Iranians voice anxiety, mixed views as fears of infrastructure attacks rise

His death matters because he sat at the junction of two of the system’s most sensitive functions: guarding the Guards from infiltration and directing the intelligence arm accused of crushing dissent.

In March, Washington’s Rewards for Justice program offered up to $10 million for information on Khademi and other senior IRGC figures, a sign that he was seen abroad not just as an internal operator but as a high-value intelligence target.

In symbolic terms, one of the men tasked with stopping penetration of the state was himself reached in the middle of Tehran.

A security man from the inner system

Khademi was one of the least public senior figures in Iran’s power structure. Iranian and regional reports have described him as being from the Fasa area in Fars province, while official and semi-official outlets have referred to him under different versions of his name, including Majid Khademi and Majid Hosseini, reflecting the opacity that surrounds senior intelligence officials.

Unlike many top IRGC commanders, he does not appear to have built his standing mainly through front-line war command. He rose instead through the quieter, more secretive world of protection, vetting and internal security.

From internal monitoring to the top intelligence job

Khademi was appointed head of the Defense Ministry’s intelligence protection organization in 2018. In 2022, after a major shake-up inside the IRGC following a series of security failures and reported Israeli penetrations, he was made head of the Guards’ Intelligence Protection Organization.

He was promoted again in June 2025, after the killing of his predecessor Mohammad Kazemi, to lead the IRGC Intelligence Organization itself.

That move put him in charge of a body the US Treasury later said had been “instrumental” in violently suppressing protests through mass violence, arbitrary detentions and intimidation.

That progression is part of what makes his killing significant. Khademi had spent years policing the system from within before ending up at the top of one of its most feared coercive institutions.

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Why his role was so sensitive

The IRGC’s Intelligence Protection Organization and its Intelligence Organization do different jobs, but together they form a core part of the Islamic Republic’s security state.

The first looks inward – loyalty, secrecy, infiltration and internal discipline – while the second has been linked to domestic repression and political-security cases.

Khademi mattered because he had moved through both worlds. He was not simply another general; he was a custodian of the regime’s inner files, vulnerabilities and suspicions.

That means his loss is not only personal or symbolic, but potentially institutional, at least in the short term. This is an inference from his portfolio and the structure of the IRGC, rather than a point Iranian officials have conceded.

How Khademi framed tighter control

Khademi gave a rare interview in February to the website of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and it offered a blunt window into how he saw the country.

He framed the January uprising not as a domestic revolt against the state, but as a foreign-backed plot, and presented mass preemption as routine intelligence work.

In that interview, he said the Guard had summoned 2,735 people linked to what he called anti-security networks, “counseled” 13,000 others, seized 1,173 weapons and identified 46 people allegedly tied to foreign intelligence services. He also said authorities had received nearly 500,000 public tips and reports by the end of the month.

Those figures are important less as verified facts than as a statement of doctrine. In his telling, the answer to unrest was wider surveillance, earlier intervention and a larger dragnet.

He also recalled Khamenei telling him to “pay attention to intelligence work” because “this period is like the year 60” – a reference to the early 1980s, one of the Islamic Republic’s bloodiest and most repressive phases.

The line is revealing because it shows the regime was reading the moment through the lens of existential internal threat, not ordinary dissent.

Khademi said Khamenei had stressed “two types of infiltration”: one deliberate and one broader current of people advancing the enemy’s aims without necessarily knowing it. Read plainly, that is the language of a state that sees not only organized opponents but also ordinary social and political currents as security problems.

Another revealing part of the interview was his insistence on the “national information network,” the state-backed effort to tighten control over Iran’s internet and communications space. That linked Khademi directly to the Islamic Republic’s broader push for censorship, digital control and isolation of the domestic information sphere.

A telling figure of the post-crackdown state

Khademi’s rise after the 2022 reshuffle suggested that the Islamic Republic wanted a harder, more security-centered figure to restore trust after repeated failures. His career embodied a system trying to repair itself through tighter internal control.

His death therefore lands on two levels at once. It removes a senior official tied to repression, and it exposes the vulnerability of a security apparatus that has long defined itself through secrecy, discipline and counter-penetration.

Why the killing matters now

Khademi was not just another uniformed commander. He was a product of the Islamic Republic’s hidden architecture – the part built to monitor loyalty, protect secrets and suppress threats before they reached the street.

His killing is more than the loss of one official. It is a blow to a man who personified the Islamic Republic’s effort to defend itself from within – and a reminder that even those charged with hunting infiltration have not been beyond its reach.

Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the remarks, writing: “Does threatening to send an entire nation back to the Stone Age mean anything other than a massive war crime? … History is full of those who paid a heavy price for their silence in the face of criminals.”

Ground Forces commander Ali Jahanshahi, warned to send US troops “not to the Stone Age but to pre-Stone Age.”

International reactions have also been critical. Former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei accused Trump and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “employing horrific methods” and quipped, “I truly don't know who belongs to the Stone Age!”

Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt also weighed in, saying Iranians want “a decent and representative government” not being bombed back to the Stone Age.

‘War crimes’

Anger also surged among ordinary Iranians and diaspora communities—many of whom oppose the government but object strongly to threats against national infrastructure and civilian sites.

Strikes on health facilities such as the Pasteur Institute of Tehran have heightened sensitivities about civilian harm.

Hadi Partovi, a technology investor with Iranian roots, framed the issue in moral terms: “Many Iranians supported your war because your plan was to liberate Iran. Instead, you celebrate sending a civilization to the Stone Age. Great leaders build, not destroy… I weep to see America like this.”

London-based human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr accused Western governments of hypocrisy, arguing that initial justifications under the “Responsibility to Protect” have given way to actions that “send those same people back to the Stone Age, committing war crimes on a massive scale.”

Tehran-based journalist Yashar Soltani wrote: “You first spoke of ‘liberating Iran.’ Then you bombed a school in Minab and took the lives of children. And today you speak of dragging Iran back to the ‘Stone Age’.”

“Iran is a land that, when many nations were still in the Stone Age, was building cities, writing laws, and creating civilization,” he added.

Rift over costs of war

Despite widespread criticism, reactions among Iran’s opposition have not been uniform.

Some supporters of regime change argue that damage to infrastructure, while painful, can ultimately be repaired. They point to historical precedents such as the Iran–Iraq War, when key facilities including oil refineries and export terminals were rebuilt after extensive destruction.

Others contend that the Islamic Republic’s long-term impact on governance, the economy and human capital outweighs the immediate damage caused by military strikes. For them, the focus should remain on political repression, including executions and internet shutdowns.

One social media user questioned priorities: “How can your infrastructure and the Stone Age be your priority before you even mention the executions and internet shutdowns!”

Another argued that reconstruction would follow regime change, writing: “Don’t worry about iron and concrete; worry about a homeland occupied by incompetence… after that, a free Iran will build infrastructure worthy of the name Iran.”

Some commentators have also suggested that Trump’s rhetoric was directed primarily at Iran’s ruling establishment rather than the public. “When he says… ‘we’ll hit you and send you back to the Stone Age,’ he’s talking to the clerics, not the people,” one user wrote.

One of the clearest examples came on March 10, when Police Commander Ahmad-Reza Radan addressed the possibility of protests during the conflict.

Speaking on state television, he warned that anyone who took to the streets “at the will of the enemy” would no longer be treated as a protester but as an “enemy combatant.”

The wording marked a significant escalation. By invoking the language of combat, the state effectively framed domestic dissent as participation in the war itself.

Such framing has appeared repeatedly in recent broadcasts. Commentators and officials frequently describe protests not as political grievances but as extensions of foreign military pressure.

The same rhetorical shift is evident in the way foreign adversaries are described. Television hosts increasingly employ dehumanizing metaphors to portray Western and Israeli leaders.

Israeli officials have been repeatedly referred to as “rabid dogs” on talk shows, imagery that casts them as biological threats rather than political opponents.

Foreign-based Persian-language media outlets are portrayed in similarly extreme terms. Iran International TV, for example, has been described on state television as a “satanic network,” while presenters have warned that its regional offices could be considered legitimate targets.

The tone is often even more unrestrained online, where state television presenters engage in public taunts and insults with Israeli officials and journalists on social media.

The language echoes wartime propaganda seen in many conflicts, where demonization of the enemy is used to mobilize domestic support. But the Iranian broadcasts go further by combining this rhetoric with arguments that dismiss international norms governing warfare.

On several television panel discussions in March, state-aligned analysts suggested that international humanitarian law and institutions such as the United Nations serve merely as tools of Western power.

Some commentators declared bluntly that “the age of diplomacy is dead” and that the West understands only “the language of missiles.”

In this atmosphere, messaging increasingly serves not only to condemn foreign adversaries but also to warn domestic audiences about the consequences of dissent.

When protests are described as actions carried out “at the will of the enemy,” the implication is that political opposition itself becomes a form of collaboration with hostile powers.

Wars have always reshaped political language. Governments under military pressure tend to simplify narratives, divide the world into allies and enemies, and suppress ambiguity. Iran’s state television now appears to be moving decisively in that direction.

When state television begins speaking about its own citizens in the language of the battlefield, it signals that the war is no longer being presented as something happening only beyond the country’s borders.

In a phone call on Tuesday with European Council President Antonio Costa, Pezeshkian said Iran has the “necessary will” to bring the conflict to an end - provided that “essential conditions, especially guarantees to prevent renewed aggression, are met.”

Following Pezeshkian’s remarks, US President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that the “president of the new Iranian regime” had requested a ceasefire. Oil prices dipped slightly after the comments.

Iranian officials swiftly rejected Trump’s characterization. Mehdi Tabatabaei, the deputy for communications and information at the president’s office, responded on X:

“The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the defense of the nation against the aggression of evildoers and the conditions for ending the imposed war has not changed, and there is no regard for the delusions and lies of criminals.”

In a letter addressed to the American public published on Wednesday, Pezeshkian reiterated that Iran’s military actions were “purely a response and defense, not the initiation of war and aggression.” He described continued confrontation as “costly and fruitless,” signaling a more pragmatic tone from parts of the political establishment.

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Hardliners and figures aligned with the security establishment have set stricter conditions for ending the war. Mohsen Rezaei, now a military adviser to Mojtaba Khamenei, has said the conflict should only end with reparations and guarantees, including the removal of US bases from the region.

Hardliner backlash intensifies

Pezeshkian’s comments triggered strong criticism from conservative and hardline figures. Lawmaker Hamid Rasaei described the remarks as evidence of a “wavering personality” and “passivity in the face of the enemy,” arguing that such positions could embolden further attacks.

Rasaei has previously compared Pezeshkian to Iran’s first president, Abolhassan Banisadr, who was removed from office by parliament for “political incompetence”. Similar comparisons have circulated widely on social media in recent days.

Some critics framed the conflict as a struggle between “truth and falsehood” and opposed any negotiated settlement short of total victory.

Calls for deterrence over diplomacy

In an open letter published on X, hardline activist Mohammad Shirakvand criticized Pezeshkian’s appeal for European guarantees, writing: “When you yourself state that the United States does not believe in diplomacy, what does speaking of guarantees for ending the war mean other than repeating a costly mistake?”

“This war is a battle of truth against falsehood and an arena of clashing wills. The government must play on this field, not on promises that have repeatedly proven unreliable,” he added.

Shirakvand argued that “real guarantees are not built through diplomacy, but through power and deterrence on the battlefield.”

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Another widely shared post by a conservative account, Rah-e Dialameh, described Pezeshkian’s remarks as “sending a signal of weakness to the enemy,” linking them to the drop in oil prices and warning that such a strategy “must be stopped before it causes further damage.”

Some hardline users accused Pezeshkian of “sending ceasefire signals” and weakening Iran’s military posture, demanding that security authorities “control” him.

One user appeared to issue an implicit threat, suggesting authorities should restrict his public appearances “to protect his life,” claiming the country “is better managed on autopilot.”

Son defends the president’s stance

Amid escalating criticism, Pezeshkian’s son and adviser, Yousef Pezeshkian, publicly defended his father. He challenged critics’ logic, asking: “I do not understand the meaning of these criticisms; are we not seeking to meet conditions and obtain guarantees? Or are we seeking war until the complete destruction of America and Israel?”

He framed the president’s position as a realistic attempt at conditional de-escalation, contrasting it with what he implied were unrealistic or maximalist goals.

He also defended his father’s earlier apology to neighboring countries affected by Iranian strikes, calling it an “ethical duty” and highlighting efforts to maintain regional relations despite the conflict.

For many ordinary citizens, the psychological toll of constant airstrikes is profound. In the absence of an effective warning system, a near-permanent sense of insecurity dominates daily life.

Families—especially those with children or vulnerable members requiring medical care—have fled heavily targeted cities such as Tehran. Some of them have sought refuge in smaller towns and rural areas considered relatively safer from the repeated strikes that occur both day and night.

Those who have remained in their homes describe a life defined by constant anticipation of attacks.

Golshan, a woman living in Tehran with her two dogs, writes daily about her experiences on X. “Night is no longer a time for sleep—it is a field of waiting,” she wrote. “Waiting for a sound you don’t know where it will come from, but you are certain that when it does, something inside you will break.”

She added that she avoids using the elevator, fearing a sudden power outage could trap her and her pets during an attack.

Another user, Marzieh, described how even basic activities have become stressful. “Taking a shower has become anxiety-inducing for many,” she wrote, explaining that people fear being trapped mid-attack or losing water if the electricity is cut. “Every moment of their lives is filled with fear and worry.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross recently shared the account of a mother named Golnaz on X, describing the aftermath of an airstrike that cut off electricity and blew doors and windows off their hinges.

“After that, our home was no longer a safe place,” she said. She added that they had to move to her brother’s house, but even there her sons do not feel safe, so she is considering taking them somewhere far from the noise of war to recover from the shock.

Despite these conditions, some citizens say they are trying to preserve a sense of normalcy. They continue to visit cafés, walk in parks, and exercise outdoors whenever possible, attempting to maintain fragments of everyday life amid the uncertainty.

Reactions to the war’s broader implications remain deeply divided.

Supporters of the government describe the conflict as a “holy war” and insist it must continue until what they call “final victory.” Despite nightly bombardments, including during rainstorms, men and women who back the authorities continue to gather in city squares, chanting slogans and attending funerals for officials killed in the strikes.

Their presence is not limited to such rallies. According to social media reports, groups of pro-government men, alongside members of the Basij militia—sometimes including teenagers—patrol neighborhoods at night on motorcycles and pickup trucks.

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They broadcast slogans over loudspeakers or play religious mourning songs late into the evening, adding to the strain of already sleepless nights for many residents.

Some Iranians express hope that continued strikes and the killing of government officials could lead to the collapse of the current system. One user wrote that relatives in Tehran become anxious when attacks appear to decrease, fearing that the war might end and “they”—meaning the Islamic Republic—might survive.

A user, Elham, shared the words of an acquaintance: “When there are no attacks, I get stressed that we’re still here and these savages are still in power."

"When the strikes happen, I’m so afraid I can only cry and wish for it to end quickly. I don’t even know what I want anymore. I just want them gone—and the war gone too," she added. “This is not a life anyone deserves. We wanted nothing more than an ordinary life.”

Those who share this view warn that an inconclusive end to the war could bring severe consequences: intensified repression of dissent, continued sanctions, widespread unemployment, the collapse of businesses, rising inflation—particularly in food prices—and potential shortages of electricity, water, and essential goods such as medicine.

Yet there is also a third group—neither aligned with government supporters nor hopeful that war will bring political change. These individuals simply call for an immediate end to the conflict.

A woman named Somayeh, opposing the continuation of the war, addressed both sides in a post: “Do you know what it feels like to hang a whistle around your neck and your child’s before going to sleep at night? If you don’t, then don’t tell me that war is the best thing for me.”