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While progressive activists and Democratic lawmakers continue to denounce the military campaign against Iran, one community is celebrating in the streets and openly thanking President Trump for taking action. According to reports from local news outlets like the Los Angeles Times, Iranian-Americans in Los Angeles, particularly in the Westwood neighborhood locals call Tehrangeles, have been waving the pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flag alongside American and Israeli banners, chanting for a free and secular Iran since the first strikes began on February 28. For the roughly 500,000 Iranians who call California home, as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau, this is not an abstract foreign policy debate but a deeply personal struggle that traces back to 1979, when the Islamic Republic seized power and turned their homeland into a prison state.
These are the children of teachers who lost their jobs, businesspeople whose assets were confiscated, political dissidents who fled execution orders, and religious minorities who faced systematic persecution, all united by a single truth: they are here because that regime made staying in Iran impossible. The gratitude being expressed toward Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reflects years of simmering frustration with Democratic administrations that pursued nuclear diplomacy with a regime this community regards as irredeemably criminal, as voiced in interviews with community leaders. Where establishment policymakers saw pragmatism in the Obama-era JCPOA, Iranian-Americans saw appeasement of a government that has terrorized their families for nearly half a century. And the Biden administration’s attempts to revive that same deal were met with open criticism from a community that understands something Washington’s foreign policy establishment often forgets: you cannot negotiate in good faith with a regime that murders its own citizens and exports terror across the Middle East, according to statements from Iranian-American organizations.
The scenes in Westwood, with crowds carrying signs reading ‘Thank You Trump for Freeing Iran,’ represent a stark counter-narrative to the anti-war protests dominating cable news coverage. These Americans are not warmongers; they are survivors of tyranny who have waited decades to see the international community treat the Islamic Republic with the seriousness it deserves. Their message is clear and direct: military action against the regime is not aggression against Iran, it is liberation for the Iranian people. Providence watches over the bold.
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