The first time Mohammad Tolouei wrote to us was on June 22, 2025—ten days after the start of the Israeli strikes on Iran during what has come to be known as the “Twelve-Day War.” The writer was not in his country at the time—something he regretted. Eager to carry the voice of Iranians, he sent us a narrative drawn from conversations he had with residents of Tehran. Together, these testimonies painted an intimate, layered portrait of everyday life at the heart of a conflict that had erupted suddenly. In a language both poetic and laced with subtle irony, Tolouei captured the echoes of a country caught in turmoil.
On January 8 and 9, at the height of the protests violently repressed by the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, we reached out to him again. Concerned for his country and his loved ones, he had decided to return home. This time, it is in the form of a journal that he recounts this new war, triggered on Saturday, February 28 by U.S.-Israeli strikes, with an underlying, haunting question: should one leave, or stay?
This week, Le Nouvel Obs devoted six pages to his journal, which I had the pleasure of editing.