Originally published in print in April 2026. View print issues here.

Over the past couple months, the United States — together with Israel — has launched multiple military strikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is currently ruled by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who recently replaced his father Ali Khamenei after he was killed in a U.S.-Israeli attack.

According to President Donald Trump, this intervention is an attempt to protect the United States from the potential threat of Iran developing nuclear weaponry and shield the Middle Eastern region from Iranian aggression. Many Americans — roughly 59% as shown in a PBS poll from March 25 — have expressed opposition to further U.S. military action.

Furthermore, an Instagram survey by Bear Witness indicated that 80% of respondents do not think U.S. intervention is justified. According to a March 29 Yahoo News article, Iran’s Health Ministry stated that 1,900 people had died since February 28 — the initial strike.

An anonymous Persian community member who grew up in Iran stated their unhappiness with the amount of destruction inflicted on Iran. As of March 29, over 100,000 civilian buildings have been hit, including 40,000 residential and business buildings in Tehran alone, from the U.S.-Israeli attack according to Yahoo News.

“I feel really sad to see that the country is being bombed, and a lot of infrastructures — a lot of important places — are being destroyed,” they said.

Yet they still remain in contact with friends and family members who are currently in Iran and stated that their friends and family are excited to see steps toward change.

“They’re happy about the progress of things because they are hoping this would be a way for them to get rid of the current regime,” they said. “It feels like people have been taken hostage in their own country for a long time, and they’ve tried different things, but they didn’t see any other way [except] by some help from outside.”

Junior Sevin Sabei, who was born in Iran, also believes the intervention of outside forces was necessary and that the violence of the current regime — an Islamic theocracy — has reached an unacceptable level. During the Iranian Revolution, in which the previous leader was overthrown and the Islamic Republic was established, Sabei’s own grandparents were pushed out of the country in the late 1970s for expressing their opinions on the government system.

“My grandparents, back when the revolution was happening, were persecuted because they were protesting, and my family has faced the morality police,” Sabei said. “We don’t support the Islamic regime, so we definitely do support changing it.”

Sabei agrees that rethinking the current strategy would be extremely beneficial in minimizing the negative effects on the country itself. For instance, NPR statistics indicate that missiles and bombs sent by the United States have temporarily displaced 3.2 million Iranians.

“I get that they’re trying to overthrow the oppressive government, which I do support, but I think the way they’re going about it isn’t very humane,” Sabei said. “There are better ways to fix this problem.”

Junior Jackson Kuljis generally agrees with the idea of both a regime change and U.S. intervention, but he is wary of the realities of the situation as he feels the United States’ tactics are questionable.

“It seems like there’s a lack of planning, and it seems like we didn’t go in with an idea of how we were going to end up getting regime change,” Kuljis said. “While I do support changing the regime and bringing democracy, I can’t tell if that’s really the goal of the current administration.”

The current Iranian regime has silenced women by imprisoning them for resistance to dress codes as well as violently suppressing protests, according to a Harvard Kennedy School article published in February.

“There was no other way to get rid of these guys because they have everything in their power,” the anonymous community member said. “They have the money, and they’re extremely corrupted.”

Iran has retaliated against the bombings with strikes against Israel and Gulf states that are allied with the United States or have U.S. military bases, despite many of them declining to participate in the attack themselves. Although Kuljis believes that a counterattack on the United States is justified as an act of defense, he expressed that attacking Gulf states, such as Dubai, should not be permitted as he believes they are neutral parties.

“Dubai [is] not really in the line of fire,” Kuljis said. “They shouldn’t have been attacked. It’s quite obviously a fear tactic on the part of the Iranian regime.”

The anonymous interviewee believes that Iranians around the world are ready for a new regime. Sabei and her family are also of the opinion that change is long overdue.

“We would love for a more democratic system to be in place,” Sabei said.