After initial jubilation, some Iranian Americans fear a quagmire

Software engineer Arin Saghatelian shed no tears when he heard that his hometown’s religious leader had been killed by American bombs.

“I don’t think you’ll find too many people who support the dictatorship or the mullahs in power right now,” said Saghatelian, who lives in La Crescenta and fled Iran with his family when he was 10. “I think the world is a better place today.”

But the temporary relief Saghatelian, 45, felt as an exile from Iran last week quickly turned to the horror he feels as an American citizen and taxpayer: What if his adopted country is drawn into a long, deadly and expensive conflict like the war in Iraq?

After initial jubilation in the “Tehrangeles” and other local Iranian American communities as thousands took to the streets to celebrate the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the tone of some conversations this week turned more serious.

As Iranian Americans like Saghatelian watch the rapid escalation of the war that began when U.S. and Israeli bombs fell on Iran, some fear their own country, and perhaps the entire Middle East, will descend into chaos.

In Iraq, sectarian leaders filled the vacuum left after the overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein by the US invasion in 2003. The long-standing rivalry between Sunni and Shiite Muslims escalated into a civil war that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians.

Roozbeh Farahanipour, a former Iranian dissident who now lives in Los Angeles, worries that a destabilized Iran, with its complex cultural heritage and fragmented structure of ethnic and religious groups, could become a far worse mess than post-invasion Iraq.

“The situation is more complex from an ethnic, civilian and historical perspective,” so a protracted war there “will not be like Iraq, it will be 10 times worse,” he said.

About half of the approximately 600,000 Iranians living in the United States are in California. Iranian Diaspora Control Panel Produced by UCLA’s Center for Near Eastern Studies. The biggest increase in immigration followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which exiled the US-backed Shah and brought religious hardliners to power.

Religious minorities, including Christians and Jews, make up a larger share of the foreign community in the United States than in Iran — they have more reason to leave — but Islam is still the dominant religion among Iranians here, said Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology at the UCLA International Institute who teaches courses on Iran and Middle East politics.

Those fleeing the revolution and the strict Islamic rule that followed often find themselves exiled from their own countries. But the flow of immigrants has been so steady that half of the Iranian-born people who came to the United States arrived after 1994, Harris said.

The politics of young Iranian immigrants, who come to the United States for all kinds of reasons and consume all the content available online, are more diverse than the policies of their older compatriots.

Pro-Palestinian protesters rally in front of campus police at UCLA on March 11, 2025.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Last year, for example, UCLA students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza set up their camp not far from Harris’ office window. He noticed some Iranian American students inside the makeshift campus while others lined up outside with counter-protesters.

“There are as many Iranians as you can find them in the United States right now, especially in Los Angeles, on all sides of most conflicts,” Harris said.

Software engineer Saghatelian fled after years of war that began with Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and claimed the lives of nearly a million people. His family wanted to make sure that he and his brother would never be dragged into such a massacre.

As a child, Saghatelian was forced to flee his Tehran neighborhood during Iraqi bombardments.

“So it was of real and personal interest to me to see the fall of Saddam,” he said.

But he also remembers the nightmare that followed. All military and civilian deaths cost US taxpayers.

“As an American citizen, I’m worried this could happen again,” he said.

And he worries that his American-born friends, who live relatively peaceful lives, don’t realize how quickly things can turn disastrous.

Saghatelian said that as Christian Armenians, his family fared fairly well under the Shah of Iran and did not suffer much in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Saghatelian said, “The religious mullahs respected the Armenian community even after they came to power. We also need to protect our churches.” “But every year there’s more pressure. You’re almost like a second-class citizen.”

The situation for other ethnic minorities is even worse, Saghatelian said: “If you are Jewish, the harsher the country acts, the more danger you face.”

After escaping Iran, Saghatelian’s family spent two years in refugee camps in Germany and Austria. At one point they were kicked out of the Austrian refugee program and became homeless until a Catholic priest took them in and made them caretakers of a medieval church.

But like many people fleeing Iran, his family’s plan was to find a way to the United States, which they eventually did, settling in Glendale when he was 12 years old.

Since then he has focused on building his life here, with no desire to return. But over the years he has taken into account the conditions in his hometown, and his mother remains in contact with his uncle, who is still there.

“This is a beautiful country. I would love to be able to visit it freely as a US citizen,” he said.

“Regime Change in Iran” signs and photos of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the last shah of Iran, can be seen in many storefronts on Westwood Boulevard as community members and business owners react to the U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iran.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

But he doesn’t think the Iranian government will give up without a long fight, and he doesn’t believe the Trump administration has a long-term plan.

Farahanipour, 54, also considers himself an exile. She was a 27-year-old journalist in Tehran in the summer of 1999 and became a recognizable figure in the student protest movement calling for a free press, an end to government censorship and equal rights for women. Farahanipour said some, including himself, openly demanded Khamenei’s resignation, which was unthinkable at the time.

In response, the regime closed a well-known reformist newspaper, sent security forces to a university dormitory, and beat and imprisoned students who participated in public demonstrations.

On July 12, 1999, Khamenei appeared on national broadcasters and called the students “rebels” and pawns of foreign enemies. Farahanipour said that far from being discouraged, he was in awe. Forcing Khamenei to respond was “the proudest moment of my life,” he said, smiling at the memory.

But he didn’t have much time to enjoy this victory.

“I received a death sentence from the regime,” he said, as calmly as others might say they had received a parking ticket. Then came three fatwas -religious provisions- demanded his death, he said.

This was after years of seeing family members and acquaintances “arrested, tortured and executed” by the government.

“They hated me, and I hated them. It was a two-way street,” he said, which left him with only one option: Seek asylum in the United States.

Roozbeh Farahanipour, owner of Delphi Greek restaurant in Westwood, represents a portrait of community members and business owners in the community reacting to the bombing of Iran.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

He has lived in Los Angeles since 2000 and opened several restaurants. He became an American citizen in 2017 and made this important decision while walking in Westwood cemetery.

“This will be my last address,” he thought.

Yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the news earlier this year that a collapse in Iran’s currency sent people into the streets and led to a brutal government crackdown that left thousands of protesters dead.

When Farahanipour heard of Khamenei’s death, he uncorked his champagne bottle and celebrated “the happiest moment of my life.”

But like Saghatelian, he soon started thinking about Iraq.

Shortly after the collapse of Hussein’s ruling party, crowds looted government offices and cultural venues. Heavy infrastructure damage from US bombing caused chronic and persistent failure of electrical and water systems in major cities; This made these systems almost uninhabitable, especially during the sweltering summer months.

At the height of the sectarian war, parts of Baghdad were so littered with impromptu militia checkpoints that many Iraqis began carrying two official-looking IDs; one real, the other a fake showing the surname and place of birth associated with the other sect.

Choosing which one to present, especially in hotly contested neighborhoods, was like flipping a coin with your life in the balance.

“We don’t have a good track record,” Faranhipour said. “How many American lives did we waste in Afghanistan? How much money did we spend there just to replace the Taliban with the Taliban?”

He prays that the United States will not get into a deadlock again.

“I hope the president and his team know what they are doing,” he said. “They should declare victory and retreat.”