A decade ago, Donald Trump was clear. “Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake,” he declared at a Republican presidential debate. “We have destabilized the Middle East.” It was not a passing sentiment. “I’m not going to start wars,” he reiterated on election night in 2024.

This February, the United States and Israel started a war with Iran, massively destabilizing the Middle East. A special section in our latest issue focuses on the human toll.

In a diary from March, an art director in Tehran bristles with hatred as a Basiji guard approaches her car. She had always viewed the Basij as the oppressive face of the Islamic Republic, yet the young man warns her that parking too close to their checkpoint is risky: it’s a likely target for drone strikes. The gesture startles her. “It was as if in a brief moment our relationship changed,” she writes. Other correspondents—from Lebanon, Iraq, and the West Bank—further illuminate how a sense of common humanity can emerge in unlikely circumstances, and the powerful forces that can shatter it.