To understand how the United States came to be at war with Iran, members of the Villanova community gathered for a roundtable discussion on Tuesday, April 21. The discussion was moderated by Villanova professor of Humanities Dr. Parisa Zahiremami and featured panelists Dr. Niki Akhavan, Professor of Global Studies at the Catholic University of America, and Dr. Mana Kia, Professor of Persianate History at Columbia University.
The speakers provided valuable insight and perspectives, as native Iranians themselves, into how the January 2026 protests evolved into a massive military campaign known as “Operation Epic Fury” carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran.
Kia was in Iran during the protests. She was visiting family while also conducting academic research. Kia kept up with Western media, while also watching Iranian international television at her father’s house in Tehran. She observed the differences between their portrayal of events that she witnessed herself.
Kia characterized the protests as fairly small, localized and nonviolent before Jan. 8 and 9, when they grew in size and level of violence. As protests grew violent, they were met with aggressive government repression, as Iranian state forces massacred thousands. Kia relayed that on Jan. 10, the streets were eerily quiet as people seemed “shell-shocked by the level of violence on Jan. 8 and 9,” and protests consequently died down.
Akhavan discussed social media posts made by former United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that alluded to pending American interference in Iran. Akhavan also mentioned the son of a former Iranian monarch expressing his support for the Iranian people to continue fighting against the regime. Compounded by perceived American support, this gave the Iranian people “the sense that someone had their back and they could overthrow the regime if they protested.”
Kia highlighted that increased sanctions on Iran under the Trump administration imposed greater economic pain on the Iranian population. Widespread protests responded to both crippling sanctions and government corruption, as it is “impossible to treat the issue of government corruption without taking sanctions into account as well.”
Zahiremami asked panelists about the relationship between the war, the protests and the media’s role in both issues.
“The Iranian protests gave legitimacy to the recent war,” Akhavan said.
Iranian state media broadcast graphic war images and foreign-funded media outlets cited varying death tolls, upwards of 50,000. Akhavan explained that such rhetoric was used to justify the war. She also referenced Trump’s social media posts of Iranians celebrating in the streets following the US strikes, “using this to create legitimacy for his plans.”
Despite heavy censorship in Iran, Kia said there is a “public intellectual culture where they debate very carefully” and that Iranians are “fearless in discussing important matters.” Kia also explained how the media twisted the protests to give the impression that the Iranian people would remove the government by any means necessary, no matter the consequences. Zahiremami also discussed the difficulty, as a fellow Iranian, of Iranians calling for the bombing of their own country.
“It’s one thing to want regime change for a better country, but it is another thing to say we want this at any cost,” Zahiremami said.
Zahiremami asked the final question, “Who is really winning this war?”
Kia stated that information issues arise when news is coming primarily from world leaders’ announcements on social media, as “this isn’t really news and is not correlated to what’s happening on the ground.” Kia is most concerned about the devastation to Iranian civilian infrastructure and worries about how the country will recover.
“Nobody wins on a moral level,” Akhavan said.
Although the Iranian state has absorbed significant pain to its top government and military leaders, there is worry about the impact on civilians, as research institutes, universities and hospitals have all been bombed. Akhavan stated that an end to the war does not appear in sight, amid a fragile cease-fire and uncertainty about a diplomatic solution.
Zahiremami concluded by grappling with the difficulty of defining a “win” in this war, as the destruction of Iranian historical sites, detrimental economic damages, massive amounts of civilian displacement and disastrous environmental impacts from bombings have amounted to inconceivable damages to every part of Iranian society.
This discussion illuminated the many factors that contributed to the development of war in Iran, along with its dire implications for the Iranian people and the uncertainty of what the future holds.
