Thank you! There is a tendency, as you have noted, of some white-passing Iranians who immigrate to the US to claim “we are actually white”. I think it’s problematic and can be seen as racist - does this mean they consider non-white-passing to not be Iranian? Does it mean they think of themselves as better than immigrants that don’t pass as white? Here’s a photo to illustrate different ethnicities in the country:

Reza Pahlavi is the de facto opposition leader. I know this, because I’m knee deep in the Iranian comma through family and friends. I speak the language and follow their media.

There’s a lot of other things I found when cursorily looking into Ryan Grim and Drop Site News, of which he’s a co-founder.

For example, they’re interviewing Iran’s deputy foreign minister without asking any uncomfortable questions: https://www.youtube.com/live/9pU9x3sQ2-s

The coverage of the January 8-9 massacres is severely lacking. There is a lot of space given to the Islamic regime’s propaganda, for example this piece that claims to be “from the ground”: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/interview-tehran-iran-protests-internet-blackout-israel-trump-pahlavi-riots

This account tries extremely hard to paint a picture that an organization was behind the protests, that it is “inorganic”. The articles spreads misinformation, distorts reality and ignores the brutality of the Islamic regime.

So what I see when I look at Ryan Grim’s reporting, is cherry picking of sources to fit an agenda.

Context: Trita Parsi is the head of NIAC, which tries to look like the voice of Iranians in the US but is actually the IRGC’s lobby. He is not a reputable source and everything he says can be expected to be aligned with the Islamic regime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Iranian_American_Council

Wait, he wasn’t when they stripped his titles?

Actually, in Iran there is a full blown spectrum, from what in America is considered white, even blonde people, to what you consider black, and everything in between. There’s quite a bit of Asian, specifically Turkic and Mongolic, genes woven into it too.

All these people are considered Iranian.

It seems to be a tragic case of incorrect intel that lead to the school in Minab being targeted. I hope the US will take responsibility for it and improve procedures, this is not acceptable.

Carpet bombing is a way to discredit the attacks to indiscriminately target civilians. This is not the case. Yes, civilians who are in the wrong place at the wrong time sadly get caught in the cross fire, and sometimes intel is wrong. But the attacks so far have not proven to deliberately target civilians.

Hey, your reporter with “a strong track record” is posting gossip to discredit the Iranian opposition leader: https://x.com/i/status/2028841292856254552

They mean what they say and it is propaganda. In addition, the amount of civilian targets hit are few. The Islamic regime itself is responsible for a lot more deaths. The opinions of regime-critical Iranians inside the country can be summarized like this: yes, bombs are scary, but the regime is more scary.

Bombed, yes. Carpet bombed, no.

There is no carpet bombing of Tehran. This person is thus not a reputable source and you need to start doubting the rest of the claims until you find a better source.

You’re deliberately misrepresenting what I’m saying.

Regarding the school attack, it is not clear who were the perpetrators and all information is from regime media. UNESCO has initiated an investigation into it and we will see what the conclusion is.

Well, then I invite you to read some on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025–2026_Iranian_protests

Most prominently, here’s videos from within Iran, celebrating the death of Khamenei:

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603012558

Here’s a video of happy people watching explosions from their roof:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVWWwYKFVEJ/

More excitement:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVVtg3XCoE4/

Excited people stated they hit Khamenei’s palace:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVTV4B0FXdA/

Here’s a video of people calmly watching fires from burning buildings hit by missiles. They trust that they are not in danger, the strikes are precise.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVbmtmSE7Dt/

Edit: another video:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVWEZJZjsYl/

I see now that you have found sources since I wrote my comment. I guess we have some conflicting reports.

I’m not denying people are being killed. I’m saying there is some collateral damage but it’s probably a lot less than reported. In all conflicts there will unfortunately be some innocent people that die, this is impossible to avoid.

And yes, Iranians approve and even celebrate the attacks against the regime, of which they see themselves as hostages of. There are plenty of videos showing this. You should try talking to some actual Iranians.

Here’s an actual source to what Witkoff claims, to counter your unsubstantiated claim:

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/iran-israel-us-attack-03-02-26-intl-hnk?post-id=cmma1j89r00003b6bic23p4h5

“We discussed with them ten years of no enrichment whatsoever, and we would pay for the fuel,” he said. “They rejected that, which told us at that very moment that they had no notion of doing anything other than retaining enrichment to the purpose of weaponizing.”

Witkoff said he and Kushner, who was tasked with brokering a deal with him, believed an agreement was likely unattainable by the end of the second meeting, but returned for a third round as a final effort.

“It was very clear it was going to be impossible, probably by the end of the second meeting, but then we went back to the third meeting just to give it the last college try,” he said. “They wanted us to report positivity,” Witkoff added. “It was not positive that meeting.”

This is pure propaganda. Let me explain.

All friends and family we have contact with within Iran are not afraid of any strikes and describe the attacks as highly targeted. There is no “carpet bombing”.

The article cites NIAC, a propaganda piece of the IRGC, as a source, of which Trita Parsi is the head. All first-hand sources are directly controlled by the Islamic regime. The article even cites Hezbollah (!!!). I think this is very telling regarding overall credibility. Of course they have an interest in showing as high numbers of dead innocent civilians as possible.

Let’s say the number 500 over 4 days is correct. Of course this is tragic, but compare that to the 40 000 slaughtered by the Islamic regime on Jan 8-9. Iranians against the regime, which are the vast majority, see the US-Israeli attacks not as a start of the war but as a continuation of a war against the regime that has already started. The Iranians were screaming for foreign intervention, not because they necessarily like it, especially by the US and Israel, but because they see it as a necessity to get rid of the regime. Iranian civilians have tried and failed to get rid of the regime, because they lack weapons.

Iranians in general are pleased with the strikes on the leaders of the regime, there have especially been much celebration of the ayatollah being killed, but there is also a worry regarding what the war may bring, especially as they know that the US and Israel don’t have the best interest of the Iranian people in mind.

No. LLM-generated code can follow all standards and best practices while being utterly conceptually flawed. Code that is conceptually flawed would usually stink from afar, but LLMs enable people to easily produce utterly flawed code that does not smell, ruining one of the main rules of thumb that progranmers use to review code.

In the comments of this link you have two different people theorizing it is the IRGC who did this. I’ve read elsewhere that that this school is located within a military complex has been lifted as an argument that it is the work of the IRGC, as it would be easy for them to carry it out.

I haven’t seen any concrete evidence that it is this way or another. Let’s say that it is an Israeli attack - you could perhaps explain it as an attempt to hit the military complex that went horribly wrong. But the US and Israeli attacks have overall been more precise than this.

The collateral damage in other cases have been limited to unlucky people being at the wrong place at the wrong time, where the legitimate target happens to be. I read that so far there’s 133 civilians confirmed dead, of which 108 were at this school in question. Attacks like this will always have some collateral damage, and except for this school, I think it has been rather low.

I do not doubt anything about this attack taking place nor these details about it. It is a horrible attack. Do you have any evidence linking it to Israel, that is not just “Israel is attacking Iran today so this must be the work of Israel too”?