Front Burner - 'We do not want your bombs': A view from Tehran

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Amidst communications blackouts and rising casualties, Jayme Poisson reaches a resident in Tehran to discuss the war, Trump, the Iranian regime, and his pessimistic view about where this goes next. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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This is a CBC podcast. Hi, everyone. It's Jamie. Today on the show, The View from One Man on the Ground in Tehran. We recorded this conversation midday Eastern time on Tuesday. We're withholding his name for his safety. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us today. We're really appreciative. No worries.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Where am I reaching you today? I am in Tehran at the moment. Okay. And can I ask you how you're holding up? I mean, it's all right, I think. I try to somehow keep some pockets of normal life.

I don't know, go jogging and I don't know, go buy some bread and I think. I mean, the life is unpause at the moment. So the office that I work in is at the moment closed. So most of the time I read and try to somehow balance the life. But otherwise, I mean, I try to somehow continue. When you go out jogging or go to buy bread, what do you see? The thing is that before now, I mean, when the attack started, the anxiety was everywhere. You could see it in people's face.

But there was some sort of idea, actually, that it is an attack of precision. So there is some sort of targeted attacks. But after a while, this notion actually washed away. because people start to realize that it's not like that. The level of devastation and the bombardment was so massive. I mean, you could see that it is bombardment for the sake of it. There is no targets. Just like everywhere, civilians started to lose their lives.

And then the city, after a while, started to thin, actually. A lot of people left the capital. So it's like right now it's almost emptied out. these streets are actually not busy at a moment. I mean, it's weird because Tehran is always busy. It's like really crowded. But right now it's really, you can hear the, actually you can hear the bird singing. That's a silver lining of the whole situation.

Yeah. I was messaging with someone this morning, someone else in Tehran. This person sent me two videos that were incredibly difficult to watch. One is of a child. this person said it was the body of a one-year-old girl being pulled by a rescue worker from the rubble. And the person that I was speaking with said it was a U.S. Israeli attack. The other video is of a very young child, maybe three, four years old, looking terrified in the dark and calling for his mother. And people are telling him that she's coming.

And the caption says, God forgive me for I lied to this child. He was calling for his mother. And I told him that she was okay. while she was already martyred. This was apparently from a residential neighborhood. Are you seeing similar videos and hearing similar stories? I mean, for sure. The start of the war was actually by an attack on his school,

and a lot of girls actually lost their lives. I mean, the level of devastation is unbearable, and I do not know how on earth this could be justified. Right. People start to fall to their demise right, left and center. And then we hear this idea of that this solve for democracy, or I don't know, the elimination of an immediate threat, which is all, all load of craps. I mean, you could see on the street that that's the case. But I mean, the other lives in the middle is counted for less for always. I mean, that's that's, that is the bitter reality that we need to grapple with. And yeah, I mean, I do not see any repulsion around the world. I mean, there are some people who would speak out, but they are marginal. And the major narrative is that that is a necessary war to reduce some unknown, unshaped threats that Iran posed. I mean, don't get me wrong.

I'm not a fan of the Iranian state. I mean, I criticized the state for my whole life. But I could not see how this is justified. in response to, I don't know, some vague idea about security. And to see people, kids losing their lives, it's horrifying. But I came to conclusion that our lives in the Middle East is just, it's worthless. Or it does not carry the same way as a European or Western as life. So I think we need to come to this conclusion and start to live with this idea that in the Middle East, we are numbers, we are faceless, we are not people, we are not counted as people.

So yeah, it is horrifying, but more than that, I think it's, it makes me angry more than, I mean, it's not only repulsion and sadness. It is anger. I'm really sorry that you're going through this and that you feel this way. I don't feel that you're a number. I know a lot of people here don't feel like you are a number and these kids are a number. Are you on your own right now? Do you have a family in Tehran? No, I live actually with my wife and my daughter.

And we have an interesting, I would say, story because we lived in Europe. And then we decided to move back to Tehran because I wanted to spend my youth and my energy on a country that I really feel belonged to. So we came back and started life here. And then here we are at the middle of it all. And your daughter, is she very young? Are you talking to her about what's happening right now? How are you doing that? It is a tricky thing.

She does not really understand the concept of war, I would say. But there are questions. I mean, of course, she's actually, she does her school at the moment online. And then there she actually would hear other kids talking about war. And then the other day she asked me what it is, what's going on, what is war actually? And then she could not understand why on earth should people kill each other, which is really bizarre when you see it from her point of view. because we got used to this violence so much that we cannot see it from a kid's point of view,

which is why should people actually kill each other? And I do not have any answer to that. I mean, I just said, yeah, there are bad people in the world who would not be satisfied with what they have and they want to get more. So they start killing other people. And I know it is a feeble explanation of war, but that's what all I can say because there is no more to it. Yeah. That's that. That is war.

That is war because people are greedy because some, I don't know, some religious thing is behind the whole idea of attacking another country, which is weird in its own sense because I hear a lot that people talk about Iran as a religious country and it is led by cleric and everything. But I could see in the narrative of the United States and the narrative of Israelis, they do use the religious jargon a lot. they have like some sort of biblical references for the attack and that is that is really absurd in this time and age but yeah I mean to have a kid in this situation is hard we need to somehow

try to protect her from everything that's going on and protect her from seeing other anxiety actually we need to be happy while we are thinking about a lot of stuff at the same time yeah I six-year-old. You know what I mean. I don't know what you mean because I'm not there, right? And so many of us aren't there and our kids aren't there. But I do also know what you mean. Yeah, I mean, we want to live a normal life.

And that's all of a sudden and Nautter in the White House decided to bomb us. And it really actually, I don't know, I cannot really put it into war. I don't think there's words to it. And yeah. It's a tough situation. There have been rallies across Canada where we are, where segments of the Iranian diaspora have been chanting things like, thank you, Trump.

And I just wonder what you think when you hear that. I mean, I do understand the sentiment. I mean, we are living in an impasse inside Iran. A lot of people have this feeling that as much as they try, they cannot achieve what they want. and this has been going on for a long time. And you could see this level of impasse gives way to some sort of politics of despair, let's call it. So I could see why people are so fed up with this state and want to get rid of it.

But I think the Uriandah does not have a skin in it. So they are there and just want us to be bombed and call. all of the necessary sort of payout for their freedom, even though I'm pretty sure they, most of them, they're never going to come back to Europe. But they just want some sort of revenge. I don't know. They cannot channel the anger the state and, of course, the far right is on the rise. So this narrative that we have like a magical solution, one-day solution, we can bomb this state and somehow see the plan of the democracy in that land, which is absorbed when you see it realistically. But in a fantasy world, of course, you can somehow be happy about it, say thank you, Trump, thank you Israel, which is weird. I mean, it's really weird.

Israel is a genocidal state. It is, it committed loads of war crimes. And then for us to ask them to come to liberate us is by itself is a weird concept, I would say. And Donald Trump does not need my introduction. Everyone knows who he is and asking him to come and bomb your own country. It's also a weird concept in its own. So I would say there's some sort of, and I actually blame a lot of it on the Iranian state. I mean, they excluded a lot of people from the political process. so much so that a lot of them became these sorts of zombies who want to bomb everywhere

and want to actually explode this, let's say, impasse, and somehow find their way out of it by bombing the country. But I think the UN state should take a lot of credit for this, for this situation, and this idea of when you do not open a political way for. change, people would go to desperate measures. And that's one of that. What condition would you say is the Iranian civil resistance in right now? I would say not good. I mean, this was our fight. Back in 2022, when the woman life freedom started, we saw a huge shift in how people understood the civil movement. The Iranian women had

achieved a lot. They actually pushed back the state. They claimed a lot of rights in Tehran. And I loved that way. I mean, it was a peaceful way. And Iranian women actually opened a lot of doors to us and shift our understanding of the situation. I mean, the revolution should not necessarily be the toppling of the state, but changing the people's point of view. And now, I would say, Iranian women had actually shifted a lot of us, a lot of, let's say, general discourse and dominant discourse in Iran. And that was the way. I love that way.

And I think it would come to fruition in a couple of years. And the state would actually give in and open new doors. And you would have like a peaceful transition to something new. I mean, the brand might stay, the brand of Islamic Republic might say, but the content would change. And that's the part of like the, let's say, nonviolent movement. But now everything is out of our control. I mean, that was our fight.

We were fighting it. But now after the bombardment, now we do not know even if we would have a country in a couple of months. Some part of country might go for partition. I don't know. I mean, that's the oddliness of a war. A lot of civil activists would sit at home. without any agency to do anything about the situation.

And the violence gives way to hardliners to actually claim more, gain more grounds. And they actually, as they did, as we saw it like in a couple of days before, they actually implemented their own guy who is a hardliner. And we could not say anything about it. And was it in a different situation? Was it in a peace time? I'm sure they could not do it as easily as they did it right now. But at the time of war, everything is rationalized, you know?

I mean, they are the people with the guns and the under threat from foreign and foreign power. And at the middle of this, the civil movement would stay silent because they cannot do anything about. Isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000. and doctors all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough.

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If Trump stops his bombing tomorrow in Israel, like, just what do you think that way forward could look like? Do you think people could take to the streets? Let me put it this way. If they start the war, we would not be sure another round of attack would not be around the corner. So it's not like the end of war would be the end of the conflict between these countries. So the mood of a conflict, the logic of violence would dictate. itself to any political process that goes on inside Iran. So so long as there is an outside threat, I don't think any political process could start.

And I do not see people after the violent crackdown of the civil unrest last February, in February 2026. After that, I do not see people being willing to go on the streets because they are. they actually fear for their lives. So I would say we would go down a road which leads to an erosion of Iranian society. So I would say the process after the end, these conflict stops, I do not see it promising because the threat of war actually looms large over the country. And then the hardliners would use this outside threat.

as a justification for cracking down the civil movement. And then I would say we would continue. It's just like a erosion, the constant erosion that leads to nothing. So I'm not really optimistic about it, unless something unforeseen comes along and changes the equilibrium. Other than that, we would continue to actually rot in a situation that is a conflict after a conflict and some periods in between, which is us only taking breath and getting ready for the next round of conflicts.

I know we spoke earlier about your love of country, but I imagine that you are talking to us at some personal risk right now. And just I wonder if you could tell me more about why you're doing it and what else you want to make sure people outside Iran know right now that we haven't maybe addressed during this conversation? The thing is when I left Tehran, I was thinking that I might not never come back. That was the idea.

And then I came to this conclusion that I only live once and I do not want to spend this life on another geography, in another land, which I barely can connect to. But here, at least I have this feeling that I'm doing something that really matters. And I would leave some trace of me in this world after I die. And that was the motivation for me to come back. We are living here.

We are trying to do better. And I know we are not where we wanted to be or we desire to be. but in general, life goes on here and we achieved a lot. It's not like we need any savior from outside. We are fighting our fights and we are trying to somehow push the country forward. But the arrogance, the way people look at Middle Eastern countries, the way Americans depict the Middle East as the savages who do not know what is good for them and we need to somehow dictate it to them.

It is absurd and nauseating, actually. So what I would want to, I don't know, outsiders know about countries in the Middle East. I do not differentiate between Iran, Iraq, I don't know, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or whatever. Life goes on there. It's not like everything is happening where you are. In other parts of the world, things are happening,

and people are trying and they are not savages or I don't know some sorts of barbarians who do not know what is good for them we can make our decision we do not want your bombs I mean I cannot emphasize this enough we do not want any war it is really clear I mean it's crystal clear that any war would push us back at least a decade the level of devastation the level of the how they are attacking our infrastructure our oil resources or I don't know whatever.

I mean, it is crazy. The idea that you are doing it and presenting it as a good thing to do, it's crazy. We do not any war. I mean, hands off our countries. I thought we learned this lesson back in 2003 when Iraq was invaded. But still, you can see it happening. It's still now it is happening. and with the same old narrative and feeble justification and I don't know, the old ideas rehashed again

about Iranis being the main source of terrorism, whatever. I mean, as I said, I do not really praise the Iranian state. I mean, I do not like them. I am an anti-government, let's say, activists. I would say that for sure. But before that, I would be an anti-imperialism and I would, stand against this idea that some foreigner needs to come

to rescue me. I mean, that is crazy. Donald Trump does not know the first thing about Iran. I'm sure he cannot even spot the country on the map. He doesn't understand the complexities. He doesn't understand the social situation. He has no idea. He's just like a man with a large ego who wants to dictate his war.

to countries that have less, let's say, military power. The idea that we are there, as is like 19th century imperialism, it is crazy. I want to thank you so much for this. I'm really thinking about you and your little girl and your family. And I hope you stay safe. Thank you for having me. So before we go today, I just want to address the two. videos that I mentioned earlier in this conversation. They were sent to me from a person in Tehran

who did not film them. There is a lot of bad information out there. So I want to tell you about the steps that we've taken to try and verify their authenticity. This is in addition to the person who sent them to me identifying where they were filmed. My colleagues at the CBC's Visual Investigations unit were able to determine that both videos are new and were circulated widely by Iranian media on telegram. In the video of the child's body pulled from the rubble, the rescuer is wearing the uniform of a firefighter in Tehran. Also, we ran the videos by a group dedicated to fact-checking Persian news, and they confirmed the dialogue and dialect are consistent with residents of Tehran. All right, that is all for

today. A big thank you to Jordan Pearson and his team for the help with those videos. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.