While the path to regime change in Iran remains frustratingly unclear, some Iranians stand ready to take up arms after decades of authoritarian rule, an Iranian man inside the war zone told NBC News.
War is raging on in the Middle East and continues to intensify after last weekend U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and left a power vacuum where the cleric once ruled with an iron fist. Iranians are on edge about what may come next. Many are desperate for a democracy. And some, though not all, are willing to risk their lives for it. Whether they would have the support of the United States and where would they get weapons from are open questions.
“Enough is enough,” the man told NBC News. “Either freedom or death.”
The young man, whose identity NBC News is protecting, said the Iranian people have the will to fight but “we need to be armed” and “there needs to be air support, because they will shoot us.” He said he believes it must come to violence if there is to be lasting change.
“We cannot do it with fists,” the man said. “I wish it wasn’t like this. I wish we could just go out, protest, they would resign, go, and we can just make a better country. But that’s not how it is.”
The man represents one viewpoint in the Middle Eastern country plunged into chaos after last Saturday the U.S. and Israel launched a military offensive that rained missiles on Iran. Others in Iran have told NBC News that they welcome the toppling of Khamenei but fear a bloody, protracted conflict that further devastates their beloved home and leaves fewer alive to experience a free Iran. And there are some who still support the current regime and want it to remain in place.
The region has been enveloped by war amid retaliatory strikes by Iran on neighboring countries. The rising death toll includes about 950 Iranians, according to the Iranian Red Crescent; six U.S. military members; and dozens more in Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Iraq and Lebanon.
Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader who was a key player in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, is gone, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps he empowered remains in control, alongside an interim leadership council that includes President Masoud Pezeshkian.
President Donald Trump acknowledged to reporters Tuesday that the worst case scenario is that “somebody takes over, who’s as bad as the previous person.”
Trump told NBC News on Thursday that he has a list of preferences he wants for the next Iranian leader — though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas, rejected the possibility of U.S. taking part in the succession process.
The man who spoke with NBC News said that he fears reprisal for sharing his comments — especially after the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters that killed more Iranian people over a couple days in January than the war so far, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
“I want to just live a happy life, good life, be prosperous. But this ideological — how to say — dictators, terrorists have ruined so many generations in Iran,” he said. “They have killed so many people.”
Life in once-bustling Tehran is grimmer now, though residents for the most part have food, water and electricity — even if it’s touch and go. The Iranian government has put the country under an internet blackout, making all communication with the world outside harder, if not impossible.
“I know for a fact that so many people love this country. You have [a] tremendous amount of patriots inside, outside. We are a proud nation,” he said. “We are culturally rich. We care about art. We care about living, laughing, dancing, listening to music, everything that any human needs to just create meaning in their life, but they have made us just suppress those feelings.”
The Iranian man said he is not afraid of death — if it comes to that — as part of an armed uprising.
“I’m about 30 years old, OK? I have experienced this regime. I have lost money … I have seen people suffering,” he said. “For me, it’s like I don’t care anymore that much about my life, as long as it’s meaningful. And this is one of the ways that — like now I’m talking to you — this is one of the ways that I can make it meaningful.”
