For Mothers in Iran, Sending Their Kids to School

For the past three weeks, I’ve been thinking about mothers in Iran. In particular, I’ve been thinking about mothers in Minab, Iran, who sent their children to school on February 28, the first day of the Israel-United States war with Iran. According to intelligence analyses, the U.S. military allegedly triple-tapped the school, sending bombs that killed children, then returning twice more to kill those who were searching the school’s ruins for survivors.

Initially, U.S. leadership refused to take responsibility for the bombing. Aboard Air Force One on March 7, President Donald Trump said “We think it was done by Iran – because they are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.” His Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, also denied culpability, saying “the only side that targets civilians is Iran.”

On social media, some folks in my hometown echoed the president’s claims, insisting that Iran was bombing its own children, that the U.S. was faultless in this war crime. When pressed, a few people (people with whom I once attended a Quaker church, and who I know are confessing Christians) doubled down, insisting that only Iran targets innocent people.

What struck me was this: rather than mourning the loss of innocence, or empathizing with families who had lost children, a few people immediately turned to defending Trump’s policies and U.S. imperialism. And defending Trump himself. Rather than expressing grief for the loss of so much humanity or any kind of contrition, Trump immediately went to deflection and blame and dehumanizing Iranian people—the only ones, he argued, so inhumane that they would kill their own.

It could be that Trump and his followers were mourning, I guess. But in the first moments after the school’s bombing, what seemed to matter most was protecting the president and MAGA, even when their own claim—that Iran bombed its children on the first day of war—betrayed distorted thinking. Because if the United States and Israel hadn’t started the war on February 28, those children’s lives wouldn’t have been imperiled, no matter who bombed the school, because there wouldn’t have been bombs to begin with.

Who Carries the Blame of Schoolchildren’s Deaths

And the United States was culpable, after all. On March 11, The New York Times reported that preliminary investigations showed that a Tomahawk missile struck the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, killing 175 people, most of them schoolchildren. Allegedly, the U.S. military was using outdated intelligence when it bombed the school.

The Wikipedia entry for the bombing notes that “One of the medics recounted that, following the first strike, the school’s principal moved a group of students to a prayer room and called parents, asking them to come pick up their children; that area was then hit by a second strike, killing most that had taken shelter.”

Instead of taking responsibility, President Trump has doubled down. Instead of expressing sadness at the tragedy, those I saw insisting that Iran was responsible have not returned to their posts, and have not apologized. It’s easier to accept the government’s lies about the event, I suppose, then contend with the fact that the United States does indeed kill school children.

But we know that already, don’t we? When 26 school children and educators were shot at Sandy Hook, the United States did nothing. On that day in December 2012, I met my kids at their elementary classroom after school, holding them tightly, their small arms wrapped around me. Like other mothers nearby, I was crying, even though my sons had no idea why.

I couldn’t fathom such a horrible event happening again. And then it did. Again and again and again. In the ten years after that event, another 279 children died in school shootings. No meaningful gun control measures have been passed, and in the first months of 2026, another seven people have died in school shootings.

So no, Mr. President plenty of “sides” target children, including the United States.

The Problem of Dehumanization

Right now, I’m in Indiana, teaching a Lifelong Learning class for retirees about our media environment, how it traffics in lies, and how Christians should be valiant for the truth (in the words of George Fox). In tomorrow’s class, I will address the ways disinformation relies on dehumanization to achieve its ends.

Our federal government is, at this moment, lying to us about the war, asking us to believe what they say, despite all evidence to the contrary. The president is caricaturing Iranians as savages, willing to drop bombs on their own schools, knowing that this dehumanization will make his egregious actions a little more palatable.

People I know, and with whom I have worshiped in a Quaker church, are supporting these claims, repeating them on social media, and backing a war that surely makes Jesus weep:

For the loss of people who bear God’s image.

For innocent children, killed in Iranian and United States classrooms.

For mothers who will not welcome their children home from school today, and will not feel again the joy of their children’s arms, wrapped tightly around their necks.

Postscript: I recognize this post is filled with despair, given how dark the news is right now. Elsewhere, I’ve written about how we can still have hope, despite so much darkness. You can read more here about When the News Breaks Your Heart.