I have been watching the news from inside Iran, unable to hold in my sorrow. As an Iranian who was imprisoned and tortured by the regime, I have been pleading with the world’s human rights organisations and media to keep a focus on the country’s plight. But now I see US-Israeli bombs falling on Iran, and some Iranians celebrating this war while innocent people die. My heart is breaking for my country.

Let us be clear: when Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu conspired to launch their war, it was not out of a desire to free the Iranian people from the tyranny of the regime. Netanyahu said on the second day of the war: “This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years.” He has named this operation “Lion’s Roar”. Meanwhile, Iranian monarchists celebrate the carnage, waving the shah’s version of the country’s flag with its crowned lion and sun.

While the regime has chosen the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, another man in exile is dreaming of becoming the king. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah – whom Iranians struggled so hard to depose in the revolution of 1979 – now believes he is “uniquely positioned” to lead the country. He tweeted on 1 March: “My heart aches for the 3 American heroes killed and the 5 wounded by the regime. The Iranian people are forever in their debt. To their grieving families: please accept our immense love, deepest condolences, and eternal gratitude.” He is more American than Iranian. If he were truly Iranian, he would express sorrow for the thousands of Iranian civilians who have died in this latest attack, including more than 150 schoolgirls who are now believed to have been killed by a US strike.

We cannot judge the people in Iran raising the monarchist flag the same as those doing so outside the country. Some diaspora monarchists were once Islamic guards, and the US-Israeli war may bring them into power. Those in Iran experienced eight years of war with Iraq and know very well that war brings horror and death. They have since died many times over by the hand of the regime. A drowning person will try to grasp on to anything, even if it still pulls them down further. This is why some are accepting of Pahlavi. In 1953, the UK and US governments executed a coup that placed Pahlavi’s father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in power. We are now witnessing an attempt to do something similar.

Trump, Netanyahu and Pahlavi have once again asked the people to rise up. I do not think people have already forgotten the last call for an uprising. On 13 January, Trump told Iranians: “Keep protesting … help is on its way.” No help came, and tens of thousands of protesters were estimated to have been killed. Trump has again told the people to rise up and “take over your government”. But no help comes – only bombs.

Netanyahu’s statement, Pahlavi’s similar call and Trump’s request for people to keep demonstrating in effect condemn people to death by allowing the regime to frame those who pour out on to the streets demanding bread and freedom as foreign collaborators. Since taking power, the regime has routinely executed activists by accusing them of being agents for the US or Israel. Alongside those who were killed in the recent uprisings, more than 50,000 were arrested. Among these innocent people are hundreds of children.

Making these demands – of innocent people in a country where collaborating with the US or Israel is punishable by death – is reckless and deadly. It appears to me that many powers feared the success of the people’s uprising. Not only the regime, but Israel and the US too have seemed very worried that people might overthrow the Islamic Republic themselves. An uprising led by ordinary people would be uncontrollable. That is why this regime change is being carefully managed and not allowed to emerge naturally from below.

Critics who say that the goal of this war is not Iran’s liberation, or that bullets don’t bring food and freedom, are then attacked by monarchists. “You are with us, or with the regime,” they say. This is how monarchists understand the politics of our time – as they were never politically active and they have never experienced prison or torture.

When the regime took power, my generation struggled against them. Tens of thousands of us were executed while many monarchists packed up and left the country. Monarchists have condemned Iranians who are against invasion and the murder of civilians. One of their slogans, I have heard, is: “Death to mullahs, leftists and Mojahedin.” Imagine that – after decades of executions by the regime, monarchists are now openly calling for the same noose to silence the same people.

Now that these powers are united against the people of Iran, the rest of the world should come together and stand shoulder to shoulder against this massacre of civilians from the sky. I am hoping that the people of the west will come out against this war and demand its end.