Marin’s Iranian American community expresses hope amid war
As the conflict between Israel, the United States and Iran continues, many in Marin’s Iranian American community say they feel hopeful about the country’s future for the first time in decades.
“I never thought I would see this day in my lifetime,” said Reza Tariverdi, a Marin business owner.
On Feb. 28, the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top leaders. The offensive brought a mix of reactions across the world, with many worried about the possibility of another U.S.-involved conflict in the Middle East.
For many in the Iranian American community, the conflict opens a long-awaited chapter in Iran’s story, one that contains uncertainty but also hopes of freedom and a regime change after nearly 50 years of oppression.
When Tariverdi arrived in the United States in the 1980s, he had been sent from Iran by his parents to spare him from a military draft as a teenager. Many of his other family members, including some who were a part of the former government, also left.
“They would have either been executed or jailed,” he said. “They had no place in the new Islamic Republic.”
His sister left with him, but his parents stayed, and he still has siblings who live in Iran. Tariverdi has not been able to return. He talks to his friends and family in Iran every day and says they are “still in an oppressed mode” but joyful about Iran’s future.
“Everybody is happy, celebrating, happy, playing music, dancing in their buildings,” he said.
Tariverdi said there is “huge community support” among Iranian Americans in Marin, even from friends who normally oppose violence.
Farhad Mansourian, the former general manager of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, used to be an anti-terrorism officer for the Imperial Army in Iran. He said the attacks on the country have left uncertainty and fear, but also “a tremendous hope in what they call this historic time for this opportunity.”
Mansourian said the demand for freedom has been growing among young people in Iran who have been putting their lives on the line to fight for basic liberties. Earlier this year, thousands of people, many of them young adults, were killed in Iran after taking to the streets to fight for both better economic opportunities and to protest the Iranian government.
“My feeling has been that I support what Iranian people want, and what they want is a normal life,” Mansourian said. “They want to have a free country and free elections.”
“I’m watching as my family is watching,” he said. “We’re nervous, we’re concerned, but we’re happy.”
For Hossein Bakhtiari, a Marin resident and business owner who left Iran at age 27, any moment that involves killing someone is not a good one. However, the effect of Khamenei’s death is clear for him.
“What’s happening is the best thing that could happen for the freedom of the Iranian people that have been held hostage for 47 years,” he said.
Bakhtiari said the United States and Israel are not fighting for Iranian people but “for the whole world.”
Bakhtiari said he had many friends thrown out of Iran or killed in Iran because they were not a part of the Islamic Republic. He left Iran in 1983 for a lot of reasons, he said, but cited feelings that his country was being held “hostage by a terrorist group” and that it was “not a place to live anymore.”
Referring to Khamenei, he said: “If you don’t believe it, you don’t do what he said, you got killed, and that’s who we got rid of.”
Bakhtiari wants to see Iranian people have the right to basic freedoms like being able to choose their religion and education; for women to be able to travel freely and have rights; and for young people to be able to choose “how they want to live and who they want to live with.”