After the initial excitement, some Iranian Americans became fearful

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After the initial excitement, some Iranian Americans became fearful

Software engineer Arin Saghatelian did not cry when he heard that the supreme leader of his country had been killed by American bombs.

“I don’t think you’re going to find many people who support that dictatorship or the mullahs who are ruling 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 last week when he was deported from Iran quickly turned into a fear he felt as an American citizen and taxpayer: What if his adopted country enters another war as long, deadly and expensive as the war in Iraq?

After the initial joy in “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 discussions this week has grown significantly.

Customers sit at Sipp Coffee House across the street from Tochal Market and Damoka clothing store on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles on Friday.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

As Iranian Americans like Saghatelian watch the rapid escalation of the war that began with US and Israeli bombings across Iran, some fear that their homeland, and perhaps the Middle East, could descend into chaos.

In Iraq, after the US invasion overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, sectarian leaders stepped into the void. The long-standing rivalry between Sunni and Shiite Muslims has sparked a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Roozbeh Farahanipour, a former Iranian dissident who now lives in Los Angeles, worries that a destabilized Iran, with its complex cultural heritage and mix of ethnic and religious groups, could turn out to be worse than post-invasion Iraq.

“It’s very complicated ethnically, socially and historically,” so a protracted war there “wouldn’t be like Iraq — it would be 10 times worse,” he said.

Of the 600,000 or so Iranians living in the US, about half are in California, according to the Iranian Diaspora Dashboard produced by UCLA’s Center of Near Eastern Studies. The surge in immigration followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution that sent the US-backed shah into exile and swept the religious fundamentalists from power.

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

Those who fled the revolution, and the strict Islamic rule that followed, often considered themselves exiles from their own countries. But the flow of immigrants has remained so steady that half of the Iranian-born population in the US arrived after 1994, Harris said.

The politics of young Iranian immigrants, who come to the US for all kinds of reasons, and consume the full range of content available on the Internet, is very different from that of their older compatriots.

Pro-Palestine protesters hold a rally in front of UCLA campus police

For example, UCLA students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza last year set up camp not far from Harris’ office window. He saw some Iranian-American students inside the makeshift building, while others lined up outside with the protesters.

“There are so many Iranians in the US now, especially in LA, that you’re going to find them in all kinds of conflicts,” Harris said.

Saghatelian, a software engineer, fled after years of war that began with Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and claimed nearly a million lives. His parents wanted to make sure that he and his older brother would not be subjected to such slaughter.

As a child, Saghatelian was forced to flee his hometown of Tehran during the bombing of Iraq.

“So I had a real, personal interest in seeing Saddam fall,” he said.

But he also remembers the nightmare that followed. Every military and civilian death, every cost to the American taxpayer.

“As an American citizen, I am concerned that this will happen again,” he said.

And he worries that his American-born friends, who have enjoyed a peaceful life, don’t realize how quickly things can turn into disaster.

As Christian Armenians, his family had a good time under Iranian rule, Saghatelian said, and did not suffer much after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Saghatelian said: “As the religious mullahs came to power, they still respected the Armenian community. But every year, the pressure increased.

Other ethnic minorities were even worse, Saghatelian said: “If you were a Jew, the more violent the country, the more vulnerable you were.”

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

But like many others who fled 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.

Since then, he has focused on building his life here, with no real desire to return. But she has looked at the conditions in her country over the years, and her mother keeps in touch with her uncle who is still there.

“It’s a beautiful country. I’d like to be able to travel freely as a United States citizen,” he said.

Regine Change in Iran signs and pictures of Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's last shah, can be seen in many shop windows.

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

Farahanipour, 54, also considers himself an exile. In the summer of 1999, she was a 27-year-old journalist in Tehran who became a prominent figure in the student protest movement that demanded free press, an end to government censorship and equal rights for women. Others, including himself, publicly called for Khamenei to resign – which was unthinkable at the time, Farahanipour said.

As a result, the state shut down a well-known revolutionary newspaper, sent security forces into a college dormitory and beat and imprisoned students who participated in public protests.

On July 12, 1999, Khamenei went on national radio and called the students “rioters” and henchmen of foreign enemies. Rather than being discouraged, Farahanipour said, he was surprised. Forcing Khamenei to answer “was the proudest moment of my life,” he said, smiling at the memory.

But he didn’t have much time to enjoy the fame.

“I got a death sentence from the government,” he said as calmly as some might say they got a parking ticket. Then came three Fats – religious rules – calling for his death, he said.

That was after years of seeing family members and friends “arrested, tortured and killed” by the government.

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

Roozbeh Farahanipour, owner of Delphi Greek restaurant in Westwood, poses for a photo

He has lived in Los Angeles since 2000, opening several restaurants. In 2017, he became an American citizen, arriving at that momentous decision while walking through Westwood Cemetery.

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

Still, he couldn’t look away from the news earlier this year when Iran’s currency collapse sent people into the streets, sparking a brutal government crackdown that killed thousands of protesters.

When Farahanipour learned of Khamenei’s death, he popped the cork from a champagne bottle and celebrated “the happiest moment of my life.”

But like Saghatelian, he soon began to think about Iraq.

Shortly after the fall of Hussein’s ruling party, mobs looted government offices and cultural centers. Damage to critical infrastructure from US bombing has led to chronic and persistent failure of electricity and water systems in major cities – making them almost unlivable, especially in the hot summer.

At the height of the sectarian war, parts of Baghdad were so riddled with unknown military checkpoints that many Iraqis began carrying two seemingly legitimate IDs – one real and one fake with a surname and place of birth associated with another sect.

Choosing who to present, especially in highly contested areas, was like tossing a coin with your life on the line.

“We don’t have a good history,” Faranhipour said. “How many American lives are we wasting in Afghanistan? How much money are we wasting there just to replace the Taliban with the Taliban?”

He prays that the United States will not be depressed again.

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