Iranian Bias
I think it is safe to say that most people who grow up in the West have a negative bias towards Iran. This is neither a good thing or a bad thing. Being biased is just a core part of being human.
The problem comes when we treat our biases as conclusions instead of the first reaction that they actually are
My own Bias
Growing up as a Shia Muslim from Pakistan I grew up with a positive bias towards Iran as the only country ruled by Shias (Iraq was under Saddam's yoke at the time). I remember sermons after Eid prayers which always ended with the Sheikh pleading with God for success for both Pakistan and Iran, along with the standard pleas for health and prosperity for all.
Growing up lefty I also learned about how the US and the UK teamed up to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh in 19531 and installed the repressive Shah of Iran and the brutality of his SAVAK secret police. This along with the impression I absorbed as a child solidified a view of Iran as a good country and, at the very least, better than its regional rivals Israel and Saudi Arabia. This definitely put me at odds with the standard Canadian view of the country.
My perspective shifts
My view started changing after I learned, on the news, about the death of Zahra Kazemi2. A 55 year old photojournalist from Iran and Canada who died in Iranian prison in 2003 under terrible circumstances for which her family has not received justice. These are not the actions of a good country and so my view of Iran changed.
My reassessment was not reactionary
And so, having lost my initial view of the country, I reassessed it as 'just another country' rather than a good one. And while it lost the 'perfect victim' status that I had of it, what I retained was the conviction that it's a far more humane nation than either Israel or Saudi Arabia.
For example, it hasn't started a war in centuries, and it hasn't used starvation as a weapon of war like Saudi Arabia did to Yemen and Israel is doing to horrific and genocidal effect in Gaza along with hundreds of thousands of other war crimes.
Do I have a more accurate view of the country now than I did when I was younger? Only God knows. Maybe I'll learn more in the future that will cause me to reassess again one way or the other. The important thing is to keep an open mind, never let our initial reactions and biases be our conclusions, and recognize that we should never have a final conclusion and always be willing to reconsider our opinions. We're not perfect. To be 'certain' of anything is to be delusional.
So as my view of Iran changed as grew, I invite others to update theirs as well. I can tell you one thing though with as much certainty as I can muster, if your current thoughts on Iran are close to that of Israel's then you should drop those. Israel lies.
Consistency on the Israeli attack and the Iranian response
At around 3 AM in the morning on the 13th of July, a Friday, Israel launched a unilateral and unjustified attack on Iran that targeted residential buildings in Tehran that killed children. Iran responded by attacks that killed non-combatants and civilians in Tel-Aviv, or occupied Yaffa as some call it.
Now I am going to be completely consistent here. Any injury or death to a non-combatant or civilian is unjustifiable. Does Israel hides military sites in the middle of big cities? Yes, but that doesn't justify anything, human shield arguments are morally bankrupt. Could it be that Iran wasn't trying to target civilians and was only trying to hit military targets? Maybe, but I'm not a mind reader and I'm not going to judge Iran by my hallucinations of their intention rather than the consequences of their actual actions. The injured and the families of the slain in Israel deserve justice from the state of Iran.
But I'm not going to pretend that, as of the 14th of June 2025, the Iranian response has been going on for about a weekend, whereas Israel has been doing these things to Palestinians for going on 20 months and 75 years, if not longer.
There is no space for Israel in it's current form in a just world.
Free Palestine, from the River to the Sea.