It is five days since Operation Epic Fury began, during which time Iran has been subjected to a fierce and sustained bombardment that has removed its leadership and severely impaired its ability to wage war. For those on the ground, it has been a terrifying example of the power of modern warfare.

War always has a cost in human lives and suffering. When I see the smoke rising from buildings that have been bombed, I think of the people on the ground lying dead or dying. Each one is a son or daughter, a brother or sister. For this reason I tend to draw back when I see gung-ho support being offered for the killing of soldiers and civilians. Equally, I have no time for those who loudly defend Iran’s theocracy, while remaining silent on the repressive violence of the regime. Responding to popular protests earlier this year, the Iranian dictatorship has murdered 30,000 of its own people.

Iran, or Persia as it is also called, boasts one of the world’s oldest civilizations. At various times, Persia has shone as a cultural landmark, producing architects, poets and painters. However, throughout its long history it has also been beset by conflict and power struggles. The current government came to power in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution. Its original leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, expelled or executed its left wing allies and religious opponents in order to facilitate the transformation of the country into a strict Islamic state. 

One such exile came to the church I attended in the 1990s - she was an Iranian Christian who had barely escaped with her life after being threatened with death for the crime of apostasy. Another Iranian I knew around that time was Shahram. For a while I rented a room in his home in Hove, East Sussex.

Before I met Shahram I knew little about Iran and Iranians. My brother, who traveled through Persia in the 1970s before the Revolution, didn’t have a particularly high opinion of the people he encountered, although I can’t remember why. I had no problems with Shahram, who was a generous and sensitive man, and worked for a Swiss Pharmaceutical company. 

I learned from Shahram that Iranians are not Arabs and that they actually look down on Arabs. The other Iranians I met through Shahram were all intelligent, charming and well informed. Shahram and I became good friends and for a time we frequented nightclubs together in Brighton. He was neither a Muslim nor a Christian, but was very respectful about my own Christian faith; one Christmas he gave me a present of a cassette tape of the gospel of Luke.

One anecdote about Shahram. He owned a white car which he parked in the road outside the apartment. He owned this car for two years and never once washed it, so that it became filthy. Eventually he decided to sell the car. However, instead of cleaning it, he hired a painter to come and paint the car white. He then sold the car to an unwitting buyer. 

Shahram eventually returned to Iran and got married. I lost touch with him but found out from a mutual friend that he wasn’t entirely happy living in Iran, having enjoyed for too long the freedoms of the West. In view of what is happening to his country now, I think of him and pray that he is safe. I know that if I were living in Iran I would be both exhilarated and afraid. 

I pray also for the people of Iran - especially those who have lost loved ones and those who live in fear. The world’s leading sponsor of terror - a government that has killed over 250,000 of its own citizens, 1,000 Americans and financed the atrocities of October 7, 2023 - is badly wounded and will soon face an uprising from within. I pray for a peaceful outcome, that this noble and cultured people may cast off the shackles of tyranny and live in freedom once more.

Father David