After initial jubilation, some Iranian Americans fear a quagmire

Software program engineer Arin Saghatelian shed no tears when he heard that the supreme chief of his homeland had been killed by American bombs.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to seek out many individuals in assist of that dictatorship or the mullahs which might be in energy proper now,” mentioned Saghatelian, who lives in La Crescenta and fled Iran together with his household when he was 10. “I believe the world is a higher place right now.”

However the fleeting aid that Saghatelian, 45, felt final week as an exile from Iran shortly turned to the dread he feels as an American citizen and taxpayer: What if his adopted nation will get sucked into one other lengthy, lethal and costly battle just like the warfare in Iraq?

After the initial jubilation in “Tehrangeles” and different native Iranian American communities, with hundreds taking to the streets to have fun the loss of life of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the tone of some conversations this week grew extra sober.

Prospects sit at Sipp Espresso Home throughout the road from Tochal Market and Damoka rug retailer on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles on Friday.

(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)

As Iranian Americans like Saghatelian watch the fast escalation of the warfare that started with U.S. and Israeli bombs falling on Iran, some fear that their native nation, and maybe the entire Center East, may descend into chaos.

In Iraq, after a U.S. invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, sectarian leaders stepped into the vacuum. The long-simmering rivalry between Sunni and Shiite Muslims erupted into a civil warfare that killed tens of hundreds of civilians.

Roozbeh Farahanipour, a former Iranian dissident who now lives in Los Angeles, worries that a destabilized Iran, with its complicated cultural heritage and patchwork of ethnic and spiritual teams, may devolve into a far worse mess than post-invasion Iraq.

“It’s extra sophisticated ethnically, civically and traditionally,” so a protracted warfare there “is just not going to be like Iraq — it’s going to be 10 occasions worse,” he mentioned.

Of the 600,000 or so Iranians dwelling within the U.S., about half are in California, based on the Iranian Diaspora Dashboard produced by UCLA’s Heart of Close to Japanese Research. By far the largest surge in immigration adopted the 1979 Islamic Revolution that despatched the U.S.-backed shah into exile and swept spiritual hard-liners into energy.

Spiritual minorities, together with Christians and Jews, make up a bigger share of the expatriate neighborhood within the U.S. than they do in Iran — they’ve extra purpose to depart — however Islam remains to be the dominant faith amongst Iranians right here, mentioned Kevan Harris, an affiliate professor of sociology who teaches programs on Iran and Center East politics on the UCLA Worldwide Institute.

Those that fled the revolution, and the hard-line Islamic rule that adopted, typically contemplate themselves exiles from their dwelling nation. However the stream of migrants has remained so regular that half of the Iranian-born folks within the U.S. arrived after 1994, Harris mentioned.

The politics of youthful Iranian immigrants, who come to the U.S. for all types of causes, and devour the complete vary of content material accessible on-line, are extra various than these of their older compatriots.

Professional-Palestine protesters maintain a rally in entrance of campus police at UCLA on March 11, 2025.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Occasions)

For instance, the UCLA college students protesting Israel’s warfare in Gaza final 12 months arrange their encampment not removed from Harris’ workplace window. He acknowledged some Iranian American college students contained in the makeshift compound, whereas others lined up exterior with counterprotesters.

“There are sufficient Iranians within the U.S. now, particularly in L.A., that you will see them on each facet of most conflicts,” Harris mentioned.

Saghatelian, the software program engineer, fled after years of warfare that started with Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and took the lives of almost a million folks. His dad and mom needed to ensure that he and his older brother would by no means get sucked into such slaughter.

As a child, Saghatelian was compelled to flee his Tehran neighborhood throughout Iraqi bombardments.

“So I had actual, private curiosity in seeing Saddam fall,” he mentioned.

However he additionally remembers the nightmare that adopted. All of the army and civilian deaths, all the fee to U.S. taxpayers.

“As an American citizen, I fear about that taking place once more,” he mentioned.

And he worries that his American-born buddies, who’ve loved comparatively peaceable lives, don’t notice how shortly issues can slide into disaster.

As Christian Armenians, his household had it fairly good below the shah of Iran, Saghatelian mentioned, and didn’t endure that a lot within the instant aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“Because the spiritual mullahs got here to energy, they nonetheless revered the Armenian neighborhood. We received to maintain our church buildings,” Saghatelian mentioned. “However yearly, there was increasingly more stress. You’re virtually like a second-class citizen.”

Different ethnic minorities had it worse, Saghatelian mentioned: “For those who had been Jewish, the extra hard-line the nation received, the extra hazard you had been in.”

After fleeing Iran, Saghatelian’s household spent two years in refugee camps in Germany and Austria. At one level, they had been kicked out of the Austrian refugee program and have become homeless till a Catholic priest took them in and made them caretakers of a medieval church.

However like so many others fleeing Iran, his household’s plan was to seek out a option to the US, which they lastly did, settling in Glendale when he was 12.

Since then, he has targeted on constructing his life right here, with no actual want to return. However he has stored a watch on circumstances in his native nation over time, and his mom stays in contact with an uncle who remains to be there.

“It’s a stunning nation. I’d love to have the ability to go to freely as a United States citizen,” he mentioned.

“Regime Change in Iran” indicators and images of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s final shah, may be seen in a lot of store home windows on Westwood Boulevard as neighborhood members and enterprise house owners react to the U.S. and Israel bombing Iran..

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Occasions)

However he doesn’t suppose the Iranian authorities will surrender with out a lengthy battle, nor does he consider the Trump administration has a long-term plan.

Farahanipour, 54, additionally considers himself an exile. In the summertime of 1999, he was a 27-year-old journalist in Tehran who turned a recognizable determine in a pupil protest motion that referred to as for a free press, the tip of presidency censorship and equal rights for ladies. Some, together with him, publicly referred to as for Khamenei to resign — which was unthinkable on the time, Farahanipour mentioned.

In response, the regime shut down a well-known reformist newspaper, despatched safety forces into a school dormitory and beat and jailed college students who participated in public demonstrations.

On July 12, 1999, Khamenei took to the nationwide airwaves and referred to as the scholars “rioters” and pawns of overseas enemies. Removed from being discouraged, Farahanipour mentioned, he was in awe. Forcing Khamenei to reply was “the proudest second of my life,” he mentioned, smiling on the reminiscence.

However he didn’t have a lot time to bask within the glory.

“I obtained a loss of life sentence from the regime,” he mentioned, as calmly as others would possibly say they received a parking ticket. Then got here three fatwas — spiritual decrees — calling for his loss of life, he mentioned.

That was after years of seeing relations and acquaintances get “arrested, tortured and executed” by the federal government.

“They hated me and I hated them. It was a two-way avenue,” he mentioned, which left him with just one selection: searching for asylum in the US.

Roozbeh Farahanipour, proprietor of Delphi Greek restaurant in Westwood, stands for a portrait as neighborhood members and enterprise house owners in the neighborhood react to the of bombing of Iran.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Occasions)

He has lived in Los Angeles since 2000, opening a couple of eating places. In 2017, he turned an American citizen, arriving at that momentous choice whereas strolling in a Westwood cemetery.

“This will likely be my ultimate tackle,” he thought.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t look away from the information earlier this 12 months when a collapse of the Iranian forex drove folks into the streets, sparking a brutal authorities crackdown that killed hundreds of protesters.

When Farahanipour heard about Khamenei’s loss of life, he popped the cork from a champagne bottle and celebrated “the happiest second of my life.”

However like Saghatelian, he quickly started considering of Iraq.

Shortly after the collapse of Hussein’s ruling get together, crowds looted authorities workplaces and cultural websites. Heavy infrastructure harm from the U.S. bombing led to persistent and fixed failure of the electrical and water methods in main cities — making them virtually unlivable, particularly within the sweltering summers.

On the peak of the sectarian warfare, elements of Baghdad had been so riddled with impromptu militia checkpoints that many Iraqis began carrying two official-looking IDs — one real and the opposite a forgery with a final identify and birthplace related to the opposite sect.

Selecting which to current, particularly in closely contested neighborhoods, was like tossing a coin together with your life within the stability.

“We don’t have a good monitor document,” Faranhipour mentioned. “What number of American lives did we waste in Afghanistan? How a lot cash did we waste over there simply to interchange the Taliban with the Taliban?”

He’s praying the US received’t get slowed down once more.

“Hopefully the president and his group know what they’re doing,” he mentioned. “They need to declare victory and withdraw.”