They're stealing Iran from within: "A Thousand Khameneis..."

The tension between America and Iran had been playing out for months with both sides merely "going through the motions" of talking at the negotiating table. But everyone knew the truth: this war was coming, loudly and unmistakably. And the moment it started, it quickly escalated into a "regional war."

Iran immediately retaliated against the airstrikes that Israel announced as a "preventive operation" and launched in coordination with the US. The Tehran administration struck back with missiles and drones targeting Israeli territory, primarily Tel Aviv. Not stopping there, Iran announced it was targeting American military assets along the Gulf line. Announcements that the US Navy's 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain had been hit, along with simultaneous declarations that American bases in Qatar and the UAE were being targeted, pushed the war beyond the borders of three countries, spreading it across the entire region.

The picture emerging in the immediate aftermath is this: the pieces in the Middle East are once again being reshuffled.

But some images reflected in the very first hours of this war revealed a fracture far greater than any military destruction: the "psychological collapse inside Iran."

Since yesterday, we've been watching on social media — children celebrating as American or Israeli missiles strike their country, their cities; adult Iranians singing and dancing in the middle of the street. I'm talking about young people chanting "I love Trump" while bombs fall on a neighborhood just a few kilometers away. How is this possible? How can a person celebrate while their country is under attack? How can they dance while their neighbors are dying?

No matter how oppressive, how totalitarian, how restrictive the Iranian regime is, applauding Israeli and American bombardment signals a complete rupture between the state and its society.

It's clear that years of economic sanctions, political repression, and the anger accumulated especially among younger generations in Iran have crystallized into a staunch anti-regime stance. And that's perfectly understandable. But these segments clearly see the external attack not as a "national threat," but as an opportunity for the "regime to weaken." The calls from the Pehlevi puppet, backed by America and Israel, to "hit more military targets" only accompany those tragic dances under the missiles.

These rapidly spreading images of joy have instantly become one of the most effective weapons of this "invasion attempt." The perception that "the people are pleased" not only legitimizes the attacks on Iran but also means that slogan shouted by a child in a schoolyard could trigger a butterfly effect.

Because the images circulating are far more frightening for the Iranian regime than any battle on the front lines.

Watching them, I said to myself: Israel is reaping the harvest from the poison fields it sowed in and around Tehran.

America isn't receiving Iran from Khamenei; it's practically receiving it from that 60-year-old woman dancing in the street as missiles land a few kilometers away. The images of children chanting slogans while bombs fall in the next neighborhood are officially declaring that Iran has already been occupied in people's minds.

These scenes remind me of April 9, 2003. In Baghdad's Firdos Square, a group of Iraqis tried to tear down Saddam Hussein's 40-foot statue with sledgehammers, and it toppled before the cameras. Those images were served to world television as the "moment of freedom" for the Iraqi people. Saddam hadn't even been captured yet. Years later, Kadhim Sharif Hassan al-Jabouri, the Iraqi who participated in toppling the statue with a sledgehammer that day, passed through the same square and said: "When I heard the Americans were approaching Baghdad, I was very happy. I grabbed a sledgehammer and headed for the square. I started hitting the statue; I wanted to bring it down. Now I feel pain and shame. Saddam is gone, but a thousand Saddams have taken his place. I feel like Iraq was stolen from us."

Today, watching the images emerging from the streets of Iran, the same question comes to mind: Will those children, and that 60-year-old woman if she lives long enough, find themselves passing through the same street years from now, forced to say, "Khamenei is gone, but a thousand Khameneis have taken his place"?