After Trump pauses war, Iranians fly flags of victory, not surrender

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Iranians wave national flags in Tehran's Revolution Square on Wednesday after the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, in a photo taken with approval from Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

LONDON — Shortly after President Donald Trump threatened to erase the “whole civilization” of Iran, all 6,000 years of it, the crowds came out into the streets of Tehran waving flags — and not white ones. They bore the green, white and red banners of the still-standing Islamic Republic. Some set fire to the star-spangled ones of the superpower that, according to state media, they had just “humiliated.”