Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Thorne, Senior Lecturer in Computing and ​Information Systems, Cardiff Metropolitan University

The global outcry over the sexualisation and nudification of photographs – including of children – by Grok, the chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, has led to urgent discussions about how such technology should be more strictly regulated.

But to what extent can technology also be used to prevent this explosion in the generation and sharing of deepfake content of real people, without their knowledge or consent?

On January 10, Indonesia became the first country to announce it was temporarily blocking access to Grok, followed soon after by Malaysia. Other governments, including the UK’s, have promised to take action against the chatbot and its related social media site X (formerly Twitter), on which the sexualised images have been shared.

But while outright national bans can limit casual use of the chatbot, such bans are easily bypassed using virtual private networks (VPNs) or alternative routing services. These mask the user’s real location and make it appear they originate from a location that allows access to the service.

As a result, country-level bans tend to reduce visibility rather than eliminate access. Their primary impact is symbolic and regulatory, placing pressure on companies such as xAI rather than preventing determined misuse. And content generated elsewhere can still circulate freely across borders via encrypted social media platforms and on the dark web.

In response to the controversy, X moved Grok’s image-generation features behind a paywall, making them only available to subscribers. X subsequently posted that it takes “action against illegal content on X, including child sexual abuse material, by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary”. Grok itself apologised for “the incident”, describing it as a “serious lapse”.

How the technology works

While not all chatbots have image generation capabilities, most of the mainstream providers including OpenAI, xAI, Meta and Google provide this service.

Modern AI image generators are typically built using diffusion models, which are trained by taking real images and gradually adding random visual distortion, known as noise, until the original image is no longer recognisable. The model then learns how to reverse this process, step by step, reconstructing an image by removing noise.

Over time, it will learn statistical patterns representing faces, bodies, clothing, lighting and other visual features. These patterns are organised within the model so that visually similar concepts sit close together. Because clothed and unclothed human bodies share very similar shapes and structures, the changes required to move between them can be relatively small.

So, when an existing image is used as the starting point and identity-preserving features are retained, transforming a clothed photograph into an unclothed one becomes technically straightforward. Of course, the AI model itself has no understanding of identity, consent or harm. It simply produces images that resemble what it has learned, in response to user requests.

However, after the core model has been trained, companies can apply “retrospective alignment” – rules, filters and policies that are layered on top of the trained system to block certain outputs and align its behaviour with the company’s ethical, legal and commercial principles.

But retrospective alignment does not remove capability; it simply limits what the AI image generator is allowed to output. Those limits are primarily a design and policy choice made by the company operating the chatbot, although these may also be shaped by legal or regulatory requirements imposed by governments – for example, requiring companies to disable or restrict certain features such as identity-preserving image generation.

Large, centrally hosted social media platforms could also play an important role here. All have the power to restrict the sharing of sexual imagery involving real people, and to require explicit consent mechanisms from those featured in images. But to date, the big tech companies have tended to drag their feet when it comes to labour-intensive moderation of their users’ content.

‘Jailbreaking’

Research by Nana Nwachukwu, a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin’s Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology, highlighted the frequency of requests for sexualised images on Grok. Other research has estimated that before the service went behind a paywall, up to 6,700 undressed images were being produced every hour.

This has prompted regulatory scrutiny in Europe and beyond. French officials described some outputs as manifestly illegal and referred them to prosecutors. The UK’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, has launched an investigation into X and xAI over the issue.

But this problem is not limited to one platform. In early 2024, non-consensual AI-generated sexual images of Taylor Swift, produced using publicly available tools, spread widely on X before being removed because of a combination of legal risk, platform policy enforcement and reputational pressure.

Some platforms explicitly market minimal or no content restrictions as a feature rather than a risk. It is simple enough to find websites promoting “unrestricted” image generation and privacy focused use, relying largely on open-source models and offering far fewer moderation controls than mainstream providers. Furthermore, there is an even larger number of self-hosted image and video generation tools where safeguards can be removed entirely.

While precise figures are unavailable, independent estimates suggest tens of millions of AI generated images are created daily across platforms, with video generation rapidly accelerating.

Another potential issue is that some AI chatbots, including Meta’s Llama and Google’s Gemma, can be downloaded onto computers (even those with relatively light processing power), after which these models are completely free of oversight or moderation when run offline.

Even tightly controlled systems can be bypassed through “jailbreaking” – a way of constructing prompts to fool the generative AI system into breaking its own ethics filters.

Jailbreaking exploits the fact that retrospective alignment systems depend on contextual judgment, rather than absolute rules. Rather than directly asking for prohibited content, users reframe their prompts so the same underlying action appears to fall within an allowed category such as fiction, education, journalism or hypothetical analysis.

An early example was known as the “grandma hack”, because it involved a recently deceased grandmother recounting experiences from her technical profession in chemical engineering, leading the model to generate step-by-step descriptions of prohibited activities.

Speed and scale

The internet already contains an enormous quantity of illegal and non-consensual sexual imagery, far beyond the capacity of authorities to remove. What generative AI systems change is the speed and scale at which new material can be produced. Law enforcement agencies have warned that this could lead to a dramatic increase in volume, overwhelming moderation and investigative resources.

Laws that may apply in one country can be ambiguous or unenforceable when services are hosted elsewhere. This mirrors longstanding challenges in policing child sexual abuse material and other illegal pornography, where content is frequently hosted offshore and rapidly redistributed. Once images spread, attribution and removal are slow and often ineffective.

By making countless millions more people aware of the possibility of sexualising and nudifiying images, high-profile AI chatbots make it possible for large numbers of users to generate illegal and abusive sexual imagery through simple plain English prompts. Estimates suggest Grok alone currently has anywhere from 35 million to 64 million monthly active users.

If companies can build systems capable of generating such imagery, they can also stop it being generated. However, the technology exists and there is a demand for it – so the reality is, this capability can never now be eliminated.

Simon Thorne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What can technology do to stop AI-generated sexualised images? – https://theconversation.com/what-can-technology-do-to-stop-ai-generated-sexualised-images-273327

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chloe Casey, Lecturer in Nutrition and Behaviour , Bournemouth University

Those hoping to lose weight this year might be tempted to try to a diet challenge in the hopes of kick-starting their weight loss. But while we might think these kinds of short-term, restrictive diets will help give our waistlines a nudge, psychology and physiology shows us why this strategy can be so hard to stick to – and why it probably won’t result in long-term weight loss.

Research estimates that as few as 20% of people who lose weight through dieting manage to keep the weight off long-term.

For decades, psychologists have been trying to understand why it is that diets so often fail.

One potential reason for this is that diets often involve strict food rules – such as avoiding the foods you enjoy.

The problem with this strategy is that the foods people tend to crave most – such as chocolate, ice cream and crisps – activate the brain’s reward system. This creates positive feelings.

When we cut these foods out of our diet, we lose the pleasure they bring. This can then trigger food cravings – a complex psychological process where we experience an intense desire to eat a particular food, even when we’re not hungry.

Food cravings are often dependent on mood and may be particularly bad when we feel stressed. They can also be especially intense in the afternoon and evening when we feel more tired and have less willpower to resist these cravings.

Food cravings can drive overeating, especially when trying to diet. One review even showed that when people deliberately excluded certain foods from their diet, they experienced an increase in cravings for the foods they were avoiding.

Although the review’s authors conclude that this response can be unlearned, it explains why even short-term restrictive diets tend not to work. Crash diets can trigger stronger food cravings, which can make it harder to stick to your goals – and may even lead to weight gain instead.

Repeated dieting failures can also harm self-efficacy (our belief in our own ability to succeed), a psychological resource important for making lasting behaviour changes.

Nutritionists also agree that short-term restrictive diets aren’t great for long-term weight loss success.

Our appetite (how hungry we feel) and satiety (how long we feel full) are controlled by complex physiological signalling pathways that play a significant role in weight loss.

When we follow very low-calorie diets, our bodies react by increasing appetite, reducing satiety and even reducing energy expenditure (how many calories we burn).

The body also compensates for drastic calorie reductions by sending stronger hunger signals to the brain. This can drive overeating.

These physiological responses mean diets that are too restrictive can make weight loss harder – and may even lead to weight regain.

From an evolutionary perspective, these responses helped our ancestors to survive food scarcity – but today, it explains why severe calorie restriction so often leads to weight regain. In fact, research shows that people tend to regain about 50%–70% of the weight they lose after dieting.

Another possible explanation for this phenomenon is that you’re not just losing fat when the scale drops – you lose muscle too. This matters because muscle is a key contributor to resting energy expenditure, which is part of your metabolism. Research has also shown that a loss of muscle mass is associated with weight regain.

Since rapid weight loss diets create a large energy deficit and may contain lower amounts of protein, this increases the risk of losing muscle mass. It also increases your chances of regaining weight you may have lost while on the diet.

The best strategies for weight loss

If you’re aiming to make a substantial weight loss attempt, an “all-or-nothing” crash diet may not be your best option. A slower, more balanced approach is far more likely to protect your muscles and support longer-lasting results.

Think nutrient quality, not calories

When it comes to eating well, the key is not to “diet”. As we’ve shown, restricting calories often backfires as our bodies and brains compensate by increasing food cravings and hunger signals. So instead of focusing on what to cut out, think about what you can add to meals to make them healthier.

The types of food we eat influences our appetite and satiety signals – not just the number of calories we consume. For example, protein provides feeling of fullness, and high-fibre carbohydrates keep us more satisfied than highly processed refined ones.

So, aim for nutrient-rich foods. Adding plenty of fibre to your meals, such as whole grains, legumes, lentils, beans, fruits and vegetables, is a great start.

Research suggests that eating more fibre as part of a balanced diet can also help you maintain a healthy body weight throughout your life.

So, rather than making short-term changes in January, aim for small swaps you can stick with throughout the year.

Think like a health coach

Health psychologists have developed frameworks of behaviour change techniques that are known to help people change their physical activity and eating behaviour longer term. These evidence-based techniques are usually used by health coaches to support patients with lifestyle changes – but you can be your own coach by applying some of them yourself.

Examples include setting goals, making an action plan, identifying barriers, or teaming up with a friend or partner.

In practice, this could mean setting a goal to lose a realistic amount of weight per week incrementally (around one to two pounds per week), identifying the things that might get in the way of your goals, exercising with a friend and tracking your progress.

Quick-fix, low-calorie diet challenges might promise fast results, but they rarely deliver lasting change. Following evidence-based advice from the fields of psychology and nutrition can help you avoid the restrictive diet trap this January and achieve more sustainable, longer term lifestyle changes.

Sarah Hillier has previously received research funding from Slimming World (2019).

Chloe Casey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why strict diets are a bad idea for long-term weight loss – https://theconversation.com/why-strict-diets-are-a-bad-idea-for-long-term-weight-loss-272755

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mark Lorch, Professor of Science Communication and Chemistry, University of Hull

Our beliefs aren’t fixed. They’re shaped, stretched and sometimes overturned by the ideas we encounter as we move through life. For many of us, books are the moments where that shift happens – a sentence that lingers, an argument that unsettles, a story that re-frames how we see the world. We asked 12 academic experts to share the book that challenged their assumptions and changed their thinking in a lasting way.

1. A Very Short Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (2002)

For much of my life as a scientist, I struggled to understand how anyone could have religious faith and follow the scientific method. Then I came across A Very Short Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and within it philosopher David Hume’s problem with inductive reasoning.

Induction lets us predict from patterns – if 11 eggs in a dozen are rotten, we expect the 12th to be rotten too. But as Hume notes, this reasoning is logically flawed: we justify induction by saying it has worked before, which is circular because it uses induction to defend itself.

This line of thought reshaped my views. There is no ultimate logical proof that induction works; I simply believe it does. In other words, I have faith in the scientific method.

Realising this stopped me fretting about how others reconcile science and religion. Faith and evidence coexist in my own thinking. I’m no more inclined to believe in a god, but I no longer have a problem understanding how faith and science can inhabit the same mind.

Mark Lorch is a biochemist, writer, and Professor of science communication

2. Nature is a Human Right, edited by Ellen Miles (2022)

Like so many others, I found myself gravitating back towards the natural world during the COVID pandemic, both in my academic work and my personal life. And I’d come to understand how disconnection and detachment from nature was harming the health and happiness of millions of people worldwide. But I hadn’t given much serious thought to equitable access to nature until I’d read Nature Is a Human Right.

The collection of essays and writings in this edited volume irrevocably convinced me that contact with, and access to, the natural world should not just be a privilege for some, but enshrined as a basic right for everyone.

The collection of ideas and arguments in this book – sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes upsetting – has persuaded me that we have to take action, not just to protect the natural world, but to ensure that contact with nature is a birthright for everyone.

Viren Swami is a professor of psychology

3. The Sketchnote Handbook by Mike Rhode (2012)

When I completed my PhD in 2012, I felt a strong pressure to adhere to a narrow view of computer science, where creativity and storytelling were often seen as superfluous. Then I attended a sketchnotes workshop, a practice I had never encountered before. Sketchnotes is a visual note-taking method that combines words and sketches to support creativity and memory recall.

The facilitator recommended Rohde’s book, and during my postdoctoral research, it quietly transformed my perspective. Joining the sketchnotes community, I met people from diverse backgrounds – teachers, chief technical officers and physicists – creating compelling visual stories. The book and community showed me that sketching should not be overlooked in computer science. Something I had always kept as a personal practice could become central to my research and teaching.

I challenged the stereotype of sketching as a “soft skill” and embraced it as a disciplined, creative and impactful way to understand people and their interactions with technology. Now, sketching is not just a tool, but a mindset that shapes everything I do.

Makayla Lewis is an senior lecturer of computer science (user experience)

4. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2015)

In Tchaikovsky’s novel, Earth has become uninhabitable and humanity spreads out into the stars in search of a new home. After much trial and error, we find a viable world – but it’s already home to a species of intelligent spiders.

I’m arachnophobic, so this novel might seem like an odd choice. However, Children of Time is told partly from the spiders’ perspective, and though they don’t think exactly like us, we can empathise with them as we follow the sometimes-painful growth of their civilisation, and their inevitable encounter with scary alien invaders – us.

I’m not claiming this novel to be a miracle cure, but it prompted me to reflect on my anxiety. I’m not going to get a pet tarantula anytime soon, but I’m more mindful of spiders than I was before. They really are quite fascinating little creatures when you get to know them.

Jack Fennell is a lecturer in English

5. On the Plurality of Worlds by David Lewis (1986)

Is the past real? How about the future? Common sense says no: the present encapsulates all existence. I used to agree. Then, in my early 20s, I read On the Plurality of Worlds. David Lewis’s metaphysical masterpiece changed my mind about many things, but most profoundly about time.

Lewis convinced me that time is analogous to space. Spatially distant objects (a café in Paris, a crater on Mars) are real, even if they aren’t “here”. Lewis argues time is identical. The past and future are merely temporal locations.

This leads to a stunning conclusion: Julius Caesar and the dinosaurs have just as much existence as you and I, even if they aren’t “now”. They haven’t vanished into nothingness. They are simply located elsewhere in the temporal dimension. The same applies to future things and events. Once I accepted this, I stopped seeing reality as a fleeting moment and began to see it as a vast, existing landscape of time. It was a complete conceptual shift that has remained with me ever since.

Benjamin L. Curtis is a senior lecturer in philosophy

6. Humankind: A Hopeful History and Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman (2019)

From criminal punishment to tax incentives, modern society assumes humans need guidance to avoid their worst instincts. Humankind by Rutger Bregman offers a very different perspective on our species and how peace can be achieved.

Have you ever felt embarrassed by blushing? You shouldn’t – blushing is a “superpower”. Our capacity to show shame helps form complex social bonds. History shows the most stable societies temper leaders’ ambitions and promote humility. Humans generally prioritise fairness over harm, and when violence occurs, it’s often due to hierarchy, not innate instinct. Bregman cites studies showing that leadership can reduce empathy, increase selfishness and encourage cheating.

The book challenged my view of government. I’d believed strong laws create order, but often it’s attempts to control others that empower strong leaders and cause instability. True social order comes from daily human relationships. A better world requires rethinking how we distribute power.

Michael Strange is an associate professor of international relations

7. Shikasta by Doris Lessing (1979)

When I was 18, Doris Lessing’s Shikasta first crossed my path. Even if I now, 46 years later, no longer remember the details of the plot, I still recall the unsettling feeling the novel gave me. It was as if I had glimpsed a dark future.

Materialism, egoism, war and unemployment thrived while deeper values as striving for collaboration or peace (ha!) vanished in to the air. When I read the book, I started to look upon the state of the world in new light. I wondered if the injustices on our planet could be avoided. And what we could expect in a nearby future.

I was both a bit scared and at the same time had the feeling that I had understood or seen something others didn’t talk about. For a long time, I waited to see Lessing’s vision unfold. Perhaps, in some ways, it now has.

Eva Wennås Brante is an associate professor in educational science

8. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (2011)

Sapiens brilliantly weaves its author’s expertise in anthropology, behavioural science, geopolitics and socioeconomics into an enthralling, astute and thoroughly entertaining book that challenged, demolished and rebuilt my worldview. The unexpected ways creating, sharing and learning from stories have influenced who we trust, what we believe and how we govern ourselves, as individuals and as organised groups, are masterfully explained in the book.

In particular, the exploration of the impact of storytelling on our communities and the way we define, experience and shape culture fascinated me.

Harari draws from a wealth of real world examples that offer a fresh perspective on key historical events and core aspects of our societies that we routinely take for granted. I gained a new understanding of life and how to live it.

Alina Patelli is a senior lecturer in applied artificial intelligence

9. 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth (1990)

In the 90s, my father gave me 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth by the Earth Works Group. It started with short summaries on global environmental concerns at the time (the hole in the ozone layer, pollution, biodiversity loss). But then, importantly, it proceeded to give readers ideas about practical changes in their lives they could do to address those global concerns.

As a child, this book taught me that these were global issues but that my actions mattered, that we all had the power to help our natural world. It changed my mind about who can solve global problems and helped set me on a path to get involved in environmental conservation, which eventually became a career in marine climate change research. Today, this experience tells me that it is never too early to start thinking about what we as individuals can do for nature.

Ana M. Queirós is a professor in climate change and marine biology

10. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (1946)

During my postdoctoral research, I was drawn towards Holocaust testimonies including Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (1947) and Night by Elie Wiesel (1956). These are powerful, remarkable memoirs, but the book that redirected my thoughts was Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.

Holocaust testimonies explore the experience of struggle, the shock of witnessing the unthinkable, the terrifying logistics of a genocide. But Man’s Search for Meaning also offers the reader an insight into Frankl’s enlightened psychological perspective as this book was written while he was still inside the camp, rather than as a reflection afterwards.

Frankl was an established psychiatrist when sent to Auschwitz, but his reflections on the meaning of abject psychological and physical suffering pushed him into philosophical territory. In the darkest place on Earth, he found an existential truth: A person can “choose one’s attitude in any set of given circumstances, to choose one’s own way”. He refers to this choice as “the last inner freedom … a spiritual freedom” in the face of despair and death.

Laura Stephenson is a senior lecturer in film

11. The Concept of the Mind by Gilbert Ryle (1949)

Pre-eminent among the books that have forever changed my thinking is Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind. In medical school I learnt all about the human sciences but was baffled by psychology, a parallel universe where the laws of physics didn’t seem to apply. Ryle explained that there’s no “ghost in the machine” but that we can describe our one world using a physical or a psychological vocabulary.

When I worked as a psychiatrist, The Concept of Mind showed me that different models of mental illness based on neurophysiology or psychoanalysis or behaviourism or social rehabilitation could all, in principle, be correct.

So I was free to help change patients minds by altering their neurochemistry or by psychological means, confident that their brains would also heal.

Ryle implies that inferences about mental facts should be as carefully drawn as those about physical phenomena. But it has seemed to me, as a mental capacity law researcher, that the process of inferring capacity is tortuous and irretrievably subjective. The Concept of Mind has given me the confidence to challenge the law and to provide radical alternatives. I am greatly in Gilbert Ryle’s debt.

Jonathan Fisk is a PhD candidate in law

12. The Mushroom at the End of The World by Anna Tsing (2015)

We are not used to reading stories without human heroes – and yet, as researchers, these are exactly the narratives we often reproduce. During my PhD, I spent four months in Botswana and South Africa chasing tails (and tales) of African wild dogs. For me, this is where Anna Tsing’s work came alive.

Though much of the research in my field tells us that non-human beings are active participants in shaping encounters and environments, this co-production is rarely extended to our work. The Mushroom at the End of the World asks us to “bring back curiosity”, noticing beyond seeing, opening up a multi-sensory world of presence and possibility.

In the field, this meant adapting my methods in situ, incorporating sound and smell to attend to wild dogs’ ways of moving through and understanding space. This counter-mapping transgresses imagined human boundaries and paths, opening up ways to research and respond to more-than human worlds.

Anna Bedenk-Smith is a lecturer in human geography

Has a book ever changed your mind? Let us know in the comments below

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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The book that changed my mind – 12 experts share a perspective-shifting read – https://theconversation.com/the-book-that-changed-my-mind-12-experts-share-a-perspective-shifting-read-271243

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Bamo Nouri, Honorary Research Fellow, Department of International Politics, City St George’s, University of London

Donald Trump is weighing military action in Iran over the state’s crackdown on protesters. Reports suggest that more than 600 people have been killed since the protests began in late December, with the US president saying the US military is now “looking at some very strong options”.

Trump has not yet elaborated on what these options are and has said that Iranian officials, keen to avoid a war with the US, had called him “to negotiate”. But he added that the US “may have to act before a meeting” if the deadly crackdown continues.

There is a wide spectrum of measures available to Washington should it decide to intervene in Iran. These range from diplomatic condemnation and an expanded sanctions regime, to cyber operations and military strikes. However, history weighs heavily against every move the US government may be considering.

Targeted sanctions and diplomatic pressure, which includes the 25% tariff rate recently introduced by Trump on any country that does business with Iran, remain the least escalatory tools. They allow the US to coordinate with its allies and signal moral support for protesters in Iran without triggering direct confrontation. Yet decades of experience show the limits of this approach.

Iran’s leadership has mastered how to absorb economic pressure, shift costs on to society and frame longstanding western sanctions as collective punishment imposed by hostile outsiders. The government in Tehran has adapted over time by developing alternative markets and expanding informal and non-dollar trade.

It has also boosted its economic resilience through regional networks, particularly in Iraq where political, financial and security ties help sustain revenue flows and cushion the impact of sanctions on the state.

There are other, more covert tools at Washington’s disposal, including cyber disruption and efforts to assist independent media or help protesters bypass internet shutdowns. These measures can help protesters stay visible internationally and complicate the state’s capacity to ramp up repression.

However, even here expectations should be modest. These tools may create friction within the Iranian elite by raising the costs of, and imposing technical difficulties on, surveillance and repression. But they do not change the core calculus of a regime that prioritises survival above all else.

At the most extreme end of the spectrum are military strikes. The rationale behind strikes would be to undermine the regime’s repression efforts. But in reality, they risk doing the opposite. Iran’s ruling system, and particularly the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps branch of the armed forces, has historically relied on external threats to consolidate power domestically.

A preemptive US strike would almost certainly hand Iran’s security apparatus the very narrative it seeks: an existential battle for national survival. This framing is already explicit in the discourse of the Iranian elite.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the hardline speaker of the Iranian parliament, warned in a recent speech that any attack on Iran would make Israel and all US military bases and assets in the region “legitimate targets”. Iranian state media then showed large crowds of regime supporters rallying in Tehran and other cities, chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

Military escalation is especially dangerous given the character of the current protest movement. Women have been at the forefront, challenging the ideological foundations of the state, while regions populated largely by ethnic Kurds have endured disproportionate levels of violence at the hands of the authorities.

These protests are civic, decentralised and rooted in social grievances. US military strikes would allow the Iranian state to overwrite that reality, recasting a diverse domestic movement as a foreign-backed security threat. In doing so, it would legitimise a far harsher crackdown than anything seen so far.

Shadow of 1953

Many ordinary Iranians are also cautious of direct US interference. This stems from a CIA-backed coup in 1953 that ousted Iran’s elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, and restored the monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The coup was followed by nearly two decades of repression, political policing and authoritarian rule closely aligned with western interests.

This experience is not distant history; it is a foundational trauma that continues to shape Iranian political consciousness. As a result, recent suggestions by Trump that the collapse of Iran’s theocratic system would naturally make way for a democratic transition cannot be disentangled from the memory of an external intervention that produced dictatorship rather than self-rule.

It also explains why many people inside Iran are sceptical of figures such as Reza Pahlavi, the son of country’s last shah who has often been promoted in the west as a possible future leader of Iran. Pahlavi remains symbolically tied to a system associated with oppression and foreign backing. This leaves him without the broad domestic legitimacy required for any credible democratic transition, regardless of his messaging.

The scepticism of Iranians is reinforced by recent regional experiences. In Iraq, foreign intervention hollowed out the state, leaving a weak system that has been co-opted by external powers and militias.

And in Syria, the collapse of central authority paved the way for a former al-Qaeda leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to take power. He has been rebranded by western powers, including Trump, into a credible political figure despite his jihadist past.

These cases reinforce a belief across the Middle East that western intervention tends not to empower democratic forces. It instead appears to elevate the most organised and militarised parties to power, producing long-term instability rather than renewal.

Without a credible, homegrown transition, Iran risks fragmenting and sliding into chaos. For Washington, the most difficult reality may be that the wisest path is not bold intervention, but restraint combined with sustained support for Iranian society.

Genuine change in Iran cannot be engineered from the outside, especially at the point of a missile.

Bamo Nouri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The use of military force in Iran could backfire for Washington – https://theconversation.com/the-use-of-military-force-in-iran-could-backfire-for-washington-273264