Growing number of Iranians believe war seeks to destroy their nation, not just regime, says Vali Nasr

Welcome to On the Middle East, where we break down the big and interesting stories in the region. My name is Amran Zaman. My guest today is Vali Nasr, a preeminent expert on Iran who is the author of several widely acclaimed books on his native country. Vali is also a professor of international relations and Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. Vali Nasr will be talking about the destruction of cultural heritage in the US-Israeli war against his country. The targeting of cherished national treasures such as the Pasteur Institute and the Golestan Palace in Tehran have united Iranians across the ideological spectrum in opposition to what many see now as a war that is no longer against the regime but on their very identity as a nation.

Welcome to our program, Vali Nasr.

Thank you for having me. Good to be with you.

We are going to talk about Iran's cultural heritage, which is now under heavy attack. But before we do so, I'd just like to kick off by asking you, Vali, what did you make of President Trump's address to the nation last night?

I thought it was an address that was particularly directed at the American people. I mean, nothing in it was new. We had seen all of this spelled out in various postings on social media in the past month. But it was very clear that he was trying to lay out the case for the war, why we're doing it, what's the objective, and why it's going well, which is something he should have done at the beginning. And the reason he's doing it— Well, exactly. In a sense, I think all suggests that he's sensing that the American people are not supporting the war and that there is pressure domestically on him. And so I think it was more a sort of evidence of weakness, political weakness at home, than it was evidence of strength on the battlefield.

And of course also leaves the question wide open of how long this war is going to last, because we've been getting so much mixed signaling from him, and he left that question wide open.

Well, I think because it's not entirely in his hands, unless he just decides to abandon it and leave. But he cannot do that without some kind of an agreement with Iran because the fate of energy flows out of the Strait of Hormuz, the economies of the Gulf countries would not be addressed if he just packed up and left. And also, this is not just a war between Iran and the United States. There's Israel there too, which he didn't talk about at all. And whether Israel would follow through with a ceasefire or not, we don't know. And on the other hand, you know, the Iranians actually this time have a vote because they control a very powerful strategic tool here, which is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the ability to hit energy and other infrastructure in the Gulf. And so the dilemma Trump has is unless he wants to escalate into a ground invasion or somehow decides that he's just going to leave the war and let Iran, Israel, and everybody else sort it out on their own, He has to arrive at a negotiated settlement with the Iranians. He's threatening them that you better sign a deal or else. But that's not going to work. I mean, ultimately, unless the United States gets serious with a negotiation with Iran, it will be very difficult for him to end this war on the terms and on the timeline of his choosing.

And in the meantime, of course, hundreds of people are losing their lives. More than 1,500 Iranians have died so So far, a horrific number of them, 15% according to one monitor, are children who have lost their lives. And of course, at the same time, our cultural heritage is under attack. Vali Nasr, today on X, you aired your horror at what had been targeted today, the Institut Pasteur in Tehran. Can you tell us a little bit about this institution, why it matters so much?

Well, I mean, I remember getting vaccinations as a child at the Institut Pasteur, that even then it was recognized in Iran in my childhood as a premier world-class institution. My grandfather was a doctor, was a pulmonologist, and he was very associated with it. And I remember visiting him at the Institut Pasteur. And, you know, it was created at the time, much like the beginnings of Kemalist Turkey, when these two countries were trying to get on the bandwagon of modernization. And in the case of Iran, it was the first time they were actually trying to create a healthcare system in the 1920s, an education system. So, Institut Pasteur was created in Iran as a marquee healthcare public health institution to begin providing fundamental healthcare to the Iranian population based on, on a French European model for healthcare. It was created at the same time, for instance, that Iran established other key institutions of modernity like the Tehran University. Over the years, and even after the Iranian Revolution, Institut Pasteur remained a marquee healthcare institution. It was the premier place in Iran where vaccines were produced and even exported from Iran. And, and so it became, over time, it not only became an important healthcare institution, but it was an icon of Iran's healthcare history. And because it was created during the early Pahlavi period, end of the Qajar period, as an institution that would guide Iran in the direction of modernity, It was also an icon of modernization and development in Iran. So its destruction is not only actually materially important in the sense that Iran lost a very important place that provided a population that doesn't have access to a lot of pharmaceuticals and vaccines because of sanctions with vital vaccination and other medical services, but also it was also an assault on a historical relic or a historical icon of Iran Iran's modernization. So it really speaks to the threat that President Trump made on his speech last night that we're going to take Iran back to the Stone Age, back to a pre-modern era. And, you know, to go after the institutions that actually began modernity in Iran— universities, healthcare institutions— is very devastating, and it really grates against every Iranian's sense of loyalty to their country, aside from where they stand on the Islamic Republic, particularly for Iranians who are inside Iran and have been interacting with Ansar-e Tupasto on an ongoing basis. There's no way to look at what happened other than essentially an assault on the foundations of the modern state in Iran.

Well, the culture minister in an interview with Al Jazeera basically said that it was Iran's identity, very identity that's under attack. And of course, it almost sounds counterintuitive to talk about taking Iran back to the Stone Age when you sort of describe Iran as being in the Stone Age under this current regime. So to do away with the very institutions that actually stand for modernity and in some respects secularism obviously seems like a huge paradox. And of course, the university that you mentioned, the University of Tehran, was also attacked, and also some very, very sort of iconic structures like the Golestan Palace, correct?

And also important heritage sites going back to the Safavid period in Isfahan. Were damaged in these attacks. You know, the Islamic Republic has been a theocracy, has been authoritarian regime. The Iranians, by and large, have been at odds with it. They rose in rebellion in January demanding that it be toppled. All of that is true. But Iranian society itself is very modern. And something like Institut Pasteur, or even the way it functions under the Islamic Republic, is not something that belongs to the Islamic Republic. It really belongs to the Iranian people. And the Iranians themselves, even though they are under a regime that they don't like, they don't see themselves as having been imprisoned in the Stone Age. Their government may look completely woolly-brained and out of touch, but the lives that they live, what they build, what they do, to them is very, very modern. In a way, Iranian society is incredibly modern. President Trump also bombed today a new bridge in Iran that is the tallest suspended bridge in the Middle East. Now, this was only actually opened in January in order to facilitate ease of traffic on Tehran with people who travel to northern Iran. So this is not a society or a country that when you go in, look at it from the inside, that sees itself as being unmodern. And so when you destroy its bridges, when you destroy its universities, when you destroy its healthcare institutions, what you're signaling to the Iranian people is not that we want to take you to the Stone Age. I think that's an insulting terminology. But what you're really telling them is that we want to make you a failed state. We want you to become like Syria or Libya. That's what you're telling them. So, this is not a war on the regime anymore. This is a war on the country, and this is a war on a state. And the Iranian state predates the Islamic Republic. It was actually, its modern state was erected in the 1920s by the Pahlavi dynasty modeled on the Kemalist experiment in Turkey. And to say we're gonna go after that, the pillars of that state essentially means that you wanna turn Iran into a failed state.

For Iranians, regardless of their ethnicity, there is so much pride that's taken, isn't there, in its culture, its poetry, in beauty, the attention to detail in everything that we see in Iran. And I mean, it must feel like rape at some level to have this kind of destruction inflicted on them. And so my question to you, Vali, is how is this playing out in the diaspora and among Iranians who were so in favor initially of this war? When they see their country being destroyed, what's going to be left if this regime is, say, overthrown?

Well, I mean, in my heart, I always believe that the very vocal voices that we see in the diaspora supporting the Shah's son, wrapping themselves in Israeli flag, thanking Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu for bombing Iran are not a majority. They're a very vocal minority. And actually, new polls show that 66% of Iranian Americans are opposed to the war. And that's, the number has risen by 16%, which means that even before the war, some 50% of them were opposed to waging war on the country. I think, you know, the Iranian community inside and outside has been deeply divided and polarized under the trauma of maximum pressure sanctions, the war of June of 2025, and also the massive uprising and a very bloody crackdown that happened in January. But I think it's increasingly difficult for Iranians to think of this war in political terms. As some act of liberation from the yoke of the Islamic Republic. That there is still a minority who thinks that somehow their hatred of the Islamic Republic justifies supporting the war, or somehow it is okay to destroy Iran just to get rid of the Islamic Republic. But larger and larger number of Iranians are not comfortable with that notion. That you ought to destroy a country that at least in its current territorial boundaries, you know, goes back 200-some years to the Qajar period or to the Safavid period, to the 1500s, that it's okay to destroy it, to destroy the state in Iran, to destroy so much that the country stands for just to get rid of a government that has been there for 47 years. And I think these notions are now dividing the Iranians more and more. And it's going to be very painful because it doesn't look like the Islamic Republic is actually going to be falling. I mean, we were seeing many things happen to Iran, but we don't see evidence of the Islamic Republic falling. And the decapitation campaign that Israel has carried out has actually made, recreated the Islamic Republic in its worst form. The most hawkish voices, the most extreme voices that perhaps were being kept at bay before have now risen to the top. So the new Khamenei is worse than the previous Khamenei. The people that he's bringing to the fore are worse than the people that were brought to the fore before. And so in a way, the war has not made the Islamic Republic softer or ready to collapse. But at the same time, it's also destroyed so much of Iranians' lives. A country that's been under maximum pressure sanctions now has suffered hundreds of billions of dollars of damage to its infrastructure, roads, to the integrity of its healthcare and educational institutions. And so the Iranians will have to pick up the pieces of what is left. In other words, the war hasn't brought them anything positive. And has taken away so much else from them. And it's not clear that, you know, how Iranians inside and outside are going to process the catastrophe that this war has brought upon them.

But there's so many different layers to which you can speak to the whole Shia dimension of this. And the fact that at this present time, I would imagine that this is no longer about strategic alliances and sort of advancing agendas, but really goes to the heart of every Shia who feels that that's their identity, that that identity too is now under attack.

Yes, and I think that's actually stronger among Shia communities like in Lebanon, Iraq, or countries like Pakistan, etc., which relied so much on Iran's regional power. In order to sustain themselves and play a larger role in their own communities than would have been otherwise the case. But the Shiism part is actually playing a very interesting dimension. One is that the way in which Khamenei Sr. died and the way in which his successor lost most of his family has played very much into the Shia myths of the martyrdom of the third Shia Imam Hussein. So the myth of Ashura and the Shia myth of suffering is very much in the vocabulary of the regime now as it talks to its core base of supporters, which are very dedicated to this notion. But very interestingly, it is also weaving it very powerfully with Iranian nationalism to attract a larger segment of Iranians around to rally to the flag. So, you know, it speaks of its soldiers being the descendants of Cyrus the Great and fighting in the spirit of Imam Hussein. So, you know, basically trying to create a way of thinking about Iran, which is both Shia and it is Iranian. Around the region, interestingly, particularly in the larger countries in the region, in India, Pakistan, which, you know, had had this sectarian history. What we are seeing is very interestingly the Sunnis, the extremist Sunnis, setting aside sectarianism in favor of unity. Like some major sectarian religious leaders on the Sunni side in Pakistan and India have come out performed prayers for somebody who's dead, the prayers of the dead for Ayatollah Khamenei, and saying that this isn't the time for division, this is a time to stand with Iran.

This is fascinating.

Fascinating. I mean, yes, in countries like Lebanon and Syria, where this has been a much more tense issue between Shias and Sunnis, we may not see this. But in a way, Iran has very cleverly put itself in a space of resistance when it comes to the larger Muslim world, to which a lot more Muslims identify with.

May I just interrupt there, Vali, to relay a conversation that I had with some lawmakers from Turkey, from an Islamist party that's based in the Kurdish area. And what he said was very interesting. He said that, you know, the sectarian differences are completely cast aside as we see Muslims resisting against Israel and America. And we take immense pride in this. And he said, when I said to him, you know, of course, one always tends to side with the underdog. He said, well, no, actually, one tends to side with the successful. Underdog.

That's very interesting.

Yeah, very interesting. I mean, and Erdoğan said there's no Shia Islam, there's no Sunni Islam, there's one Islam recently in a speech to the parliament.

Well, absolutely. And also some of this actually, Amberin, goes back to the way Iran and Hezbollah participated in the Gaza War, in the sense that even the way they framed their alliance as an axis of resistance, not a Shia or a Sunni or a particular a secular Islamic alliance, but there's an axis of resistance and resistance against Israel and America. And now, so that war is now in Iran and the same voices in the Arab world which supported the Palestinian cause during that war are now also supporting Iran. And even, yes, for Saudis, for instance, they might look at this very differently than Turkey does. But I think Turkey sees what's happening in Iran through its own strategic perspective, that there is no win for Turkey if Iran was defeated. Aside from creating a Kurdish issue, refugee issue, they also see themselves as target of the same forces that are right now trying to destroy Iran. The rhetoric of Israel that Turkey is the next Iran, Or after we're done with the Shia axis, we'll have to deal with the Sunni axis. You know, in a way, and I believe it's you who pointed out in your writings and interviews that has caused the rally to the flag in Turkey. So that rises above that. This is a problem of the Shias and we're Sunnis and somehow we're different, that this is actually a problem of the region confronting a particular military alliance that came out of the Gaza War. With an Israel that is overconfident in its military capabilities and wants to reorganize the region, backed by the United States. They both are willing to engage in a massive war in the region to get their way. And so everybody in the region, there's a lot of people in the region who look at what's happening through that prism rather than the sectarian prism. That may change once the war is over. But right now, I think the master narrative is resistance rather than sectarianism.

And of course, there are many secular, even atheist, sort of far-left revolutionaries who would congregate around the idea of resistance to imperialism. It's quite fascinating, the whole sort of spectrum of ideologies that now seem to be aligning with Iran at some level. Hopefully the war will end soon, Vali. It's absolutely horrific. And I know you're extremely busy and everybody wants a piece of you. Thank you so much for joining us. And to the audience, I would say please read Vali's books. They're really excellent. And hope to have you again with us soon, Vali.

Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me. It was great having this conversation with you.

And this brings us to the end of what I thought was a super interesting conversation. For more on the war on Iran and other stories in the region, go to our website, www.al-monitor.com. Thank you and goodbye.