Iran’s government may have emerged triumphant in its standoff with the US, but its people will take years, if not decades, to recover from the conflict, according to experts.

For Iranians, the war not only imposed huge economic costs — food-price inflation was 131% last month, millions have lost jobs, and repairs to infrastructure will cost tens of billions of dollars — but sharpened repression, and distracted focus from Tehran’s crackdown on dissent in January that left thousands dead.

As a result, the war was “almost like a gift to the regime,” a leading human rights activist told The Atlantic, empowering authorities to imprison and kill dissidents, seize their property, and block funerals for the dead.