Monday Morning Brief- From Easter Post to Bombed Universities
Iran's Minister of Science Hossein Simaee Sarraf inspects the damage at the research building of the Shahid Beheshti University, which was damaged by a US-Israeli attack on April 4, 2026 [Majid Asgaripour/Wana via Reuters]
On Easter Sunday, the president marked the holiday with a profanity‑laced Truth Social post threatening Iran with “Power Plant Day” and “Bridge Day” if it didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz, ending with the line “Praise be to Allah.” In other words, the head of state used a religious holiday message to promise hell on earth for another country’s civilians.
Since then, U.S. and Israeli strikes have intensified across Iran, and universities are among the targets. Sharif University of Technology and other campuses have been hit, with labs and research facilities destroyed and students and staff among the casualties. Iranian officials are describing this as an attack on their scientific and intellectual backbone, not just on military assets.
When a president talks casually about plunging a country into “hell” and jokes his way through threats to civilian infrastructure, and then we watch universities get bombed in real time, it tells us something about our own democracy. It says that turning campuses into targets is compatible with Easter piety, social‑media spectacle, and business‑as‑usual politics at home. The least we can do is refuse to call that normal, and refuse to let it scroll by as just another post.
I will have more on this later in a longer breakdown, both here and on my podcast.
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