- The United States and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28th, 2026.

In the months that followed, we have seen spasms of violence and claims of diplomatic progress.

Today's guest reports on the conflict, its impact on the Iranian people, and the diplomatic efforts to end it for one of the world's great newspapers.

She's Farnaz Fassihi, this week, on "Story in the Public Square."

(soft piano music) Hello and welcome to "Story in the Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, also with Salve's Pell Center.

- And our guest this week is Farnaz Fassihi, UN Bureau Chief for The New York Times.

She also covers Iran and the conflicts in the Middle East.

She's joining us today from New York.

Farnaz, thank you for being with us.

- Hello, Jim and Wayne.

Thank you so much for having me.

- Well, it's a real pleasure and we're big fans of your reporting.

We're taping this on June 10th.

It's more than a hundred days since the start of the war in Iran.

In your reporting on the conflict, what has stood out to you?

- In my reporting of the Iran-US conflict, what has stood out, like all the other wars that I've covered is that the ordinary people suffer.

Iranians and Israelis, Arabs in the region.

It's, you know, these wars are decided by, you know, officials elsewhere, but it's really ordinary people's lives that are caught in the conflict.

Speaking because I cover Iran, I have a better understanding of what's happening in Iran and the economy has deteriorated significantly.

Infrastructure has been damaged.

And the other issue is that there's no, none of the stated goals of this war that President Trump started have been achieved.

Iran's regime has not been toppled.

Its stockpile of nuclear enriched nuclear material is still intact and in Iran.

And now we have an additional problem of the Strait of Hormuz being blocked by Iran and a naval blockade against Iran.

So really a war that was supposed to, as President Trump said, only supposed to take a few weeks and achieve goals, has turned into a quagmire with no clear end in sight.

- You know, you work for one of the great news gathering organizations and newspapers in the world.

And so, it's your job to share these stories with the American public.

Do you have a sense though of how well versed the American public is with the complexities of this particular crisis?

- That's a good question.

I think that wars in the Middle East are very far away geographically from the United States and I think that the effects of the wars come with a little bit of a delay.

I think that American people are feeling the strains of this war more quickly because of its impact on the global economy, because of increasing gas prices, because of disruptions to fertilizers and other material that's coming from Iran.

So I think that Americans are aware and many are puzzled as to why we're in this conflict and polls show us that the Iran War is not at all popular.

- So Farnaz, you also cover the United Nations.

And just wondering, they do not seem to have played a very instrumental role in this war.

Can you break that down for us?

Give us an assessment of where the UN stands in terms of the Iran War.

- The United Nations as a whole, meaning the Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the UN as an organization, is consistently been against conflict.

And they've said that we want these wars in the Middle East, from Gaza, to Lebanon, to Iran, even Ukraine and Russia, to end.

But they have very little power at their disposal to actually play a meaningful role in these conflicts because, you know, it's really the Security Council and the world powers and the divisions that exist between sort of Russia, China, the United States, Europe, European members of the council, Britain, France.

These are the real power players at the UN Security Council.

And you know, of course, Israel, because the United States is its allies, these conflicts turn into really complicated and convoluted situations where the UN has actually seen its role been diminished, you know.

that, you know, decisions are being made really even without the UN playing a role.

I mean, even if we look at Gaza ceasefire, if we look at the negotiations with Iran right now, the UN has played a very little role in mediation.

- So when the war started, one of President Trump's goals was to topple the regime in Iran.

And I think that was probably the word he used, topple.

That hasn't happened, why?

And can you tell us what's going on internally in terms of Iran.

- Yeah.

- In terms of popular support or defiance for that regime?

A lot of questions in one.

- Yeah.

- But go for it.

- Well, you know, right before the US and Israel launched these strikes, there was a massive uprising in Iran where over a period of a week, people took to the streets in really large numbers and rose up against the government saying they wanted wholesale change and they wanted the Islamic Republic regime gone.

And the government and the security forces responded with a massacre.

They killed human rights organizations, say 7,000 people, protestors, and the numbers could be much higher.

They're in the verification process.

And that really shook Iranians and sort of, you know, intensified and polarized the country.

Around the same time, President Trump's commentary was, "Help is on the way," to the Iranian people.

"We're coming to help you, stay on the streets."

And this regime, sometimes he even refers to what's going on in Iran falsely as regime change, right?

He came in with this promise to free Iranians initially.

And many ordinary Iranians who were opposed to the regime bought that narrative that thought that maybe this war was going to bring the regime down.

Now what's happened now that we're seeing that power is much more entrenched in Iran.

That even though the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was killed on the first day of the war, even though some of the military commanders at the top of the sort of the military power structure were killed, others took their place.

And Iran has been willing to take extreme risk sort of playing this madman policy of bombing, striking Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, American bases, Israel, and create a lot of chaos.

And also this new leverage that it has found, which is the Strait of Hormuz, where about a third of the global energy resources pass through.

So the government or the regime hasn't been toppled.

More hard line revolutionary guards generals have taken over.

And when I talk to many sources and Iranians on the ground, there's a real sense of disillusionment.

- So even before the war, Iranians were living with severe economic challenges.

That has intensified.

Talk about that.

I mean, a lot of people there are suffering.

- Yes, they're really suffering, Wayne.

They're, I mean, take the Country Statistic Center came out with a report just this week saying inflation for basic food items is between 100 to 400%.

- [Wayne] Wow.

- So there are, because the airstrikes, Israeli and American airstrikes, particularly Israeli ones targeted industries, the petrochemical plants that sort of feed raw material to Iran's industrial sector.

Factories are shutting down.

There are massive layoffs happening everywhere and people's purchasing powers are shrinking.

And you know, we're talking to people who say they can't even afford to buy, you know, basic goods to feed their families.

- Farnaz, you know, I think I wanna go back just a second.

I think that you said that people that you're talking within the country are essentially frustrated.

And I just wanna press a little bit there.

Are they frustrated with the regime?

Are they frustrated with the war?

Are they frustrated with the United States?

Who exactly are they frustrated with?

- They're frustrated with all of the above.

They are, for the opponents of the Iranian government, which if we go by voting polls or the majority of Iranians who want change, this situation's been very frustrating.

There's been, not only has there been no relief or freedom for this government, they're now dealing with a system that seems to be more emboldened because they can claim that they fought two military superpowers and they survived.

So they, you know, they're showing tendencies to be more oppressive against people.

So people are scared of the regime and frustrated.

They're also frustrated with a very mercurial American policy where one day President Trump says, "We wanna annihilate Iran and bomb it to Stone Ages."

The next day he says, "I want to meet Iranian Supreme Leader," and it would be an honor to meet him.

And another day he says, "I want to attack Iran."

So they can't really make sense of what's happening, you know, here.

- So Farnaz, when I wanna learn about what's happening in Iran, I go to your stories first.

And incredible reporting, we've already established that.

You have so many sources in Iran.

You identify them, typically, by occupation, Sometimes with a first name or a name, but not a full name.

How did you get all these sources?

How did you cultivate?

I mean, I know you have ties to Iran predating the war, but talk about that.

You know, as a fellow reporter, it's extraordinary to have.

- Thank you Wayne.

- These sources sources so far away.

- Can I say that it's extremely meaningful for me to hear you say this because you were my mentor when I was just starting my reporting career at the Providence Journal in Rhode Island.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

It means a lot to to hear that from you, Wayne.

Someone I've always looked up to your reporting and your work.

In terms of sources, you know, I've been covering Iran for now about three decades.

- [Wayne] Yeah.

- I'm Iranian American.

I used to travel to Iran pretty frequently.

I've lived in Iran.

And over the years, I've developed sources and a network of government officials, of security sources and ordinary Iranians in every sector that, you know, I've known and engaged with for a really long time.

And I think it's because of those years that I spent reporting inside the country and living and traveling inside the country that I can manage to get ahold of them because these are long established relationships, so I think that they trust me and they know that I'm a professional journalist.

So, you know, I would honor whatever terms of attribution that they, whether they wanna be on the record, on background, off the record.

So I think it's really from, you know, experience and many years of doing this.

- You know, Farnaz, when you were a war correspondent in Baghdad and you wrote that powerful account of ordinary life, "Waiting for an Ordinary Day: the Unraveling of Life in Iraq" in, I think 2008, I think is when it was published, you sort of gave us a firsthand account of what it was like to live in the midst of that American occupation.

Do you have a same sense, you mentioned the increase in inflation, but daily life, how has it changed for Iranians in the midst of this conflict?

- I think that the situation in Iran right now is quite different than what it was in Baghdad and in Iraq when I was there, because in Iraq, there was a ground invasion and a military occupation, so American forces were on the ground and there was also a very volatile insurgency against them.

So there were, you know, terrorist attacks all the time and people didn't feel safe to even, Iraqis didn't feel safe to go get, you know, fill up their car with gas or send their kids to school.

Iran is not quite like that because there's no ground invasion.

What Iranians fear is, you know, they're living in this state of limbo.

They don't know if attacks are gonna happen overnight when they wake up.

They don't know if the country's gonna go to war, and you know, they're going about their day-to-day lives.

People are going to work.

Their, you know, life goes on to some extent, but under extreme amount of anxiety about whether war is imminent and of course, the economy, as I mentioned.

- So during your career at the Wall Street Journal, you were stationed in many parts of the Middle East.

- Right.

- Places of severe danger.

How did you deal with the stress of that?

I mean, we were talking about this before we were taping here today.

We just can't imagine, you know, the threats, the possibility of kidnapping, of being killed or something else.

How did you deal with that?

- Yeah, I mean, Baghdad was particularly really bad, Wayne.

I was the Baghdad bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal for four years at the height of the war.

And my bureau was destroyed three times by suicide bombs and demolished.

And one time I was inside, and you know, was flung across the room and there were, like, two armed kidnapping attempts that I survived.

So, you know, I think that when you're there and I think this is the experience of many people who go through the experience of intense conflict, or conflict reporting, when you're there, it's almost like you're on an autopilot, right?

You're not really processing the danger.

I, you know, I had this sense of mission and sort of a, you know, a right or wrong higher calling that I had to, I had a responsibility.

I was being eyewitness to, you know, a massive war and it was my responsibility to sort of to document what was happening and tell the truth.

And I think that was the same for the other wars that I've lived through in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Syria, elsewhere, Afghanistan.

So, you know, you believe that you're doing really important work, but I think that the scars and the trauma of the war then follows you outside, right?

Like, I would feel the traumas and the post-traumatic stress when I would leave the conflict zones and come on vacation.

So I think that's something that I've spoken about and I think it's very real that you deal with these, the effects because, you know, you really can't unsee what you've seen in these situations and they stay with you for a while.

- So Farnaz, as of this recording, the President of the United States has said on a number of occasions that a peace deal with Iran was imminent.

And he said that a number of times, markets have moved, but the war has not ended, again, as of this recording.

Do we have any idea what that, I don't know, head fake, what those suggestions that a peace deal was imminent are really about?

- Right.

Iran and the United States have been negotiating for an initial agreement to end the conflict, open the Strait of Hormuz, and then you know, give, allow about 60 days for a real agreement over Iran's nuclear program and the lifting of sanctions for Iran.

And over the past couple of weeks, they've gotten close to drafting a final agreement and then, you know, it goes back and forth and sometimes President Trump changes his mind, sometimes the Iranians make a new demand.

We don't really, we've heard from both sides, particularly the Americans, that an agreement is very close and then nothing has materialized.

So it's really hard to tell, but we do know that negotiations are ongoing through intermediaries with Pakistan and Qatar and that if it does work out hopefully it will put an end to the conflict.

Some of the sticking points right now that they're still negotiating over is Iran has demanded to get some of its frozen assets released, several billion dollars in this first round of agreement and the US wants to see some sort of a line or a commitment in the paper that Iran would be willing to give up its nuclear program.

So these are some of the issues, some of the sticking points we have.

- I wanted to ask you about that, about the uranium in particular and the nuclear materials that Iran has acquired over the years.

Is there, I've read a lot of different analysis of this and there seems to be a healthy skepticism that Iran is ever going to give up those materials.

Where do you think that settles out?

- Well, I think the first thing to remember is that this is, again, a problem.

The stockpile of highly enriched uranium that Iran now holds, which experts say UN Atomic Agency says that it's enough to build five or six nuclear bombs if Iran chooses to weaponize its program.

- [Jim] Right.

- There's no proof that it has yet, but if it chooses, it has that material.

This is also a problem that was created after President Trump exited the nuclear deal known as JCPOA with Iran in 2018.

So Iran, in response to sanctions being reimposed on it, of having, you know, the US pull out of a deal, started accelerating enrichment to hold it as leverage.

I think that the Iranian, now where is that?

In June, last June, when the United States bombed Iran's three nuclear facilities, it is believed that the stockpile is buried under the ground in Isfahan, at the nuclear facility in Isfahan.

Retrieving it is extremely complicated and technical.

Iran says that it hasn't been able to retrieve it or access it yet.

But I also think that the Iranians really understand that the only way that they can actually have lasting peace and the only way that they will get any economic relief in terms of sanctions released or funds being frozen is to give up this stockpile.

And the proposal that Iran has, the Iranian government has made is that we will dilute this in our country and keep it here under safe levels, of civilian levels, under UN inspection, or we will send half of it, or part of it, or all of it to one of our allies like Russia.

President Trump's demand all along has been that Iran should give all of the stockpile over to the United States.

So this is another one of those sticking points.

Iran has agreed to give it up.

It's just how it's gonna give it up something that has to be negotiated.

- So this month, this month being June, you published a story headlined, "She lost her Career, Family, and Freedom.

She's Still Fighting to Change Iran."

And this person you named Narges Mohammadi.

Tell us about that story.

Again, a very, very powerful and intimate portrait of somebody that you photograph, or somebody photographed and you name.

- [Farnaz] Narges Mohammadi is Iran's most prominent human rights activist and women's rights activist.

She is also Iran's Nobel Peace Laureate.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while she was in jail.

And she spent the majority of her adult life in and out of prison, including just very recently where she was finally released a few weeks ago on furlough because she had a heart attack in prison, ended up in intensive care unit.

Narges is an activist that I've been privileged to know for more than two decades.

I remember, you know, how she's dedicated her life and started really at a very grassroots level educating, having workshops, you know, publishing books and researchers.

Even when she is in jail, she uses her, the prison as sort of a place to gather reporting and information and educate, you know, women about their rights.

- Farnaz, I wanna come back to the United Nations for a moment here.

The organization itself is under great pressures financial, organizational, political.

What is it that the American people need to know and understand about the United Nations?

- I think the United Nations is a very unique organization.

It's really the only place in the world where all of the countries, all of the, you know, member states, which are 196, can come together and congregate under the same roof and, you know, talk to each other, even during war.

I mean, it's really the only place that at the height of the war in Ukraine, the Russian ambassador and Ukrainian ambassador would be at the same table.

The same is true for the Gaza where Palestinian and Israelis at the same table, and now with Iran, and many other conflicts.

I also covered the UN during the North Korea missile crisis.

So it really is a very unique place in terms of providing a space for diplomacy to take hold and for conversations to happen.

And for countries to hear each other out, right?

And most important of all is also UN's humanitarian work.

I think that the UN is unmatched in terms of what it does with refugees, for the World Food Program, for, you know, education, children, UNICEF, it's children organization, protection of cultural heritage, the World Health Program.

You know, we can't imagine what, you know, the critical role it played during the pandemic.

So you have the UN as sort of this diplomatic place where everyone gathers, and then you have the UN agencies which are really carrying the weight of humanitarian work around the globe.

So I don't think we can really do without the UN.

Having covered the organization under four administrations and seeing how now it's, you know, being challenged because of budget cuts by the Trump administration, it's hard to see, imagine what it would be like if the UN didn't exist.

- Farnaz Fassihi, your reporting is essential reading.

With The New York Times, thank you so much.

That's all the time we have this week, but if you wanna know more about "Story in the Public Square," you can find us on social media or visit selve.edu/pellcenter where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

And thank you for spending some time with us too.

For G. Wayne Miller, I'm Jim Ludes, asking you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square."

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