Ask your colleague if his family is still there... May be not.

or ask another colleague whose family is still there. Would be different answer.

Valid point but then again:

1. Not everybody lives in the direct nearing of the bombing/conflict hotspot

2. They weren’t doing that great before anyway (because, you know, the islamic totalitarian theocratic dictatorship)

3. They haven’t been doing great at all lately (because, you know, protests and turmoil and the violent repression from the aforementioned islamic totalitarian theocratic dictatorship)

Was this the answer from your other colleague?

I can vouch for people still there. I’m a Brit who married an Iranian who still has a large family in Iran. With the exception of one religious aunt who is married to a military man, all the Iranian family and friends we know have been hoping for intervention. We've had emotional messages from my wife’s cousin (a new mum) describing looking out of her apartment every night for the past month praying for planes overhead. Take that anecdata for what it’s worth.

Thank you for chiming in with your almost-first-hand experience.

It’s crazy that some people nowadays vouch for dictatorships.

Venezuela first, Iran now… absolutely crazy.

Agreed. I had an Iranian colleague also reach out who was ecstatic about this news. The hacker in me is curious to see how it all unfolds, as well as to see all the curious discussion that arises on this forum.

Hacker news needs to hear more of this. They are very out of touch with actual Iranian people who are cheering this on.

Hacker News has only ever existed in a post-Shah world. The state of Iran today can be traced directly back to US intervention.