Washington D.C. – The devastation wrought by Israel’s recent military campaign in Iran, including its airstrike on Evin Prison, has substantiated NIAC’s long-standing policy warnings: war with Iran will primarily harm civilians, embolden authoritarianism, and shut down pathways to a peaceful resolution. The war has not neutralized Iran’s nuclear program; rather, it has deepened suffering and entrenched repression. And it has made clearer than ever that diplomacy is not merely preferable, it is essential.
For years, NIAC and a broad spectrum of policy experts have opposed military escalation with Iran and advocated for diplomatic solutions, emphasizing the devastating impacts of war on ordinary people in the U.S. and Iran alike. Today, that warning is no longer abstract. It is evidenced by charred civilian infrastructure, mass casualties, and psychological trauma inflicted on an entire population.
Among the most disturbing acts was the June 23 Israeli airstrike on Evin Prison. As reported by The New York Times, at least 79 people were killed in the attack, including visiting family members, lawyers, physicians, social workers, children, and guards performing mandatory military service. The prison’s infirmary, food stores, library, and visitor center were destroyed during peak working hours. Nearly 100 transgender inmates remain missing and are presumed dead.
Despite this, Israeli officials characterized the strike as a “symbolic act” of liberation. This framing is a textbook example of pinkwashing: the cynical invocation of LGBTQ+ rights by a state actor to justify or sanitize its use of military force. The contradiction between claiming to champion Iranian LGBTQ+ communities and then bombing a prison ward filled with LGBTQ inmates and innocent civilians to the ground should be self-evident. It is a case study in co-opting human rights discourse to violate international humanitarian law.
Writing in The Intercept, NIAC President Jamal Abdi argues that this catastrophe could have been avoided. The Biden administration’s failure to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), despite possessing both the political mandate and procedural means to do so, missed the diplomatic window to prevent the war of today. Biden further enabled the genocide of Israel against the people of Gaza, breaking down international law and administering no accountability to Israel, which then expanded its campaign of violence to Iran last month. As a different President continuing down the path Biden paved, Trump’s military escalation of the past month has produced mass casualties while doing little to diminish Iran’s nuclear capability.
NIAC Policy Director Ryan Costello, writing for The American Conservative, notes that this war has followed the trajectory of past regime-change disasters, particularly Iraq. He warns that Prime Minister Netanyahu, like figures in the Bush administration before him, has strategically manipulated American political leadership into legitimizing a pre-emptive war on Iran without a clear objective or exit plan.
The consequences of these attacks extend beyond Iran’s borders. As Alex Shams writes in Truthout, the trauma induced by the bombings, particularly in Tehran, has reshaped the Iranian national psyche. He documents widespread civilian deaths, including entire families buried under rubble, and recounts the mass displacements, the collapse of public infrastructure, and the emotional toll on survivors.
NIAC remains unequivocal in its position: regime change cannot be imposed by external military force, and armed intervention undercuts the internal democratic aspirations of the Iranian people. The Israeli and U.S. decision to pursue a military solution over a diplomatic one has delivered not freedom, but destruction. It has delegitimized international law, destabilized regional security, and confirmed the dangers of policy guided by short-term optics rather than long-term outcomes.
We reiterate our call for:
- A full cessation of hostilities and enforcement of ceasefire obligations;
- Accountability for violations of international humanitarian law;
- Reinvestment in sustained, good-faith diplomacy;
- An end to the co-opting of human rights rhetoric to justify military aggression.
The events of the past month represent not only a humanitarian failure, but a strategic one. For those still debating whether diplomacy or war is the better path forward, the evidence is now tragically conclusive.