Why Iranian-Americans are cheering the war – Latest News
Crowds stuffed Westwood Boulevard on the evening the war with Iran started, on February 28 — not in protest, however in celebration.
Iranian-Americans danced in the streets of what locals call Tehrangeles, waving the purple, white, and inexperienced Lion and Sun flag of pre-revolutionary Iran alongside American and Israeli flags, chanting for a free and secular Iran.
The scene was, by most accounts, the most emotionally charged the neighborhood had seen since the group first took root right here after 1979.
Almost all the things about California’s Iranian diaspora runs back to 1979.
Crowds stuffed Westwood Boulevard on the evening the war with Iran started, on February 28 — not in protest, however in celebration. For The California Post
California is home to roughly 500,000 Iranians, making up half of the total U.S. Iranian population, concentrated in West Los Angeles, Irvine, and the San Fernando Valley.
The overwhelming majority got here right here, or have been raised by people who got here right here, as a result of the Islamic Republic made staying in Iran not possible.
They have been lecturers who misplaced their jobs, businesspeople whose belongings have been seized, political dissidents who fled execution orders, spiritual minorities who confronted systematic persecution.
Their story, with variations, is the similar story: they are right here, as a result of that regime is there.
California is home to roughly 500,000 Iranians, making up half of the total U.S. Iranian population. For The California Post
This is the context that American policymakers and California’s progressive political institution have persistently failed to soak up.
For the Iranian group, the query of whether or not to assist army motion towards the Iran regime is just not a international coverage idea. It is personal. And the reply, for many, has at all times been yes — if the various is one other 47 years of the similar.
Sign up for the California Morning Report e-newsletter
California’s prime information, sports activities and leisure delivered to your inbox day-after-day.
Thanks for signing up!
Iranian-Americans are feeling a sense of gratitude, directed particularly at President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Crowds in Westwood carried indicators studying “Thank You Trump for Freeing Iran.”
The political alignment displays years of disillusionment with Democratic administrations that pursued nuclear diplomacy with a regime this group regards as irredeemably legal.
Iranian-Americans are feeling a sense of gratitude, directed particularly at President Donald Trump. For The California Post
The Obama-era JCPOA was seen not as pragmatism however as appeasement. The Biden administration’s makes an attempt to revive it have been seen with open criticism.
When Trump launched airstrikes and framed them explicitly as a path to freedom for the Iranian people, Tehrangeles heard a U.S. president converse their language for the first time in many years.
Many in the group are Iranian Jews whose households have been pushed out after 1979. Others are Muslims or secular Iranians who see Israel not by the regime’s propaganda lens however as a fellow goal of the similar theocratic enemy.
Download The California Post App, observe us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters
California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedIn
California Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X
California Post Opinion
California Post Newsletters: Sign up right here!
California Post App: Download right here!
Home supply: Sign up right here!
Page Six Hollywood: Sign up right here!
The alliance between Trump and Netanyahu, reviled in a lot of California, reads to this group as the right strategic alignment towards a shared adversary.
Clearly, war has its penalties, and the enthusiasm is just not with out its anxieties. Many in the group have household and mates nonetheless inside Iran.
While there may be concern, it doesn’t translate into opposition to the war. The group can also be clear about the dangers of a extended battle, or one which degraded the regime however leaves remnants behind. Many level to Iraq after 2003 as the cautionary model — a decapitated regime changed not by democracy however by chaos and competing militias. They don’t want that for Iran.
For The California Post
But they are equally clear that the establishment — a theocratic regime executing protesters and building nuclear weapons — is just not a secure or acceptable various. “
Ask throughout Tehrangeles who ought to lead Iran after the regime falls, and the reply that comes back most persistently is Reza Pahlavi.
The exiled Crown Prince, who has lived in the United States since the revolution that exiled his father, has spent years positioning himself not as a king in search of restoration, however as a transitional determine succesful of stabilizing the nation long enough for Iranians to decide on their own system by a referendum and free elections.
Ask throughout Tehrangeles who ought to lead Iran after the regime falls, and the reply that comes back most persistently is Reza Pahlavi. Jonathan Alcorn for CA Post
The group’s assist for Pahlavi is not only monarchist nostalgia. Iranians, clear that the solely approach ahead is thru a secular, democratic Iran, consider standing behind Pahlavi is their best probability at a clean transition. Pahlavi, of their view, is the bridge to that consequence.
The congressional districts overlaying Westwood, Beverly Hills, Encino, and Irvine are represented nearly completely by Democrats. Those Democrats have, since February twenty eighth, walked a cautious line acknowledging the regime’s brutality whereas criticizing the strikes as unauthorized and strategically unclear.
Their Iranian-American constituents are disheartened. In the group, some voted for Trump and a few didn’t, however the majority backed the strikes. Now, watching their representatives waver, the Iranian group has concluded the Democratic Party doesn’t symbolize its most elementary pursuits.
What makes the California Iranian diaspora’s relationship to this war distinctive is the particular nuance in its hope.
These are not pro-war hawks cheering a distant battle. They are a group of people who got here right here as a result of they’d no selection — and have by no means stopped believing the nation they left may sooner or later be free.
Lisa Daftari is a international coverage analyst and media commentator based mostly in Los Angeles.
