A Legacy of Bitterness That Will Last For Decades

Thick black smoke was still rising in the sky, soot covered the streets and cars, balconies filled with black gunk, and the toxic air had filled the lungs as Tehran woke up after a night of airstrikes on the city’s oil depots on Sunday.

In messages and voice notes sent to the Guardian, people described the situation in their homes and on the streets, some calling it “apocalyptic”. With the sun blotted out, disoriented people in Iran’s capital had to turn on their lights to see through the gloom.

Four oil depots and a petroleum logistics site in and around Tehran were hit. Local authorities said six people were killed and 20 wounded at one of the sites.

Videos shared by citizen journalists showed massive flames over the Tehran sky overnight and smoke still billowing over the oil storage facilities. As rain poured down on the city of 10 million people on Sunday morning, authorities warned of toxic acid rain and many residents woke up with pain in their throat and eyes burning.

If the stated goal of the Trump Administration for this war, to persuade the Iranian people to push to change their government, poisoning the air over Iran's largest city, not to mention bombing a girls's school, are pretty boneheaded ways to do it.

The question now is who is driving the bus on this war. It's begging to look as though the overall commander is Netanyahu.