As Trump's Deadline Nears, Iranians Dread the Darkness

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/world/middleeast/iran-trump-power-plants.html

https://archive.ph/bARvs

As Trump’s Deadline Nears, Iranians Dread the Darkness
With President Trump threatening to strike Iranian power plants, some war-weary civilians are panicking over a possible new debacle.
By Farnaz Fassihi
March 22, 2026

President Trump’s threat to strike power plants in Iran, which could plunge much of the country of 90 million people into darkness, has set off widespread fear and anxiety among Iranians at home and abroad.

Threatened counterstrikes by Iranian officials on power and desalination plants in the region did not help ease jittery nerves. Many Iranians — on social media, in text messages and phone interviews — expressed growing dread about the war rapidly escalating.

Some also said they were confused about the messaging from the U.S. president.

At the onset of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran last month, Mr. Trump told the Iranian people that “help” was on the way and encouraged them to rise up against the government. Now, some say, he seems to be threatening to set them back to the Stone Age.

"Cutting off electricity means cutting off the lifeline,” Golshan Fathi, an activist in Tehran, said in a social media post. “Gasoline, banks, water, health care, mobile phones, disruption to vital devices like ventilators and dialysis machines, home patients (with oxygen generators, medical devices), cold storage and everything.”

...

[flamingdem]

1. Reports on X say that Israel is already bombing infrastructure in Tehran

They didn't wait for the deadline apparently.

[Skittles]

2. the Iranian folk need to understand

TRUMP. CANNOT. BE. TRUSTED.

*BY ANYONE*

[walkingman]

3. What could the US possibly expect to gain by creating generational hate for America?

[C Moon]

6. Since when does the gop care about the US? It's all about the gop.

The gop is a cancer.

[Justice matters.]

4. So orange $$$$atan wants to "liberate" the Iranian people by...

killing them all (no electricity, no water, no food)?

[markodochartaigh]

5. Well, one definition of freedom is

nothing left to lose.

[Another Jackalope]

7. Doees anyone here follow Umair Haque?

At this point in history he's worth a read. You could start here: Trump is taking the world to the edge of catastrophe

His worst fear is that the game of bombing tit-for-tat that's looming on the now-30-hour horizon is going to result in a virtually total shutoff of the oil/gas etc. supply coming from the Middle East. Not just a closure of the Strait but a complete halt to production, with recovery (if possible at all) measured in years.

20 years ago I was a Peak Oil uber-doomer with a very clear image of what a post-oil, post-apocalyptic world could look like. What's on the horizon now looks just like a severe Peak Oil scenario, but compressed into days and weeks rather than months and years. Makes Peak Oil look like a bedtime story.

I don't really know what to do for myself and my disabled partner. We are both retired and getting by on pensions, she has some investments but I do not. All I can think of doing is converting my credit limits into cash. But frankly, I don't even expect cash to be of much use, given the price shocks that would inevitably accompany an event like this.

If Umair is even partially right (and I think he probably is) I'm screwed. And I was so hoping I'd die before the crisis hit, not as one of its casualties.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. Well I guess both Trump's and Iran's buddy Putin

has already established that this is a legitimate form of warfare. At least the Iranians won't be freezing to death.

Probably not a great idea if you want to get the civilian population on your side, but it's clear that this has never been about freeing the Iranian people. He'll be happy with a more cooperative but just as repressive Ayatollah.