LOS ANGELES — Just hours after signaling a willingness to escalate military action against Iran, Donald Trump appeared to pull back.
Faced with his own deadline to either double down or stand down, Trump announced a proposed two-week ceasefire late Tuesday, conditioned on Iran’s “complete, immediate, and safe opening” of the Strait of Hormuz. In a social media post, he claimed the United States had “already met and exceeded all Military objectives” and was moving toward what he described as a “definitive Agreement concerning long-term peace with Iran, and peace in the Middle East.”
The shift in tone comes after earlier warnings of potential strikes on Iranian infrastructure — including power plants and bridges — rhetoric that had raised fears of imminent escalation.
But for many with lived experience of war and displacement, the reality on the ground is far more human — and far more urgent.
I’ve spent the last 25 years as a journalist. Before that, I lived through a revolution and a war. And what I’m seeing unfold now feels familiar.
If an attack is coming — and all signs suggest it may — then millions of ordinary Iranians are likely doing what we once did: gathering what they can carry, piling into cars, and trying to get as far away as possible from anything that could become a target. Military installations. Government buildings. Bridges. Power plants.
This is how civilians survive war. Not through politics or ideology, but through instinct.
Recent reporting from international outlets, including BBC Persian and regional analysts, indicates diplomacy between Iran and Western powers has deteriorated sharply. The strategic Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil route, remains under Iranian control, raising fears of broader economic and military fallout if conflict escalates.
Iranian state-linked messaging has reportedly encouraged civilians to gather near infrastructure sites — including bridges and power plants — in what appears to be an attempt to deter potential strikes. Videos circulating online show groups forming human chains around key locations.
Whether those calls are followed widely is unclear. What is clear is this: if strikes happen, it will not be governments that absorb the consequences first. It will be people.
And yet, even as the risk of war grows, so does something else — confusion.
Information coming out of Iran remains limited and tightly controlled. What does emerge is often delayed, filtered or contradicted by competing narratives. Between state propaganda, foreign media framing and the rapid spread of misinformation online, it has become nearly impossible to fully understand what is happening in real time.
This is not new. It is the reality of modern conflict.
But what is often missing from the conversation is nuance.
Iran is not a monolith. Its population of roughly 90 million people is made up of diverse ethnic and religious communities — including Persians, Armenians, Kurds, Baluchis and others — all living under a government that has held power for more than four decades.
To reduce that complexity into a binary choice — destroy or don’t destroy — is not only inaccurate. It is dangerous.
There is also a deeper, more uncomfortable truth that many in the Iranian diaspora are grappling with right now: multiple realities can exist at once.
There is a long-standing desire among many Iranians to see the current regime come to an end, shaped by decades of repression, violence and control. At the same time, there is fear — real and immediate — about what war would mean for the people inside the country.
Those truths are not mutually exclusive.
They coexist in tension, in conversation and, often, in conflict within families and communities.
And while governments posture and threaten, it is worth asking a more difficult question: what does accountability look like when power — on all sides — is exercised without regard for civilian life?
Because when rhetoric escalates to the point where the destruction of infrastructure is openly discussed, the consequences are not abstract. They are measured in lives disrupted, families displaced and futures erased.
The U.S. has evacuated personnel from embassies in parts of the region. Iranian officials have warned of retaliatory actions that could disrupt global energy supplies for years.
The stakes are clear.
But what is less clear — and often overlooked — is who gets to decide what happens next.
For those watching from afar, especially from the safety of the United States, there is a temptation to reduce this moment into opinion, into certainty, into declarations about what should or shouldn’t happen.
But the reality is: we are not the ones who will live with the consequences.
The people inside Iran will.
And they deserve more than narratives shaped by propaganda — from any side.
They deserve to be seen in their full humanity.
They deserve to be heard.
And at the very least, they deserve a conversation that acknowledges the complexity of their reality — not one that erases it.
Because this is not a simple story.
It never has been.
