Trump’s Campaign to Silence Iran’s Military Is Deafening Its Civilians

The American strategy against Iran has focused primarily on military targets: buried missile sites, command bunkers, naval vessels, and military airbases. But the war that President Donald Trump is prosecuting has fallen with devastating weight on ordinary Iranians, who have seen their internet cut to 1% of normal capacity, their schools struck, their cities shaken by explosions, and more than 1,230 of their fellow citizens killed in seven days of bombardment.
The military targeting has been precise by stated design. American B-2 stealth bombers have struck buried ballistic missile infrastructure with specialized penetrating munitions. A large Iranian naval vessel has been targeted at sea. Israeli operations in Lebanon have focused, according to military officials, on Hezbollah command centers, weapons storage facilities, and drone depots embedded in civilian areas. The defense secretary has confirmed that more such strikes are coming, at increased scale.
But the effect on civilians has been profound. In Tehran, residents have described being awakened night after night by explosions that shake their homes. Iran’s internet, already restricted by the government, has been further cut to approximately 1%, cutting off communication with the outside world and limiting what Iranians can know about the conflict that is destroying their country. The government has made little information publicly available. State television broadcasts defiance; the full toll of the bombing remains unknown.
The airstrike on a girls’ school that killed more than 100 students is the most vivid example of civilian impact, but it is far from the only one. More than 1,230 people have been killed in Iran. Six Americans have died. Lebanon has counted over 200 dead and nearly 800 wounded. More than one million Lebanese have been displaced. The Red Cross has described scenes of mass panic and desperate displacement in Lebanon.
Trump has insisted that his campaign is aimed at Iran’s government, not its people. He has offered immunity to Iranians who help end the regime and promised to bring peace and prosperity once the clerical government is gone. But the bombs cannot distinguish between the regime’s assets and the ordinary Iranians who live near them. And with the internet at 1% and a girls’ school in ruins, it is far from clear that his message of liberation is reaching the people it is intended for.