A war of egos: The Iran-Israel war and what's next

As Trump and Khamenei battle it out on social media over who “won” this twelve-day war, the reality for ordinary Iranians is overlooked.

As an Iranian American, I personally see no victory for the more than one thousand Iranians who lost their lives — nor for the thousands more left with life-altering injuries.

Some are framing the unprovoked war as a win for Iran, others, somehow, for Israel. But regardless of who claims victory, I’m left asking: What was this all for?

A symbolic show of force, a competition of egos? A distraction from the genocide in Gaza and the ‘Greater Israel’ territorial ambitions? From Trump’s collapsing approval ratings and the failures of DOGE?

Amidst it all, Iranians were framed as merely collateral damage.

And this violence wasn’t unfolding in isolation. During those same twelve days, a similar number of Palestinians were killed in Gaza as part of the ongoing, US-backed Israeli genocide, another front of impunity and devastation funded by the same foreign power.

In less than two weeks, US-backed bombings plunged Iranian cities into chaos. Ten million were ordered to evacuate from Tehran, but many stayed — not out of choice, but because they had nowhere else to go. Israel, backed by the US, authorised 300 strikes on the capital, unleashing mass destruction and leaving thousands in mourning.

For many Iranians, especially younger generations who had never lived through the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, these twelve days were the most terrifying of their lives.

In the final 24 hours alone, Tehran faced the heaviest bombardment of the entire war. With the internet cut off, no access to public shelters, and no official guidance, people were left to navigate the chaos on their own, supporting one another as best they could, with no certainty about what might come next.

As many have pointed out, this war was never truly about nuclear weapons or supporting Iranian women. It was, in part, a US hegemonic spectacle — where a manufactured ‘peace’ and a Nobel Peace Prize might suffice.

In reality, it was a war on the Iranian people, with Israel targeting residential areas and damaging medical centres. Israel even went so far as to bomb part of Evin Prison, killing at least 79 people, including political prisoners who had spent their lives resisting the very government these strikes were allegedly meant to undermine.

Despite Trump’s claims, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that the US bombing campaign has only pushed back Iran by months. In doing so, it has likely strengthened Iran’s motivation to continue its nuclear program and ultimately acquire a nuclear weapon, in the name of necessary deterrence.

And while regime change was the unstated goal of this war, foreign intervention is not a path to liberation. When such efforts fail, as they have so far, they provide governments with cover to tighten their authoritarian grip.

In many ways, the Iranian government is now stronger than it was before the war — not necessarily because public opinion has shifted, but because national unity and solidarity have grown stronger. As Iranian scholar Hamid Dabashi put it, “Iranians aren’t siding with their government; they are taking possession of their homeland.”

However, both during the war and since the ceasefire, Iranian authorities have intensified domestic repression: mass arrests, executions of Kurdish Iranians accused of espionage, movement restrictions on Afghans, and the scapegoating of over 30,000 Afghan refugees who have reportedly been deported.

Far from delivering liberation, the war has deepened people’s suffering.

Before anyone can credibly speak of freedom for Iranians, the first and most urgent step is clear: the US must uphold its end of the ceasefire — and ensure Israel does the same.

The past few weeks have painfully demonstrated that war is the opposite of supporting Iranians, and that outside militarisation doesn’t bring liberation but only fuels internal repression. It is beyond time for a complete re-evaluation of the US sanctions regime toward Iran.

Iran is the second most sanctioned country in the world. While sanctions are purportedly meant to hold governments accountable, in practice, especially against Iran, they have become a blunt and often abused instrument that harms the most vulnerable far more than it pressures the government.

How can one claim sanctions have the power to force compliance when the US’s closest ally launches an unprovoked attack before the sixth round of US-Iran nuclear talks?

This past weekend, Trump scrapped his own sanctions relief plan out of spite. Now, in the aftermath of war, sanctions continue to block even basic humanitarian relief, just as they have for decades.

While family remittances are technically legal, banks rarely process them, making it nearly impossible for Iranian Americans to send money home. Even during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, calls to ease these restrictions went unanswered. Once again, ordinary people pay the price for US hegemonic policies.

We are no longer in the world of the 2015 nuclear deal. This is a new, unstable regional order, where good-faith negotiations are not enough, but where war is absolutely not the answer.

This requires sincere actions from the US, including: 1) ensuring their end of the ceasefire; 2) creating pathways for economic and humanitarian access; 3) re-examining sanctions policy, and 4) most importantly, ending Israeli impunity.

Domestic policy must be part of the conversation, too. In the same week that bombs fell on Tehran, ICE detained 130 more Iranians, bringing the total in US detention centres to 670. If there is genuine concern for the Iranian people, why are they being targeted at home with detentions and travel bans while facing violence abroad?

With over a thousand Iranians killed in just twelve days, the only path forward is accountability.

If the past two years have shown us anything, it’s that Israeli impunity has become normalised on the world stage. We’ve been conditioned to accept unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations as routine, treating airstrikes and the killing of civilians, followed by a return to 'business as usual', as somehow acceptable.

This cannot remain the status quo.

Already, Israel has reportedly committed over 1,000 ceasefire violations, accelerating Gaza into the worst phase of the genocide. We must demand that it hold and use that momentum to push for permanent ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon as well.

We cannot afford more wars in the name of democracy or deterrence. What we need now is real action: maximum democratic pressure to hold back warmongers, guarded resistance against authoritarian drift, and cross-border solidarity, from US detention centres to Tehran’s streets. Ultimately, Palestine is not peripheral–it is the frontline.

Ciara Moezidis is an Iranian‑American advocate and researcher born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She recently earned a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University. In 2025, she published an adaptation of her master’s thesis in Jadaliyya, entitled “(Dis)Entangling Iran and Palestine/Israel: The Lesser‑Known Narrative of the Pro‑Palestine Iranian Diaspora in the US”

Follow Ciara on X: @cmoezidis

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.