A plume of smoke rises above the rooftops after a military strike in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday.Vahid Salemi/AP
US and Israeli military strikes against Iran that killed several of the country’s top officials, including longtime supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have ushered in a new and unpredictable era in the Middle East. Within hours, Iran retaliated, striking US allies across the Persian Gulf, including US embassies and a military operations center in Kuwait. At least six US service members had been killed. In Iran, days of military strikes have reportedly killed hundreds of people, including dozens of girls at an elementary school.
Davar Ardalan knows Iran inside and out. She lived in the country before the Islamic Revolution, when it was ruled by the shah, and afterward, when it was run by the country’s ayatollahs. For more than two decades, she was a journalist at NPR, where she produced major stories about the country. She’s also the author of My Name Is Iran: A Memoir, which highlights three generations of women living in both Iran and the US during times of revolution.
“Whether you’re a loyalist to the regime or you want reform, you don’t know what the country is demanding of you right now,” Ardalan tells More To The Story’s Al Letson. “So there’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear, and many people are scared.”
On this week’s episode, Ardalan examines how Iranians inside the country are reacting to the ever-widening conflict, the long history of outside intervention in the region, and who might lead the country moving forward.
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