{"id":117531,"date":"2026-03-02T11:56:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T11:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=117531"},"modified":"2026-03-02T11:56:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T11:56:56","slug":"hopes-and-fears-as-us-iranians-take-to-streets-after-toppling-of-supreme-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=117531","title":{"rendered":"Hopes and fears as US Iranians take to streets after toppling of supreme leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fatemeh Shams watched with bated breath as her native country came under military attack from the US and Israel over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Living in the US since 2009, she is among Iranian-American exiles who have opposed the Tehran regime from afar, and so she does not mourn the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Saturday\u2019s bombing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have very mixed feelings about what\u2019s happening,\u201d Fatemeh, based in Philadelphia, told the BBC. \u201cOn the one hand, we are extremely happy that our killers\u2026 they no longer breathe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that [Khamenei] was killed in less than a moment, after 38 years of corruption and crime, it kind of feels that we didn\u2019t have any control over the justice we had been fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is not the only member of the Iranian diaspora in America with mixed feelings. Some expressed concerns about the death toll and how long the conflict might last.<\/p>\n

But many rallied across the US to celebrate Khamenei\u2019s death, in cities from Boston to Washington DC and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

On Sunday in LA \u2013 a city sometimes dubbed Tehrangeles as it is home to more than a third of the 400,000 Iranian immigrants in the US \u2013 police closed streets outside a federal building so demonstrators could celebrate.<\/p>\n

\"Hopes<\/figure>\n

The Iranian-American crowd waved flags while a plane circled in the sky above, trailing a banner that said, \u201cTHANK U TRUMP\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hoda Zeaighamnia danced in the streets with her three children \u2013 one of whom was just days old when the family fled Iran.<\/p>\n

Her daughter, Donya Cheshmaghil, told the BBC: \u201cI was born in Iran. My family was forced to flee because we\u2019re not Muslim and they\u2019re very oppressive against anyone that\u2019s not Muslim.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping this leads to regime change. We\u2019re very grateful for the US for finally intervening. The people in Iran have been asking for this. This is what the people in Iran want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her sister, Mona Cheshmhehil, said: \u201cI\u2019m sorry that it just had to take so many lives being lost for this to happen, but right now all we can think about is we\u2019re just so happy to have the chance to go back, see where we came from.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have thought this would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, a day earlier outside LA city hall, there was anger.<\/p>\n

Actress Jane Fonda was among a few hundred who gathered to protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may wage this war in our name, but not with our consent,\u201d Fonda, 88, a longstanding anti-war activist, shouted to the crowd.<\/p>\n

In other US cities, demonstrators for and against the military action made their voices heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t call it a war,\u201d Sherry Yadegari, of Atlanta, Georgia, told AFP news agency. \u201cWe call it the Iran Rescue Operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But at a protest in New York, Layan Fuleihan, an activist, told AFP: \u201cBombing people does not help them free themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Trump cared about democracy or if he cared about the well-being of Iranian people, he would have lifted the brutal sanctions on the Iranian economy that have made it impossible for everyday working Iranians to find enough to put food on their table.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hopes<\/figure>\n

Divisions were laid bare, too, among US Congress members with Iranian heritage.<\/p>\n

Congresswoman Stephanie Bice, an Oklahoma Republican whose father is half-Iranian, posted on X: \u201cNow is the time for Iranians to stand up and take back their nation and bring lasting peace to the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Yassamin Ansari, an Arizona Democrat whose parents fled the 1979 Iranian Revolution to come to the US, expressed some misgivings.<\/p>\n

She said in a statement she wanted a free Iran, but did not want the US embroiled in \u201canother endless war in the Middle East\u201d.<\/p>\n

Back on the streets, many Iranian-Americans were prepared to set aside questions about what comes next and enjoy the downfall of an ayatollah whose regime killed thousands of people this year to crush widespread protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great day,\u201d Meraa Tcheshmaghio, told the BBC at LA\u2019s protest on Sunday. \u201cOur country has been wanting this for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful. It really is.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fatemeh Shams watched with bated breath as her native country came under military attack from the US and Israel over the weekend.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1910,17746,10,9,2044],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-iranians","category-politics","category-popular","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}