Today is the final day of Easter, but I feel little peace.

The Iranian hospital in Dubai was shut down this month due to the Iran war. This is for the first time since it opened in 1972.

My aunt was asked to work there and eventually became the hospital’s director until her retirement. There is no news of her niece and nephew in Iran, or the niece’s children, as communications are cut off in Iran since it was bombed by Israel and the USA. It is unclear if these family members are still alive.

I read Instagram comments accusing the comedian Shappi Khorsandi of being ‘pro-(Iranian) regime’ in response to her posting she isn’t sure (President)Trump knows what he is doing regarding the Iran war.

BBC Persian fared worse with protesters chanting ‘Death to Ayatollah BBC’ due to its reporting civilian casualties rather than exiled Iranians who support the war because they hate the Iranian regime. The ex-head of BBC Persian stated its reputation is ‘shattered’ because of its failure to reflect the mood of many ordinary citizens in a media environment dominated by emotionally charged narratives (1).

The chants sound to me like an eerie inversion of the shouts ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to America’, heard routinely in Iran since the 1979 Iranian Revolution (2).

An official organisation justifies the initial bomb attacks on Iran by interpreting such death communications as intent to kill, but without explicitly stating if any ‘intent to kill’ was clarified or made clear (3).

A previous survey of Iranians inside Iran, suggested the phrase ‘Death to America’ was not an intent to kill and was used by 20% of Iranians. The then Iranian chief of staff to their President stated: ‘If you go and ask anyone who uses that slogan . . . what he is against, it is interference in Iran’s policies by overthrowing a nationally elected prime minister at the time of Mossadegh.’ He clarified: ‘It is against a system of behaviour.’ It was suggested Americans find the wording ‘beyond objectionable’ (2).

Are extreme uses of language driven by emotions?

We can try to empathise with emotions, if we think they are related to trauma?

Should war primarily be driven by emotions? Some people think so.

I pass a crowd of people with Iranian flags with police and ask what the gathering is for. A man responds ‘to celebrate the Iranian New Year’. I ask: ‘what are the photographs of all those people?’ (an entire wall is plastered with large photographs of human faces). He tells me: ‘Iranians killed by the Iranian government’.

I interview one of the organisers of the Wall, and he tells me these are photographs of over 5000 people. He says it is the only such wall in the UK. I ask him if he supports the Iran war and he says, yes, because he wants a regime change. He says he wants Reza Pahlavi to take charge (the son of the former monarch ruler of Iran overthrown by the 1979 Iranian revolution).

I interview another Iranian in exile. He says he does not like the Iranian regime but he does not feel war is the answer. He suggests with new generations the situation may improve without war.

The UK ex-ambassador to Iran, Sir Richard Dalton, claims the war is based on a lie, and that Iran did not have any imminent mass of nuclear weapons (4). US top counterterrorism official Joe Kent resigned over the Iran war, claiming Israel pressurised the USA into the war (5). Trump says defence secretary Pete Hegseth (an Afghanistan war veteran) was the first in his administration to push for war (6).

Hegseth, who has criticised the Iranian regime for being ‘religious fanatics’, recently called for ‘overwhelming violence‘ against those who deserve ‘no mercy‘ and ‘wicked souls‘ to be ‘delivered to the eternal damnation‘ at a Pentagon prayer service, said to have influenced the Pope to give an ‘unusually forceful’ speech against violence and war the following Sunday (7, 8, 9).

In January 2026 thousands of protesters against the deteriorating economy in Iran were massacred. The Supreme Leader acknowledged the killings admitting some were in ‘an inhuman, savage manner’, but blamed President Trump, claiming protesters were rioters or ‘terrorists’ affiliated with the USA (10,11).

Were these claims influenced by the 1953 coup where the CIA paid Iranians to riot to overthrow Mossadegh (12) and more recently Trump reinstating sanctions? Did the Supreme Leader fully or partially believe his own statements? That’s not to condone savage killing, just to try to understand what went horribly wrong.

The 2025 World Happiness Report calculated by the University of Oxford, ranked Iran 97 out of 147 countries, where number 1 was the most happy (Finland). Iran’s neighbour Afghanistan ranked least happy at 147 (invaded by the USA in 2001, with over 100,000 civilians and 60,000 military personnel killed) (13,14).

Although Iran is thought to have the most executions per capita in the world (China keeps its number secret) (15). Are there ways the international community could influence the Iranian regime to reduce its killing, without the killing of war?

While death chants seem the go-to Iranian slogan, Americans in times of conflict seem prone to referring to: the good guys and the bad guys. Or Iran as part of the ‘axis of evil’. (The Iranian equivalent refers to the USA as the ‘Great Satan’).

Hegseth’s response to the growing costs of the war and the Pentagon seeking another 200 billion dollars was reported as being: it takes money to kill bad guys (17).

It has been suggested such language can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as it limits negotiation when each side views the other as morally rotten to the core (18).

Self-fulfilling prophecy is thought to be a type of amplifying loop, the latter a concept described briefly in my post here.

With an explosive phase already set in motion, it seems this may be too little too late for either side to consider now, but could it be in a (very) different future?

An explosive rant was published by Trump on Easter Sunday, including: ‘Open the F**kin’ Strait you crazy b**tards!’ ? (19) The USA lost control of the Strait of Hormuz after they bombed Iran, a strategic waterway through which global oil passes.

Trump has threatened to bomb Iran back to the ‘Stone Ages’ and says ‘a whole civilisation will end tonight’ if the Iranians don’t comply with his demands (20,21,22).

Attacks on civilian infrastructure are classed by the United Nations as war crimes, at a press conference Trump rejected those accusations. Trump added: ‘To be a good President I believe you have to have good instincts, and a lot of this is instinct (21).

Some US politicians called for Trump’s removal as President via the 25th Amendment, concerned about his mental capacity (23). The president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops appealed for him to step back from the threats (24).

Self-preservation instincts (e.g. fight/flight) are tied to emotions (25). They can be overridden by other instincts/factors or balanced by analysis of information (data) (26).

As analysis can take time and even a supercomputer cannot collect all the data on a subject, instincts still retain a role, and any analysis will have limitations but..

Science (described in my previous post) formulated a fundamental MATHEMATICAL LAW describing the capacity of a system to respond to disturbances in its environment.

That science clarified for EFFECTIVE CONTROL, that law must be accompanied by the system ‘knowing’ to select an appropriate action for a given disturbance.

As our own experiences offer just one perspective, the more we analyse the wider informational landscape, the more we ‘know’?

Due to unpredictably in complex systems, we can’t know for sure the future impact of our actions, but can attempt ‘educated guesses’ or ‘science-based predictions’…

We can try to empathise with emotions, if we think they are related to trauma?

Should war primarily be driven by emotions? Some people think so.

Humans are now interconnected via globalisation and technology, like never before.

A New Scientist article titled Delusional You suggested over 90% of humans hold ‘delusional beliefs’ (27). According to DSM-5 a delusion is: a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence.

The article’s questionnaire, based on a scientific inventory, was titled How deluded are you? It suggested the more analytical a person, the less prone to ‘delusion’.

The figure of over 90% seems an extreme assessment of the human condition, so perhaps we should question it, or the validity of such definitions (which have been contested) (28) when ‘what it says on the tin’ is: How deluded are you?

References

1. Alex Farber (2026). BBC Persian letting down Iranians over war, claims ex-boss. The Times
2. Robin Wright (2015). Death to America! And the Iran deal. The New Yorker.
3. Chris Stephen (2026). Has the US Broken International Law? Probably Not. Center for European Policy Analysis.
4. Roland Oliphant, Venetia Rainey (2026). The Iran war is based on a lie: former UK ambassador to Tehran. The Telegraph.
5. Bernd Debusman Jr (2026). Top US counterterrorism official resigns over the Iran war, urging Trump to change course. bbc.co.uk
6. Joe Sommerland (2026). ‘Let’s do it’. Trump pins push for war on Iran on Pete Hegseth in latest shift. Independent.
7. Pete Hegseth’s Christian rhetoric reignites scrutiny after USA goes to war with Iran. pbs.org
8. Brendan Rascius (2026). Pete Hegseth is changing the way the Pentagon handles faith. Some in the military are finding it ‘terrifying’ report says. Independent.
9. Joshua McElwee (2026). Pope Leo says God doesn’t answer the prayers of leaders who wage war. Reuters.
10. Jack Burgess, Ghoncheh Habibiazad (2026). Iran supreme leader acknowledges thousands killed during recent protests. bbc.co.uk
11. James Genn (2026). The Jerusalem Post
12. 1953 Iran Coup: New US Documents Confirm British Approached US in Late 1952 About Ousting Mossadeq (2017). National Security Archive. nsarchive.gwu.edu
13. data.worldhappiness.report
14. Leoni Connah (2021). US Intervention in Afghanistan: Justifying the Unjustifiable. South Asia Research 41(1): 70-86
15. (March 2025). Special Rapporteur on Iran presents first report to UN Human Rights Council. United Nations. ohchr.org
16. (2021). Death Penalty: World’s Biggest Executioner China must come clean about ‘grotesque’ level of capital punishment. Amnesty International
17. Lisa Mascaro (2026). WATCH: ‘It takes money to kill bad guys,’ Hegseth says as Pentagon seeks billions more for the Iran war. PBS News
18. Trang Chu (2026). How the words that Iran and America use about each other paved the way for conflict. The Conversation
19. Melanie Philips (2026). Trump’s profanity still has the power to shock. The Times
20. Graeme Wood (2026). Trump’s Stone Age threat will lead to tragedy. The Atlantic.
21. David Charter (2026). Trump threatens to bomb Iran ‘into the Stone Age’. The Times
22. (7 April 2026). Trump says a whole civilisation will die tonight if Iran doesn’t make deal as US hits Kharg Island. bbc.co.uk
23. Tina Sfondeles (2026). Pritzker wants 25th Amendment invoked to remove President Trump from office over Iran threats. Chicago Sun Times
24. (April 2026) Archbishop Coakley urges Trump to step back from brink of war with Iran. The Catholic Herald.
25. .James Devit (2016). What Animal Survival Instinct Tells Us About Human Emotion. NYU News
26. Ann Langley (1995). Between Paralysis by Analysis and Extinction by Instinct. MIT Sloan Management Review
27. Dan Jones (2017). Delusional You. New Scientist
28. Anthony S David (1999). On the Impossibility of Defining Delusions. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 6(1) 17-20, John Hopkins University Press