A horribly familiar rhythm of war has returned for Iranians — with bombarded highways and a plunging currency, menacing social media posts by President Trump and fiery rhetoric by Iran’s clerical rulers.
Yet when Behnam, an unemployed musician in Tehran, calls his family or friends to check in, he never starts by talking about the war. “The first question we ask one another is: Have you eaten?”
Like all Iranians interviewed for this article, Behnam, 38, asked that his last name not be used for fear of reprisal from Iran’s government. “It has honestly reached a point where we’re only thinking about survival,” he said.
Gone are the pep talks from relatives about finding a job, he said, as unemployment continues to soar. Many Iranians have shelved plans to repair buildings or rebuild lives battered by the war. Planning for the future seems an absurd luxury when impoverished friends can afford to buy rice only by the cup and when the United States and Iran are trading strikes on military sites, ports and water desalination plants around the region.
For more than a year, Iranians have been trapped in a constant cycle of airstrikes, domestic security crackdowns and economic devastation. A short-lived cease-fire reached last month with the United States brought some respite from falling bombs, though not from the plummeting economy.
The unraveling of the agreement in recent weeks tipped the country back into war. Many Iranians have been left feeling that their lives are on hold or are no longer their own.
“I have no control over my life anymore,” Behnam said. “Our fate is in the hands of those who don’t think about ordinary people.”
This cycle of crisis has plagued Iranians since the 12-day U.S.-Israeli war that battered the country in June last year. In its wake, the government placed the country under a monthslong internet blackout, citing national security concerns. That sent the already foundering economy into a nosedive.
Then, a currency crisis in December set off antigovernment protests that grew into a nationwide movement. Those were crushed in January in a crackdown fiercer than any Iran had experienced in decades, leaving thousands dead and the country bitterly divided.
Weeks later, Mr. Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced their war against Iran, describing it as a once-in-a-generation chance to topple the country’s authoritarian rulers. American and Israeli warplanes pummeled Iran, destroying infrastructure and killing the supreme leader and thousands of civilians. But the country’s theocratic rule remained intact, emboldened by its survival.
Asal, a 20-year-old shopkeeper in a town near Tehran, was among the thousands who took part in the protests in January. Breaking into tears as she described the arrest and torture she said she and her friends experienced, Asal said she had once hoped the U.S.-Israeli intervention would help bring down the regime.
“Trump told us he wanted to save us, but that wasn’t true,” she said. “Whatever happens in the future doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
Adding to the malaise, some Iranians said, was witnessing how many times their loved ones tried to overcome economic adversity only to see their small victories crushed by the next crisis.
Farzad, a web designer in Tehran, said that, in the downturn after the 12-day war, a family friend had begun selling homemade pickles and jam over Instagram to supplement her pension, which was no longer enough. Her once-thriving business collapsed during the internet blackout, which the government imposed throughout the January crackdown and the first months of the war.
Some Iranians said in interviews that prices had become so high that they were foregoing medical care, or buying vitamins to replace fruit and vegetables in their diet because they were cheaper.
“Put aside the statistics,” Farzad said. When it comes to measuring the economic crisis, he said, “we know it with our own bodies, with our lived experience.”
Even when the bombings subsided this spring, Iranians faced fresh indignities. Their government continued to pursue its crackdown on the opposition, including a surge of executions of January protesters and confiscations of dissidents’ property. Last month, cyberattacks shut down three of Iran’s main banks, according to the authorities. Millions of Iranians suddenly lost access to the little money they had.
By the time the banking chaos had been resolved, the country was back at war.
Supporters of Iran’s government argue that the country has no choice but to keep fighting.
“Everything comes at a cost,” said Hossein, who runs an online business from the port city of Bandar Abbas, which has experienced heavy U.S. bombardment in the past week. “Standing up to the United States and preserving our independence is far more valuable than becoming another country in the region that simply says yes to whatever the U.S. wants.”
Much of the renewed fighting has been in the south of Iran. Farideh, 51, has been appalled by the U.S. bombardments that have smashed railroads and brought down bridges in her region, leaving some residents stranded for days.
In the southern province of Hormozgan, airstrikes knocked out power networks and a water desalination facility, according to Hamid Saed Panah, head of the local electricity distribution company, and Ahmad Nafisi, deputy governor of the province. The United States has not commented on those claims.
Some residents of the south said they had been left without running water and suffering hourslong electricity cuts while having to endure temperatures that frequently top 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
“It has been an extremely bitter, stressful experience, filled with hopelessness about the future,” Farideh said. She struggled to imagine what would become of her children’s education and what career prospects they would be left with. “Unfortunately, we, the people, are paying the price for the mistakes and stubbornness of governments.”
Loyalists to the Islamic republic camp out nightly on the streets of most cities, demanding that the government pursue war instead of peace and fraying the nerves of those Iranians desperate for the crisis to end.
“Things have become so bad that everyone has completely lost it,” said Mohsen, a business owner in the central city of Isfahan. “We’re trapped in hell, and there’s no saving us.”
Sanam Mahoozi and Shirin Hakim contributed reporting.
