Iran was reeling from American military attacks on its three main nuclear sites early Sunday, with four officials describing the mood in the government as one of defeat and national humiliation, amid divisions about how to respond.
Publicly, Iranian officials have tried to project a sense of normalcy even though nothing is normal. They have tried to play down the damage to the nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, even though satellite images show the mountainous site of Fordo’s underground facilities punctured with huge holes.
But Hamid Hosseini, a member of the country’s Chamber of Commerce energy committee, said in a phone interview from Tehran that Iran did not have the upper hand — militarily and technologically — and that it was time to stand down.
“We need to make national interests the priority,” he said. “We are not supposed to be at war forever.”
On Sunday, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, made public rounds in the capital, stopping at an anti-American demonstration in downtown Tehran and visiting patients of victims of the attacks at a hospital. A heart surgeon and former health minister, he praised the medical staff members for their service during the war.
In a post on social media, Mr. Pezeshkian wrote: “We will walk this path together. We will protect Iran and show the world that our great people are undefeatable.”
The post was accompanied by a photograph of Mr. Pezeshkian smiling and waving during his street appearance on Sunday, flanked by a crowd waving Iran’s flag.
State television and news media affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps reported that the nuclear sites had not sustained major damage, and that nearby residents in the area had not heard huge explosions. They broadcast scenes of people going about their daily routines, shopping at the market and driving on roads in Qum and Isfahan, the urban areas closest to the nuclear sites.
Abdollah Abdollahi, the conservative editor of the Tasnim news agency, wrote in an editorial that Iran’s nuclear program had three components — knowledge, technology and infrastructure — and that the American strikes had only partly damaged the last one. He called for Iran to “react without restraint to Israel and the United States aggression.”
Iran’s Atomic Safety Center said in a statement after the attacks that, as a precautionary measure before the U.S. strikes, the nuclear sites had been evacuated and equipment relocated.
Iran’s Red Crescent Society said 11 people had been injured in the attacks, and four remained hospitalized. The spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Health, Hossein Kermanpour, said none of the injured had signs of radiation contamination.
The war has been raging since Israel attacked Iran on June 13, and Iranian officials from all political factions appeared united in their calls for the country to retaliate immediately and forcefully. Iran and Israel have been exchanging strikes, with growing civilian casualties on both sides.
But going to war against the United States, which has toppled governments in the region through wars and invasions, including in countries neighboring Iran’s east and west, poses formidable risks for Iran’s clerical rulers.
The reactions from Iranian officials and prominent political and military pundits have been varied.
Conservative, hard-line members of Parliament called for Iran to leave the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran controls the strait, but any move to block vessels from transiting through the waterway could invite further U.S. attacks because about 20 percent of the world’s energy supply travels through it every day.
Ebrahim Rezaie, the spokesman for the national security and foreign committees of Iran’s Parliament, told Iranian news media that Tehran would not suspend its nuclear activity and that committee members were “insisting on a forceful and appropriate respond to the United States.”
He added, “Retaliation in kind and actions that would create deterrence is what we recommend.”
Other voices cautioned restraint. Former President Mohammad Khatami, the father of the reformist movement in Iran, said in a statement, “All decisions, positions, diplomatic and defense reactions must be made wisely, with foresight and without excitement and solely based on revenge.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will have the final say on how Iran responds to the American attacks. But almost 24 hours after the raids on the nuclear sites, Mr. Khamenei had made no official statement and had not addressed the nation.
Two Iranian officials said the questions on everyone’s minds were: “Where is Khamenei? Why isn’t he speaking?”
But the officials, who are familiar with his security protocols and insisted on not being named to discuss sensitive issues, said communication with Mr. Khamenei was extremely difficult and messages were being passed in writing and through human messengers, since he has been sheltering in a bunker without electronic communication.
But Mr. Khamenei’s top foreign policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati signaled tough posturing in a post on social media. But he stopped short of threatening military retaliation.
“Now that the United States has started the war,” he wrote, “it should know that the Islamic Republic of Iran will have the last word.”
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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