Not in our name — an Iranian response to war, from within the diaspora

A small but vocal group of Iranians in South Africa has recently taken to interviews and social media, cheering on a US-Israel war against Iran. They cite the Islamic Republic’s domestic shortcomings as a moral licence for bombing our homeland. As Iranians who live here, and who remain deeply connected to family inside Iran, we say clearly: No war on our behalf. Not in our name.

These pro-war voices do not represent us. There are credible indications, including anecdotal personal outreach to members of our community, that Zionist-linked organisations have sought to cultivate Iranian support for anti-Iran activities. This is not a conspiracy theory; it is a documented method of proxy warfare, long used by Israeli intelligence to recruit diaspora minorities from Arab to Iranian communities.

We reject this manipulation. We also reject the false binary that one must either defend every policy of the Islamic Republic or support a murderous military assault by the West.

A pattern, not an accident

Ask any South African: when the US and Israel bomb, sanction, or destabilise a country, is it random? Or does it follow a colonial playbook?

From Vietnam to Iraq, Libya to Syria, Yemen to Gaza, the pattern is consistent: dismantle sovereign states, extract resources, install compliant elites and crush any independent development. Iran has been in their crosshairs not because of its human rights record, but because it refuses to be a client state.

Even before the 1979 revolution, the West’s concern for Iranians was zero. Under the Shah, a US-backed monarch, Iran had Savak torture chambers, massive inequality and total subservience to American oil interests. When the Shah fled, the West immediately pivoted to supporting Saddam Hussein’s eight-year war of aggression against Iran, using chemical weapons with Western-supplied precursors. They did not care about Iranian lives then. They do not care now.

What sanctions could not kill

For five decades, Iran has been under the harshest sanctions regime in modern history, blocked from medicine, aircraft parts, banking and energy technology. Yet Iran has achieved:

• One of the highest STEM graduation rates in the world.
• A domestic drone and missile industry that is entirely indigenous.
• Expansion of healthcare to remote villages.
• Life expectancy rising from 55 to above 76 years.
• A space programme and nuclear technology for medicine and energy.

The world barely blinked. But when Iran, in a defensive move, once threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a legal right under distress in international law, global markets panicked. That double standard tells you everything: Western freedom is the freedom to blockade others. Iranian sovereignty is called “aggression”.

International law: A tool only for the weak

The US and Israel have no UN Security Council authorisation for an attack on Iran. Such an attack would be an act of war, illegal under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. Both states have a documented record of war crimes: Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza (ICJ provisional ruling, South Africa’s own case), extrajudicial killings, collective punishment, and use of white phosphorus. The US has bombed hospitals, schools, weddings, and funeral processions across seven Muslim-majority countries.

Calling Iranian leaders “terrorists” while arming and funding state terrorism is the oldest colonial trick. South Africans know this better than anyone: the US labelled Nelson Mandela a terrorist until 2008. So, when Washington calls Iranian leaders and people “terrorists”, we do not flinch. We have seen this film before.

Diaspora does not equal nation

The Iranian diaspora is politically diverse and mostly invisible to Western media. The tiny minority that supports Reza Pahlavi (the former Shah’s son) or cheers for US bombs is a drop in a vast ocean. While many Iranians want reform, they overwhelmingly oppose foreign military intervention. The idea that a few dozen diaspora figures speaking at Zionist-funded forums represent 85 million Iranians is absurd.

The same logic would claim that a handful of Russian oligarchs in London represent all Russians, or that anti-China protesters represent 1.4 billion Chinese. It is a colonial mindset: only dissidents who please the West are considered “authentic”.

In South Africa, there are more than 2,000 Iranians. The pro-war group cannot gather even 100 people at its largest events. The vast majority of us, business owners, academics, students, artists and doctors, want peace, sovereignty, and a non-aligned Iran. We do not want US missiles disguised as “freedom”.

We see our own government clearly

Criticising the Islamic Republic is not only possible, but also a daily reality inside Iran. We are not blind to economic mismanagement, social restrictions or political repression. We struggle with these issues. We protest. We organise. But none of that justifies bombing our cities, killing our children or destroying our infrastructure.

That argument, that repression at home invites foreign invasion, is the same logic used to justify the Iraq war. It killed more than a million Iraqis. It destroyed a secular state. It produced ISIS. We will not repeat that horror.

A post-war future: The South African blueprint

Iran will survive this war. And when it does, we will need a model for national healing. We look to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Not as a perfect template, but as a serious attempt to balance accountability with amnesty, truth with forgiveness.

A post-war Iran could establish its own national dialogue between the state, opposition groups, ethnic communities and women’s movements, to address historical grievances without foreign diktat. That is the path of dignity. Not cruise missiles.

A new pole for the Global South

After this war, Iran will rebuild. And it will emerge not as a pariah, but as a defence and technology partner for the Global South. Imagine developing nations, from Venezuela to Malaysia, South Africa to Indonesia, investing in their own drone defence, missile technology and indigenous energy systems with the help of Iran, freeing themselves from Western military dependency. The West abandoned its own Persian Gulf allies in this war. It will abandon anyone when profits shift.

We are not anti-Western out of hatred. We are anti-imperialist out of experience. DM

Amir Bagherioromi is a strategic communications and campaigns specialist with more than a decade of experience shaping public narratives, driving media influence and delivering high-impact advocacy across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He’s worked with leading global organisations including Oxfam, Unicef, 350.org and Amnesty International and has built a career at the intersection of communications, politics and social justice.