On February 28 , videos emerged online showing the aftermath of the war’s opening strikes on the Supreme Leader’s compound in Tehran. In one video taken on Pastor Street, a few alleys away from the compound, a column of smoke rises into the sky. A young woman, disoriented and distressed, crosses the frame, screaming into her phone, “Mom, get out of the house.” Someone asks, “What did they hit?” The woman behind the camera replies, with a flicker of excitement beneath her concern, “the Bayt,” the leader’s compound. Just a moment earlier, referring to a residential building near the compound, the same woman murmurs to herself, wavering between worry and awe, “Why did they hit the house?” These videos also captured, in fragments, the collapse of a war of narratives. One after another, bomb after bomb, imperial fictions have burst into powder and dust. Precision strike , human shield , necessary casualties .…