At first glance, a stroll through the Iranian capital, Tehran, would not give the impression that a fierce war had ravaged the country, until one sees some of its remnants in buildings bombed by American and Israeli warplanes starting on February 28, 2016.
The markets teem with shoppers, the streets are crowded with cars and motorcycles, and even showrooms selling imported European musical instruments, such as pianos and guitars, have their regular customers and enthusiasts.
Newspaper and magazine kiosks are almost always bustling with buyers and readers lining the streets (...) But every Iranian carries memories of that war that are hard to shake.
While it is true that the airstrikes have stopped and the fragile ceasefire has largely held thanks to the US-Iranian memorandum of understanding, despite occasional violations in the Strait of Hormuz, it is also true that the majority still feel that war could erupt again. This conclusion is justified in the eyes of many we met during a tour among the people of Tehran, the capital, each with their own reasons for viewing the situation that way.
There is no trust in negotiations.
Hamid (61 years old), a leading figure in the hardline faction and a PhD holder in international relations, “This war should never have stopped. It could have continued, with the Revolutionary Guard’s missile force and the Iranian army prepared to launch successive and devastating strikes against Israel with hundreds of advanced missiles, until the new equation became decisive in the war on all fronts.”
He criticizes President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Supreme National Security Council’s approval of the memorandum of understanding signed with the United States, describing it as a “warrior’s rest.” He then asks rhetorically, “Can we trust the Great Satan?”
He goes on to say that war will erupt again after the midterm elections in the United States if the Republican Party manages to retain its majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives next November.
But he clarifies that “war will not break out if the Democratic Party manages to secure a majority and continues its efforts to impeach President Donald Trump, or if Iran continues to respond to any American violations of the agreement, provided that the response is many times greater than those violations, so that Trump and the Pentagon are convinced that the price of resuming the war would be too high.”
This is the American perspective, but could Iran be the one to initiate a war? This conservative leader answers: “Absolutely, yes.” But why? He explains: “Because of the continuation of the Israeli war on Lebanon and the Israeli failure to withdraw, as required by Lebanese sovereignty as stipulated in the first clause of the American-Iranian memorandum of understanding… This is a red line that cannot be crossed or ignored. Supporting the Lebanese resistance and its people to stop the war and achieve an Israeli withdrawal has become a matter of honor for us.”
I tried to find an opposing view from outside the ruling system, so I met an elderly man (around 70 years old) with a head full of gray hair in an office providing legal, administrative, and office services. He agreed to speak without mentioning his name, especially when the owner of the office (35 years old) asked him – very politely – not to delve too much into politics in these sensitive circumstances, “because no voice is louder now than the voice of war,” as he said.
The man then simply said, “Yes, we had good relations with Lebanon during the previous monarchy; it was known then as the Switzerland of the East.” He added, “I support continuing and strengthening this relationship with Lebanon now, provided it isn’t limited to Hezbollah.”
At this point, a companion beside him interjected, bringing up something unrelated to politics. I understood he wanted to change the subject when he said, “I haven’t visited Lebanon yet, but when we were young in elementary school, we read a lot about the beauty of the Bekaa Valley, and I hope to visit it as a tourist.”
A woman (around 48 years old) sitting on a chair with others, waiting her turn to complete some administrative paperwork, overheard this conversation and commented, “I’ll look for a travel agency to organize an exploratory trip to Lebanon. We love its people, and it’s one of the few countries we can travel to without a visa, just as Lebanese people can visit Iran without one.”
On the way back to the hotel, I learned from the driver in a casual chat that one of his cousins had been killed in an Israeli-American raid on Tehran. He then went on to talk at length about the ferocity and brutality of the air raids, especially after the shock of the assassination of the former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and then the bombing of the girls' primary school in southern Iran, as the war began on Saturday, February 28, 2026.
Here I asked him how he received the news of Hezbollah's involvement in the war alongside Iran on March 2, 2026. He said: "When the resistance in Lebanon joined to support us, our morale rose, and we felt psychologically that we were not alone. Also, the outbreak of fighting on the Lebanese front – militarily – contributed to keeping Israeli defenses occupied, so Iranian missiles became more capable of reaching their targets inside Israel."
He concludes, saying, “We owe it to the resistance and the people of Lebanon. We should have entered the war years ago alongside them, but we knew that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was against Iran’s involvement at the time. (…) Now, after America and Israel imposed the war on us, and the resistance supported us, we must repay that debt and not accept a ceasefire unless the war also stops in Lebanon.” That evening, I accepted an invitation to dinner at the
home
of an Iranian friend who is a doctor. He has been married for a long time to a Lebanese woman, and they have two daughters who graduated from university years ago. The eldest daughter is married to a Lebanese man and lives with him in Beirut, while the younger daughter works as a media activist and lives with her parents in Tehran.
Upon hearing the news from Lebanon, signs of worry appear on the faces of the members of the Iranian-Lebanese family. When I asked my doctor friend about the reason, he told me that his daughter’s apartment in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where she is married to his Lebanese brother-in-law, “was targeted by Israeli airstrikes. Half of it was destroyed, while the other half remained somewhat habitable, where she still lives with her husband and their child.”
During that evening, I learned that the youngest daughter participates daily in the popular nighttime gatherings in support of the Islamic Republic regime and in solidarity with Lebanon. She raises the flags of the two countries with the other participants and chants various slogans, including: “Abandoning Lebanon is a betrayal of Islam (...) and we swear by the Lord of Glory that we will not leave Lebanon alone.”
These slogans are repeated every evening to the ears of the Iranian government and its negotiating team with the Americans through the Pakistani and Qatari mediators. As long as Israeli attacks continue and the Israeli occupation persists on the land, regions, and villages of southern Lebanon, internal pressure in Iran will escalate against President Pezeshkian, the head of the negotiating team Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and chief negotiator Abbas Araqchi.
This pressure comes on top of what Supreme Leader Mojtaba Ali Khamenei had declared: that, "in accordance with the principles," he had a different opinion regarding the negotiations, but he agreed to the US-Iranian memorandum of understanding at the request of Pezeshkian and the Supreme National Security Council, after they pledged to him to defend the interests of Iran and the resistance front (i.e., its allies, especially Hezbollah).
Many expect that if the negotiators and mediators fail to implement the terms of the memorandum of understanding, particularly the first clause concerning a ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon, then failure is inevitable, and the situation may revert to the sounds of weapons and missiles.
