Hope & Fear Grip US Iranians After Leader’s Fall
From celebration to outrage, Iranian diaspora rallies across America after Khamenei’s death, exposing deep divides over regime change and US intervention.
Fatemeh Shams watched with bated breath as the US and Israel launched a military attack on her country over the weekend.
Living in the US since 2009, she is among the Iranian-American exiles who have opposed the Tehran government from afar, and so she is not mourning the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Saturday's bombing.
"We all have mixed feelings about what's happening," said Fatemeh, who lives in Philadelphia. "On the one hand, we are very happy that our murderers... are no longer breathing."
"The fact that [Khamenei] was killed in less than a moment, after 38 years of corruption and crime, makes it seem like we had no control over the justice we were fighting for."
She is not the only member of the Iranian diaspora in America with mixed feelings. Some expressed concern about the death toll and how long this fight could last.
But many across the US, from Boston to Washington DC and Los Angeles, celebrated Khamenei's death.
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On Sunday in LA – a city sometimes called Tehrangeles because it is home to more than a third of the 400,000 Iranian immigrants in the US – police closed the streets outside a federal building so protesters could celebrate.
The Iranian-American crowd waved flags while a plane circled overhead, carrying a plane carrying a plane. Behind them was a banner that read, "THANK U TRUMP."
Hoda Ziaghmania danced in the streets with her three children – one of whom was only a few days old when the family fled Iran.
Her daughter, Donya Cheshmaghil: "I was born in Iran. My family was forced to flee because we are not Muslim and they persecute any non-Muslims very severely.
"We hope this will lead to a change in the government. We are very grateful to the US that they finally intervened. The Iranian people were demanding this. This is what the Iranian people want."
His sister, Mona Cheshmahill, said: "I'm sorry that so many lives were lost for this to happen, but right now all we can think is that we're so happy we got a chance to go back, to see where we came from."
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However, there was anger outside LA City Hall a day earlier.
Actress Jane Fonda was among a few hundred people who gathered to protest.
Fonda, 88, a longtime anti-war activist, shouted to the crowd, "You can wage this war in our name, but not with our consent."
In other US cities, protesters for and against the military action raised their voices.
Sheri Yadegari of Atlanta, Georgia, told AFP news agency, "We don't call this a war." "We call it the Iran Rescue Operation."
But at a protest in New York, an activist, Layan Fuleihan, told AFP: "Bombing people He didn't help them become free.
"If Trump cared about democracy or the well-being of the Iranian people, he would have lifted the draconian sanctions on the Iranian economy, which have made it impossible for everyday working Iranians to even put food on the table."
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Disagreements were also evident among US Congress members with Iranian heritage.
Oklahoma Republican Congresswoman Stephanie Bice, whose father is half-Iranian, posted on X: "Now is the time for Iranians to stand up and take back their country and bring lasting peace to the Middle East."
But Yasmeen Ansari, a Democrat from Arizona, whose parents fled the 1979 Iranian Revolution to the US, expressed some doubts.
She said in a statement that she wants a free Iran but doesn't want the US embroiled in "another never-ending war in the Middle East."
Returning to the streets, many Iranian-Americans were ready to put aside questions about what would happen next and celebrate the fall of an ayatollah whose regime killed thousands to crush mass protests this year.
"This is a great day," said Mera Tcheshmaghio at the LA protest on Sunday. "Our country has been wanting this for a while.
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