It seems redundant, but I say it anyway. People—nearly 80 million of them—live in Iran, the same as about a quarter of the American population. However, in light of recent conflict over Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the prospect of nuclear war, Americans cannot lose sight of this statement and what it implies. To support the launch of nuclear weapons at a vague, misunderstood enemy is completely possible. But if Americans see Iran as a collection of people, not a dehumanized mass, we will deem the human cost of such a war unacceptable.

According to a Reuters poll in March, a majority of Americans support taking military action against Iran to prevent its development of nuclear weapons or backing Israel in such attacks. However, attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only encourage Iran to accelerate its nuclear arms program and aggravate the situation into a months-long or years-long conflict. I don’t think I need to illustrate the potential cost in human lives, even if the war stayed between Israel and Iran. It becomes increasingly vital for Americans to now understand just who we would be bombing.

Much of America is decidedly hostile against Iran, angered by its perceived anti-American ideology and frightened by the threat of nuclear attack. “Iran wants to blow us all up.” “Iran defies Western civilization.” “Iran hates America.” But who is “Iran”? Is it Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Is it Iran’s religious pundits? Or is it the average Iranian? It’s easy to box people up and label them as objects of sympathy or hostility, but the reality isn’t black-and-white. Iran is not a monolith of backward, violent, anti-Western sentiment. Iranians don’t think or act in any different way than we do. Iranian society is complicated, and it consists of rational people, just like any other society.

People live in Iran. They work, go to school, host parties, pray and hope, and for the most part, they don’t want trouble. According to a September 2010 International Peace Institute (IPI) poll, two-thirds of Iranians said increasing ties with the West, not reducing them, will help Iran resolve its problems. In that poll, 71 percent of Iranians did support developing nuclear weapons. But concurrently, 77 percent of Americans believe our nuclear arsenal is vital to national security, and 58 percent oppose its reduction, as an August 2010 poll by Rasmussen Reports, a public-opinion polling company, showed.

Also like Americans, Iranians have larger issues to face than their nuclear capabilities. The IPI poll showed that Iranians’ biggest concern is economic sanctions. In recent years, the United States, European Union, United Nations and other individual countries have dramatically increased sanctions against Iran in response to developments in its nuclear program. Many of these groups ban trade in arms and oil, but the United States now has an almost complete economic embargo on Iran. These sanctions have crippled Iran’s economy, whose currency, the rial, is rapidly inflating.

According to a 2009 World Public Opinion poll, two-thirds of Iranians would forgo nuclear weapons if economic sanctions would be lifted. Rather than trying to increase their power in the Middle East and Muslim world, a majority of Iranians said they should focus on solving domestic problems, as the IPI poll showed. For me, that draws parallels to a Pew Research Center poll released this January, in which 81 percent of Americans listed domestic policy over foreign policy as the top policy priority, especially the economy.

What all these polls and statistics show me is that Iran is feeling lonely in the world. Iranians struggling to make ends meet have real reason to dislike the United States, who has helped to economically and politically isolate them from most of the world. Iranians are tough, proud and stubborn—and a little bit afraid.

When we consider our conflict with Iran, as with any conflict, we sometimes forget that the people we are fighting are still people. We forget that the voices of a few do not speak for all and that this Iranian society that we think we’re opposed to is just as multi-faceted and complicated as our own.

People live in Iran.

They are not monolithic. They are not any more irrational in their thoughts, needs, fears and desires than other people. Just like people who live in America, Iranians would not sit idle if either their country’s nuclear facilities or cities were attacked. To expect them to is foolish and simply uneven.

Neither we nor Israel can attack Iran without eventually taking military action against these Iranians. Knowing that, we as Americans must ask—is it worth siding against them in a nuclear war? Is it worth giving them a real, justifiable cause to hate us? When we understand the people who live in Iran as people who think and act like us, we will find we can no more condemn them to death, destruction and fear than we could condemn ourselves.