Donna Miles is an Iranian-Kiwi columnist and writer based in Christchurch, and a regular opinion contributor.

OPINION: The day after addressing the nation, repeating his false claim of victory over Iran and threatening to bomb the country “back to the stone age”, Trump posted a photo of a bombed Iranian bridge on Truth Social, promising more destruction if Iran did not make a deal.

The newly completed Karaj highway bridge – approximately 140m high and the tallest in the Middle East – was designed to cut travel time from Tehran to the northern city of Karaj from about one hour to just 10 minutes. It now lies damaged, a stark symbol of the broader US-Israeli assault on the country.

This bridge was one of roughly 90,000 civilian sites in Iran hit by US-Israeli strikes. Much of the damage has struck residential buildings (nearly half in Tehran), killing more than 2000 people. Targets have also included schools, universities, sports facilities, steel plants, and pharmaceutical factories. Widespread collateral harm has affected more than 140 cultural heritage sites too, including historic landmarks and Unesco World Heritage properties.

Read more:

• A war with no winners, only generations of hatred to come
• The reckless, unjustifiable war we must have nothing to do with
• Easy to advocate from outside, but those at the heart of situations suffer

Many in the West remain unaware of Iran’s remarkable self-sufficiency and its advanced infrastructure. These gains emerged largely in response to years of “maximum pressure” sanctions, which forced the country to harness its own resources, including a deep pool of highly educated Iranian women and men committed to national progress.

My late father, Dr Faraj Mojab, was among those patriots. Under the Shah, who encouraged overseas academic scholarships, he became the first in Iran to earn a doctorate in metallurgy – the science of metals and materials. Post-revolution, rather than emigrate, he chose to stay and contribute to his country’s academic advancement.

About 30 years ago, during a visit from the UK to Tehran, my father asked me to meet him at his office to discuss something important. On my way there, a young Basiji man (internal security police) stopped me on the street. He insulted and berated me over my painted nails and “bad hijab”. Frightened and intimidated, I apologised just to avoid arrest – a humiliating encounter that left me shaken and irate.

The timing was especially unfortunate, because what Dad wanted to ask was whether I would consider returning to Iran. The state had funded my early healthcare and education, he explained, and it was my patriotic duty to return and help the country and its people flourish.

Living in Glasgow at the time, I told him that Scotland had treated me far better than my own country had – and that I felt a stronger affinity with Western values and culture than with post-revolutionary Iran.

My father gently cautioned me against an orientalist perspective – one that assumes the West is inherently superior and the East backward or irrational. He stressed the value of academic work and expressed confidence that Iran’s millennia-old civilisational heritage would ultimately overcome the ideological excesses of the new regime.

Ironically, the very next day, morality police raided his offices. They inspected female employees’ hijab and checked for any alcohol on the premises. At the time, I could not understand how my father could live and work under such an oppressive system.

Today, I admire his dedication to his country. I now see that he was right about the skin-deep nature of certain Western values, which are so readily abandoned by most European leaders in the face of genocide and naked colonial aggression.

Thanks in large part to the dedication and sacrifices of people like my father, Iran has made impressive strides in engineering, medicine, technology, and even cinema – not to mention its advancements in military and nuclear capabilities. Though highly contentious, these two fields have now proven essential for defending the nation against blatant imperialist ambitions to control the country and take over its resources. (I believe the war is about Iran’s oil and protecting the petrodollar, but that’s another column).

Today, Iran has developed its own versions of Uber, Netflix, and Amazon. Its ride-hailing service, Snapp, also delivers food and has been integrated into the national network services, allowing it to keep functioning in reduced capacity despite the war and internet blackout.

Walking the streets of Tehran these days reveals many women without hijab. This everyday reality belies the Western portrayal of Iran as a cesspool of radical Shia Islamism – an image clearly crafted to justify bombing the country “back to the stone age”.

Of course, none of this is meant to present a rosy picture of pre-war Iran. The economic hardships that sparked the January deadly protests remain painfully real. Deep corruption, state mismanagement of the economy, and environmental neglect persist. But it must be said that many of these problems are linked to US-imposed maximum sanctions and their consequences.

As my father said, governments come and go, but what endures is Iran itself – its civilisational greatness rooted in reverence for spirituality and wisdom rather than materialism and greed. Trump can destroy bridges and factories, but he cannot erase the will and know-how of a great nation.

Donna Miles
The Press
Christchurch
New Zealand