on. And it was all by design, because the blackout, the massacres we know now were nationwide. But at the time the blackout was nationwide, we were only getting bits and pieces from across the country. It was very piecemeal. And so it was very opaque. The best way to counter something that's that broadly opaque, I think, is to really narrow in on one story and try and get a full picture. And I just happened to get connected with one protester in Mashhad, which is the second most populous city in Iran, where we now know hundreds were killed. And he had a Starlink account. He also had a group of friends that he had gone out with. They had all taken videos. And so I wasi got access to this trove of videos that really helped verify what had happened over the course of three days and gave a full picture of the brutality and also the strategy that the regime used over those three days to meet These mass demonstrations with this. With this really lethal crackdown.
- [08:50]
A
I mean, it sounds like that crackdown is also sort of what made a lot of people on the ground in Iran hopeful for US Intervention. Right. I mean, you even mentioned earlier this idea that they had never really thought they would be in a position to be kind of rooting for war, but because it was so awful what happened, it was like war was kind of the only way out.
- [09:10]
B
Yeah, that was the phrase that was used over and over and over. And I was in touch with a lot of Pahlavi supporters during the demonstrations. He would say over and over that people had lost their fear. And a lot of that had to do with being summoned to the streets by, you know, this hopeful leader that they had found in Pahlavi. He's the son of the former Shah of Iran. But that. That. That summoning was backed by Trump saying that if people were to be killed in the streets, that was going to be his red line. He was going to come to the defense of these demonstrators. So a lot of people, not even. Not just young people that we know now that those crowds were filled with many generations, chose this moment. Even if it was gonna mean a lot of death, it was gonna lead to some form of liberation for them. And that hope of this being a liberation campaign, it's all they have in this moment. So I still hear that from people on the streets, even though, you know, they're losing their ability to live easily and they're sheltering at home, and their lives have changed so dramatically and arguably for the worse since this war started. They. They can only cling to this hope that in the end, it will be a liberating event.
- [10:30]
A
And what was the mood on the ground at the very beginning? I mean, we started off this conversation by you talking about the hope that is still very much present among many Iranians. But I guess I'm wondering if sort of, what was Hadi's initial reaction? What was kind of the reaction of the larger dissident community that he is so close to when the strikes began and when it became clear that an Israeli strike had killed the ayatollah.
- [10:57]
B
Yeah, I think I want to go back even to a few days before this happened, like when people were really waiting for war. It was an incredible time to take a survey of, you know, as much as I could, people were more in touch, so I could kind of speak to people who were from different corners of the opposition and across the board. It was surprising how many people wanted war. People who never believed in Foreign intervention in the past just always wanted, always believed in an opposition that would generate democracy from within the country. They wanted it to be generated from within. They, after the massacres, mass killings in January, just believed that there was no other option, that this was the only way that they were going to actually see real change or make some sort of difference. There were still people who were very skeptical, but there were some that would describe going to parties and talking about war as if they're waiting for the Fourth of July. And that was pretty remarkable to hear.
- [12:07]
A
And what do you mean by wanting war? Like, war can encompass so many things. And I guess I'm just wondering if there were a lot of people who were specifically hoping that Trump would do something or whether it was kind of understood that this would be a joint operation by the US And Israel. If they wanted, like, boots on the ground, if they really just wanted a strike that would go, you know, for the Ayatollah, and then they were hoping that that would, you know, do the trick and that would be the end of the regime, like, kind. When they said they wanted war, what did that actually mean in their heads? In that moment?
- [12:41]
B
It was arranged. It was such an emotional want. People wanted revenge. So that was the Ayatollah. They didn't want all the death to go unanswered and just disappear into a vacuum. The memory of the 12 Day War was fresh in people's minds. So they knew that they were dealing with two forces, Israel and the United States, who make good on promises. And so that's why there was a lot of hope behind, you know, this sort of celestial event that could happen again. As one person described it to me, again, this was often tempered by some with, you know, a sort of practical. This isn't. This isn't what we ever wanted. We didn't ever want to be brought to this point. It's a suicide wish to, you know, want war, want foreign intervention, want your own home to be bombed? But we are at war with our own government. What else are we supposed to do?
- [13:41]
A
And so based on that, I would assume that the death of the Ayatollah was welcome when that finally did happen.
- [13:50]
B
Yeah, that was the big moment of hope. That the symbolic act of revenge that people are still clinging to right now. I think they're trying to draw out this celebration of the killing of this, of this leader who symbolized all of the repression that the regime has just become so expert at over five decades. Khamenei was just. He was the symbolic figure. We got a Reaction, I think, from Hadi. He wrote me a long message in response to, you know, what Khamenei symbolized in his eyes. And he's in his 40s, so he really has grown up with this figure looming over his life and his generation since he was very young. But he said that for many of us, Khamenei had become something like a demon, a symbol of evil, like Zahak, which is a figure in Persian mythology, a tyrant from ancient Iranian legends. And according to this myth, a sorcerer or the devil kisses his shoulders. And from the place of those kisses, two snakes grow out of Zahak's shoulders. And to calm those snakes, they have to be fed every day with the brains of young people. And he asked me, you know, think about how symbolic this is that young people were sacrificed so that this tyrant and this monstrous system can survive. That was his way of articulating how symbolic and important it was to bring down this figure, especially after the deaths of so many young people in January.
- [15:38]
A
More with Cora Engelbrecht after the break. This is the political scene from the New Yorker.
- [15:50]
C
The justice system can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us to hold public agencies accountable because we all want to drink from the same cup of justice. With tales from the newsroom and the courtroom, our hosts create the perfect trifecta of legal experience, journalistic integrity, and a fire lit to expose the truth wherever it leads. Search for cup of justice wherever you get your podcast or visit cupofjusticepod.com.
- [16:28]
A
So there's a war happening, and the unpredictability of the strikes make it very difficult to characterize anything as, like, normal or routine. But I'm still wondering if you can say a little bit about what, like, normal daily life looks like for people like Hadi, who lives in Tehran.
- [16:44]
B
Yeah, I think when we were deciding whether or not this would be something valuable for people to see, it was hard at first because he wasn't really able to go anywhere. He was at home sheltering a lot of the time when the bombardment started, he would go out here and there. He couldn't really film anything on the streets, very dangerous to do so. But would try and give a lot of descriptions of how difficult it was to get food, bread, the lines around the blocks, from bakeries, from ATMs. And gradually, I think as he got used to the rhythm of the bombardments, he started making plans with friends to try and gather. This was still daring, but people were desperate to do so, especially in his community, dissidents who are trying to track each other closely, trying to figure out, you know, when there might be a moment to start organizing. Just share information. This is what they do. So he was finding ways to get out or have people over, but for the most part, he's sheltering at home. Over the first seven days, I'd say he started seeing a lot of people leaving. A lot of people leaving the city, either because they had been directly affected by the bombardments, their homes had been damaged, or they just didn't see any reason to stay. It was too dangerous. It wasn't worth the risk. So he was determined to stick it out. And he started collecting these responsibilities from people who had left and fled. His routine became kind of that of a janitor for those who had disappeared. He would take care of people's cats. That was some of the more colorful material he sent. He collected a lot of keys from people whose family members had fled. He also was receiving a flurry of requests from people outside the country, since he still had Internet. I think as word got around that he had this secure connection, a lot of relatives and friends started getting in touch with him from abroad, asking him to try and reach their relatives inside, check on them, find them safe housing, see if they were imprisoned in certain wards in Tehran. So, yeah, he became this kind of on the ground fixer. A lot of this information he didn't think was worth sharing with me, I had to keep prompting him to share because it is fascinating how the people who remain, you know, the responsibilities that they take on.
- [19:34]
A
No, I mean, I found, like, the story in its entirety is just so compelling. But, like, the videos of him feeding the various cats, and you kind of just see, like, this empty city and he's in it and he's doing all these things, trying to help people, also trying to make sure that he stays safe. It's just. No, it's really, really incredible to, you know, hear his story, but also to see it. There's one message that he sent to you that I think about so much, which is when he talks about how for years, the Islamic Republic was preparing itself for war with Israel, but only in military terms. And then he kind of goes on to describe how society there is just not really built to, you know, help people who have to shelter when a war is on. Could you talk a little bit about, you know, what he explained to you in that moment in terms of just, like, how hard it is to be a civilian in Iran when the country is getting.
- [20:31]
B
Yeah, that was one of the more surprising dispatches he sent where he said that there were just. In all the videos that he sent, because he sent a lot of the bombardments from his rooftops, where a lot of neighbors would come out to watch and even to cheer these bombardments that were happening in other parts of the city. There were no sirens going on. There were no warnings. They were getting text messages every day from the government warning them what would happen to them if they were to send any information out. But there was nothing informational in terms of their security and their safety. So, yeah, he felt like it was important for people to know how in the dark, a lot of people were inside of the country, which is why he would try and gather with others to share information physically in one space. The only other access to information that he really had was on his television, which is just state tv, which he would send me screens of state TV programs, more as a joke to say, look, this is the information. This is the story of the war that is being given to us. And even on state TV programs, there were these invitations summoning people to come out into the streets at night, which is when the bombardments were happening. So if anything, there was no indication, no infrastructure for warning or protecting civilians, it seemed.
- [21:58]
A
And not even any bomb shelters. Right.
- [22:00]
B
Not any bomb shelters. Right. For them to go to. No organizing to get people evacuated from big cities where a lot of these bombardments were happening. If anything, they want people to remain, come out into the streets, show their support.
- [22:15]
A
I feel like one of the more harrowing things about your piece is that it's kind of like you have threats coming from all sides. It's like you have someone who's in Tehran basically trying to dodge these strikes from the US And Israel. And then there's also the regime itself, which continues to be incredibly oppressive. And even though you. You know, there was this death of the ayatollah very early into the war, kind of the beginning of the war, it doesn't necessarily seem like the regime has gotten weaker. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the way in which the. The sources in this piece were dealing with the regime on top of everything else.
- [22:53]
B
Yeah, there's a great proverb that he fed me at one point. I kept asking this same point, can you talk to me about being stuck between this? Especially after these massive massacres and all these funeral services, people are just still reeling from trying to pick up the pieces of, you know, the human consequences of this lethal crackdown. And now they're dealing with war. Outside of Hadi, I'd Been in touch with a lot of families prior to the war who were trying to locate their relatives who had lost contact with family members since the start of the demonstrations. And now suddenly they were having to leave their homes to continue these searches while they're under bombardment. I kept asking him about cases like this and just what this must feel like, and he came back to me with this really great proverb called the mourning and the wedding chicken, which refers to a chicken that gets cooked either for a funeral or a wedding. He says it's usually said of someone who will lose no matter what happens, and that the people of Iran are like these mourning and wedding chickens. They're getting killed both by their government and now they're under threat by this bombardment from foreign forces. I think of this when I hear someone like Trump ask people to come out under an autocratic regime and take back their country. You don't know what it's like to leave your house and even just visibly on the streets, see these hulking regime, besieged military forces roving the streets with guns, with their hands on the trigger. It's like. It's a really terrifying way to just walk around. Outside of that. Yeah, people's homes are being raided constantly. He speaks about this specifically, that some of his friends, if not their home, if they can't find the actual dissident they're going after, they locate their relatives, and they'll go to their home, raid their home, take all of their electronics. People are still being arrested. And we know last week they started executions of prisoners that were arrested during the demonstrations in January. So the country's at war, but the crackdown definitely ensues. This is a priority for the regime. It knows that there are a lot of people at home and that their hate for the government has only deepened after, in the wake of all of these mass killings, and that many people are waiting for their moment to organize.
- [25:49]
A
How did Haughty and the other people in the dissident community respond to the appointment of Khamene's son as the new ayatollah? Like, was that kind of a turning point for the worse?
- [26:05]
B
Yeah, it's interesting. I. A lot of his friends felt that this was a really deflating moment, that they were really. There was so much hope surrounding and symbolism surrounding the death of Khamenei, that the appointment of Mujtava, his son, was equally symbolic, that this was just going to continue on and that they were vacated of their agency in this moment. It felt really, really depressing. He had one friend visit him the next day, who said exactly this? He was more like, whatever. Honestly, this is hot. He was, yeah. A continuation of the same. These generational supreme leaders, they're interchangeable. If anything, they lose their power or their fervor. Each generation loses their power, their fervor. So Mujtaba, he is this sort of. He's a mysterious figure. No one's really even heard his voice before. He doesn't do. He doesn't really. He's not a public speaker. He's more of a coddled prince than a real leader who would follow in the footsteps of his. Of his father, Khamenei. And it's hard to know, I think, if he will be able to take on that leadership in the same way. If anything, he just symbolizes a continuation of this ideology that's been in place for five decades.
- [27:47]
A
We'll have more of the political scene from the New Yorker in just a moment.
- [28:00]
D
Wired has always put a microscope on the people, power and forces shaping our world. Uncanny Valley brings that same fearless reporting straight to your feed. Is Doge finally over? Will AI actually democratize American healthcare? Each week, Wired journalists from across the newsroom are going to unpack where politics, technology and Silicon Valley collide. From conversations with tech leaders across Silicon Valley, Internet fandom investigations, and government crackdowns on rigged gambling, we're taking you all over the news cycle, going straight inside the priorities, pressures and power plays driving today's biggest decisions. Uncanny Valley tackles the questions keeping you up at night and helps make sense, sense of the future taking shape right now. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:58]
A
So, as you mentioned earlier, there were a lot of people in Iran, especially in the dissident community, who were sort of rooting for a war to happen or who were encouraged by the idea of. Of war, especially after Khamenei was killed. But there's this quote from Hadi where he basically says, you know, when the war began and we saw that Khamenei had been targeted and that the regime's forces were being attacked, yes, some people felt a sense of relief. But at that same time, we all understand that war brings enormous destruction and suffering. In reality, it can also delay the moment when Iran reaches democracy. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the second part of that quote and the things that were happening sort of in the first couple weeks of the war that started to make civilians on the ground question whether this operation by the US and Israel was actually going to leave them in a better spot.
- [29:53]
B
Yeah, yeah. This is actually how we open the piece. This moment where Hadi is going up to his rooftop, as he's done every night since the bombardment scene started, to marvel at the sky with all of his neighbors. This is usually a celebratory moment, but this night they were watching the airstrikes on three oil depots that were south of Tehran. Yeah, it felt like a symbolic moment, a turning point in the bombardment when they realized that this really wasn't about them at all and it was out of their control and it was potentially going to make life for everyday people much more difficult. And a lot of people started feeling more of a sense of fear than hope after that incident, realizing that, you know, there was, that infrastructure was going to be targeted.
- [30:54]
A
Because even if the regime falls, you need that oil infrastructure to have a functioning Iran. Right?
- [31:00]
B
To have a functioning Iran. Yeah. The future of their country, that, that was being taken from them. But watching these things simultaneously. Yes, it comes with a whole range of emotions. Watching the destruction of your home alongside the destruction of a repressive force, alongside the destruction of, you know, the, the infrastructure that would help you, for help you create a hopeful future. It's a really, it's a really, really complicated landscape to witness from your balcony.
- [31:34]
A
Also, it's worth mentioning that the destruction of that infrastructure seems to have made life on the ground immediately much worse too. I mean, you talk about the people who live nearby who were forced to evacuate because of all the smoke and just like the kind of like the acid rain that's created the next day. Like it's just in terms of it being hard to stay in Tehran if that's what you decide to do. It seems like going after some of that civilian infrastructure can have these horrible, horrible effects on the people who just live near it.
- [32:10]
B
Yeah, I mean the acid rain, those are carcinogens for life that people are breathing in. That's affecting a lot of environmental factors in the city. I'd say a lot of the targets, airstrike targets, are on facilities that people are trying to access right now, like the Revolutionary Court prisons, police stations that they're afraid to go to. Now if they're looking for prisoners, loved ones that were disappeared in the mass killings, they can't, they can't do any of that follow up work anymore. At one point, Hadi is, he's looking for a friend who's gone missing and they approach this, they approach these police officers on the street who basically laugh them away. They're not even sitting in a real police car. They're sitting in a car like a Peugeot that one of them owns, because they are, they don't trust sitting in their own car. They think that it's going to be a target. And they start laughing when Hadi goes to them and asks if they can file a missing person report and say, are you kidding me? None of this exists anymore in terms
- [33:27]
A
of this, like, broader question of, you know, Iranian leadership and who should lead Iran. Like you mentioned earlier that quite a few of them are supporters of Reza Pahlavi, the former crown Prince of Iran. And I know that he actually called on his supporters to go out and protest in observance of the Persian New Year or Nowruz, which was on March 20. But do you have a sense of how Hadi feels about him and whether there's, you know, kind of desire within the country for Pahlavi to come back or if they just really want to be able to kind of choose themselves
- [34:02]
B
via a democracy among the Pahlavi supporters? Absolutely. And again, I think a lot of the Pahlavi supporters are young. They were born after the 1979 revolution. They see the return of the monarchy, as, you know, in some ways a symbolic return of a way of life and a way of shaking off a lot of the repression that has ruled their lives. I would say that Hadi is they don't represent everyone at all. That Hadi is, comes from a different dissident community that is a bit more skeptical of Pahlavi. Someone who's lived outside of the country for a very long time, has not been on the inside, does not, has not actually experienced the level of repression that he and his, he and his friends and his relatives have been experiencing. They do want a total overthrow of the government and don't want to lose that hope either. It is why he has remained in Tehran. He wants to believe and he wants to be there to witness this moment, this fall of the regime. So we're talking with him of more other leaders being empowered in the opposition that would lead to some sort of democratic government. And again, he can only choose to be hopeful, as unrealistic as that might sound to some experts right now. I would say people on the ground who have lived through this much death and repression over the course of their lives can only choose to be hopeful in such a moment of reckoning for the regime.
- [35:55]
A
I mean, what does that hope look like at this point? Or I guess, what are you hearing from Hadi and from the people that he's speaking to about what they think is likely going to happen next. I guess I'm just wondering what would have to happen. There's this quote from Hadi where, you know, you're asking him about the idea that Trump has framed this whole thing as a liberation campaign and is encouraging Iranians to rise up and take back their country, which just seems impossible right now, given the circumstances that you just described. And then Hadi responds, saying, my personal interpretation and the interpretation shared by many of my friends is that when Trump says people should take back their country, he means a moment when the regime's military and paramilitary structures have collapsed, when those forces have been defeated and their power has disintegrated, only then could people step in and take control. For many of us, that idea is appealing. And I guess I'm just wondering if he gave you a sense of what he thinks would have to happen for those structures to collapse, like if it's a certain amount of bombing and strikes, or if it involves troops on the ground in Tehran who can actually kind of come up against the security forces who are all over the streets. How do you get to that point? Or how do they think that one gets to that point?
- [37:14]
B
I think there's a lot of pessimism about where this is all leading, if it's actually going to be good for the civilians on the ground at all. There is a determined hopefulness about how these strikes have affected this centralized command at the top level of government, and that if people were to take to the streets again, they would have a better chance at toppling the regime. I think that is, like, best case scenario for someone like Hadi, who is very practical, you know, has observed this want and this act on wanting revenge for the massacres and that being enacted by Khamenei's death, that people, you know, are really celebrating this a lot, that it's all over people's faces still in Tehran. They're entering the streets, they look happy, actually hopeful when they see each other, they have something hopeful to talk about. When it comes to really thinking about after Nowruz, after this New year symbolic moment that they're all living through, what would help them feel like they're still on track? It would be mass protests again, without. Without mass killings. I, you know, find that hard to believe. After the. After the trauma of January, after people who are still. It's not just traumatized. They've been so disenfranchised in the. In the weeks after these mass killings and so many people being imprisoned that they feel really shackled. The idea that they would come out in the same way that they did in January. It seems like a bit far fetched to me. But at the same time, I can understand again why people are clinging to this vision because it would mean that the change is coming from within and it just needed this big foreign intervention in order to jumpstart.
- [39:38]
A
So that's the hope. And then what would you say is like one of the biggest fears on the ground? And I ask that thinking about, you know, there was reporting this morning that the Saudi crown prince, mbs, has been pushing Trump to continue with the war. And it seems like, at least in terms of the kind of Gulf nations around Iran that have been getting hit by these retaliatory strikes, that there's a real concern that the US Is actually going to get sick of this war, you know, get sick of the economic turmoil, pull out, and then you have this regime that is emboldened and maybe even stricter than it was before. And I wonder whether there's that same concern on the ground in Iran that like the US Pulls out and then you're stuck with, you know, a regime that feels like it was sort of able to get away with something.
- [40:33]
B
Absolutely. I'm so like, these visions of mass demonstrations are coming out of a deep seated fear that is historic. Like I just these, this is a civilization, this is a population of people who know that when their government is on its back foot and feeling insecure, especially at home, it responds with repression, crackdown. It's already done this brutally. It is a killing machine. It knows the art and science of this very, very well. And they know that that's what's coming. If they are left high and dry, if Trump gets bored of this war, decides strategically, you know, he's done enough to save face at home and it's time to get out that the civilians are going to pay a huge price for that. And so in order to keep their themselves afloat in this moment, I really think that they are trying their best to share information, figure out if there's going to be a moment, if they can extend this period of hopefulness after the symbolism of Khomeini being killed, and find even small pieces of resistance that help remind each other that they're still there. I was talking to someone a couple days ago who told me about these. They're a version of telegram that can only be used inside of the country, but they're sort of these ad hoc channels that have sprung up in different cities where people find clever ways to embed news from outside of the country, inside Iran just as a way of saying, hey, we're still here. We're still trying to counter the messaging, counter the narrative that is being served to us inside the country and we're still organizing to do that. A lot of these channels get found quickly and are dismantled by the regime, but the fact that they're even popping up is an indication of people trying to communicate and organize.
- [42:49]
A
Thank you so much for being here, Cora.
- [42:50]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [42:54]
A
Cora Engelbrecht is a reporter based in London and New York. You can find her latest piece, what the War has Done to iranians@newyorker.com this has been the political scene from the New Yorker. I'm Tyler Foggit. This episode is produced by John Lame with mixing by Mike Kutchman and engineering by Pran Bandy. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Our theme music is by Alex Alison Layton Brown. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next Wednesday.