Four days have passed since the start of Israel’s military attacks on Iranian territory.

According to Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations, the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state is prohibited, except in three cases: defense against an armed attack, military action authorized by a Security Council resolution, or preemptive attacks—provided there is an imminent threat of military aggression against a country, and only to the extent necessary to repel that immediate danger.

Israel, in violation of this principle, has attacked the territory of a sovereign nation. These attacks began under the claim of “preemptive defence.” Still, most international observers (including reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International) find no clear basis for this claim under current circumstances.

Of course, such a major legal clause is not without ambiguities, and some analysts believe that with a particular reading, it might be used as a justification for Israel’s actions.

This attack contravened the recommendations of the NPT Additional Protocol. However, Israel is not a signatory of the NPT nor has it accepted the Additional Protocol; these international documents nonetheless emphasize that nuclear facilities, due to the risk of contamination, should not even be subjected to targeted attacks (IAEA, Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material). Yet Israel went beyond this, extending its assaults from nuclear facilities to civilian targets and economic and energy infrastructure.

The attacks on civilian homes, the assassination of Iranian military commanders (outside the battlefield, in their residences), and the destruction of civilian infrastructure—all of these have called into question the legitimacy of Israel’s claim to “preemptive defense,” according to experts at the International Crisis Group and UN analysts.

And of course, none of this diminishes the responsibility of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran—leaders who gambled with the fate of a nation and a land for the illusion of “nuclear deterrence,” the failure of which is plain to see in these very days. A regime that, instead of focusing on the welfare, growth, and development of its people and country, has poured all its efforts into fulfilling its primitive delusions, leaving no moral ground for defending itself. And this is the crucial point: opposing war and condemning Israel in no way grants any moral credit to Iran’s ruling regime.

Tehran and other Iranian cities have been burning under fire for four nights and days. The people already bowed under economic and political pressures now live each moment with anxiety, watching their loved ones perish and their homes destroyed.

A regime that for years boasted of confronting Israel but failed even to provide shelters for its citizens in a time of danger now stands helpless, wringing its hands. A deluded, drunken fantasy that has shut its eyes to reality and imagines itself a player in some apocalyptic battle between good and evil. Institutions so incompetent that, while they trained their surveillance cameras and harassment tools to catch a strand of hair from a girl in the street, they could not even detect an enemy’s truckload of equipment in the capital. There is no hope in them, and no deliverance.

But this piece is not about the shameless global politics that allow Israel’s prime minister and minister of war (both under investigation by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza) to slaughter innocent civilians with the backing of U.S. politicians convicted of corruption—nor is it about placing hope in a global order we have tested too many times.

The audience of these words, if any, are the forces that once owed a debt to these people and today stand strangely disgraced.

The wife of the son of Iran’s last monarch—whom many saw as a potential alternative for navigating out of the crisis—has made no effort to conceal her joy at the killing of Iranians, cloaked in the slogan “Israel, strike!” The crown prince of Iran’s last dynasty sees this assault on his homeland as a golden opportunity and, instead of trying to contain the disaster, calls on people to take to the streets so that, as Israeli bombs fall upon them, they might also rise against Khamenei’s regime. As if he were not the same man who, during the Iran-Iraq war, offered to return to defend Iran with his pilot’s training. As if he were not the grandson of a man who chose exile over war against his homeland.

If the lust for power can kill conscience so thoroughly, imagine the ruin wrought by the power that is eventually gained.

How could you become so debased before a regime that declares its intent to burn entire districts of Tehran and shamelessly lists hospitals among its targets?

On the other hand, we see the bitterness of those whose anguish stems from the Islamic Republic. Hamed Esmaeilion, once a loud voice against injustice who turned his grief into a banner of resistance, now appears on camera describing these events as an “exceptional opportunity” and advises that we should seize it—though he hopes the war will not bring destruction.

Hamed, dear friend, look again at the images of your lost loved ones on the wall behind you. Do you know how many more portraits have been added to such walls in these four days?

Does personal anger and sorrow grant anyone the license to sanction fresh bloodshed in the name of the people?

Peace advocates and laureates of prestigious global prizes, after four nights of silence, now issue hesitant, stammering statements. Yes, we all know nuclear enrichment is not the Iranian people’s priority. But when no voice is raised to condemn the slaughter of civilians and the targeting of infrastructure—even as Israel’s defence minister openly says the people of Tehran will pay for this war with their blood—it gives us reason to doubt your claims of supporting freedom. If those who defend peace cannot condemn war without ifs and buts, what hope is left for us? How is this different from those who, in the dark days of the Islamic Republic’s war on women and girls, said, “Yes, the morality police shouldn’t be violent, but those girls should have been more careful about how they dressed”?

I hold no position, and my voice matters to no one. But amid these moments of anxiety, as I constantly check on friends who have lost their homes and elderly family members who still bear the scars of past disasters and must now search for shelter, I say this:

We will not forget these days or your immoral conduct. But, unlike you, we will not compile death lists. We will not seek revenge, because we will not sacrifice our morality. And the future of our wounded Iran will not be built on revenge and bloodlust.

If only you, who have organized protests in the past, had gathered us in these days to defend Iran, to say no to war,. If only, as we once amplified your voices in mourning for your loved ones—who were our loved ones too—you would now cry out the names of our dead, who, if you look closely, are your loved ones as well.

Meanwhile, some Persian-language media in the free world, fearing the accusation of defending the Islamic Republic, cherry-pick their reports as if reality is happening in some other world. (How I miss those days of professionalism, when it took two independent sources to publish a news story—not just any baseless tweet!)

In these times, when two serpents on Zahhak’s shoulders appear to roar at each other over a bigger bite, the actual victims are the people of a land enslaved by these serpents and their masters.

And finally, I grasp the hands of every member of the medical staff, rescue workers, firefighters, and first responders’ crews who, with minimal resources, are striving to lessen the scale of this catastrophe—and I count myself forever in their debt.