A Letter for History to the Criminals and Whitewashers of Bloodshed in the Name of Peace
Narrative of War from Within
Parvin Fahimi
I am Parvin Fahimi—
A mother from this country, a mother who believes in peace, a mother whose child, Sohrab Arabi, was taken from her by this very regime during Iran’s 2009 Green Movement. I write this letter to you: to you, Mr. Donald Trump; to you, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu; and to those who received awards in the name of peace, yet stayed silent as Iran was bombed and attacked. Know this: I write not to begin a dialogue with you, but to place this on the record of history.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu,
The two of you are not human beings who have thrown the world into chaos—you are fundamentalists who, in the name of religion, power, and wealth, have made life unbearable for people across the globe. You do not act for your own people, but for the interests of the networks to which you belong. You attack lands, kill human beings, and destroy everything that makes life possible.
This is the second time in less than a year that you have attacked my homeland, Iran. And once again, the same story repeats:
The destruction of land, the spilling of innocent blood, and a future shattered before our eyes.
You strike homes—homes where mothers lull their children to sleep.
You strike factories—where bread reaches people’s tables.
You strike universities—where our youth are raised to build the future.
You strike bridges, roads, power plants, hospitals—everything that makes life possible for people.
And then, shamelessly, you call it “humanitarian intervention.”
Humanitarian? You?
What people? What lives?
Despite all the pressure you imposed on us, despite sanctions that enriched only a few inside and outside the country, we still lived. We stood firm. Whenever we could, we protested and fought for our rights against our own government.
But you, through a premeditated decision, and with the help of those Iranians who have turned against this land, came and took from us even the ability to breathe, fight, and resist.
We do not want your ‘democracy’—not a thousand times over. That ‘democracy’ is dependency; it is colonization. Neither the people of this land nor other nations of the world have ever begged you for such a thing.
History stands before us all:
from Iran after the 1953 coup to Nicaragua,
from Bosnia to Libya,
from Afghanistan—which you occupied and then abandoned—to Iraq, still buried under rubble,
and now, once again, Iran.
Has all this “kindness” in the name of democracy not been enough? What right do you have to decide the future of the world? And to those of you who believe some Iranians support you—know this: they are not of us. Being Iranian is more than a birth certificate. Those who dance with the lion-and-sun flag and the flag of Israel, thirsting for blood, are not our compatriots. They mirror your own violence.
And of course, the people of your countries—who brought criminals like you to power—must also answer for the suffering inflicted on people around the world. History has never remained silent about the crimes of the past.
As a mother who lost her child for freedom, I will never allow you to decide the future of my country.
Our children did not die so that one form of oppression could be replaced with another. If they were alive today, they would stand alongside the people, against you:
Against internal oppression, and against external invasion.
And despite all this pain, all this destruction, I still believe this:
We will rebuild—
our homes,
our factories,
our schools,
our bridges.
Because this people, time and again, has risen like a phoenix from the ashes, and will rise again.
And to those of you who carry the name of “peace” and wear its prize upon your chests:
Know that the award you received in the name of peace will never be rightfully yours. You have profited from the blood of the youth of this land, and from the people of Palestine and Lebanon. You have traded in the blood of Iranians, Palestinians, and the Lebanese, selling it to those who thirst for it, and now stand waiting for your share of the spoils of war. Nowhere in history has peace been achieved through the bloodshed of people.
No silence is justifiable in the face of this massacre. How is it that when it comes to the lives of prisoners, you can and do speak, issue warnings, and expose injustice—and rightly so—yet in the face of war crimes in Minab, the targeting of the Pasteur Institute, and the destruction of infrastructure across Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon, you cannot bring yourselves to speak? Surely, you know this better than I do, but for the sake of public awareness and for the record of history, it is worth recalling Le Duc Tho. He was a Vietnamese military officer and diplomat who became in 1973 the first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Kissinger, for the peace negotiations during the Vietnam War. Le Duc Tho refused to accept the prize because he would not stand beside a criminal like Kissinger, and out of respect for his people.
How is it that one can admonish Aung San Suu Kyi for her crimes, telling her to ‘honor the dignity of the Peace Prize,’ yet then, in the name of peace, call upon the likes of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to bomb Iran? Even if it is argued that such requests were merely for targeted strikes against government leaders and military and security institutions, supposedly without harming civilians, this still does not justify the whitewashing of bloodshed in the name of peace. It was precisely these requests that clothed this devastating war in legitimacy and allowed criminals to stand behind podiums and declare, ‘They themselves are asking us to bomb them!’
How can a Nobel Peace Prize laureate seek help from someone who, beyond mere allegation, is widely regarded as having sexually abused children, and who in his own society is known as an anti-immigrant, anti-woman, and anti-LGBTQ fascist?
How can a human rights activist call upon a criminal force to assassinate others? Does the principle “the end justifies the means” now apply even to human rights advocates?
How can one claim the peace prize and stand beside someone who, along with his supporters, constantly thanks those who have attacked his own country, those who rain bombs on his fellow citizens, those who destroy the country’s infrastructure, unless he has sold his conscience for promises of power, for the prospect of rising to power over the corpses of the people?
Who knows? Perhaps history will remember not only the criminal Aung San Suu Kyi and Machado, Trump’s lackey, who dedicated his prize to a criminal, but others too: those who, in order not to lose a worthless prize, shut their eyes to crimes against humanity and changed colors at every turn.
History will judge:
In a time when bombs rained down upon this land, were you the guardians of peace, or was it the grieving mothers and widows who fought both internal oppression and external invasion, and refused to let the name of ‘peace’ become a tool for the destruction of their homeland?
Farvardin 1405 (April 2026)
