Since the 28th of February, 2026, the United States of America, with the cooperation and backing of the State of Israel, has been at war with Iran. On the first day of the conflict, the American military conducted a successful assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had served as Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989, ten years after the popular revolution in 1979 that put his regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Front, in power. The theocratic regime of the Ayatollahs has been responsible for numerous human rights atrocities over the past 45 years, according to human rights watchdog Amnesty International. Just earlier this year, the regime quashed widespread protests against them with brutal measures, killing by some measure thousands of Iranian citizens.
This is not the first time the United States has interfered with Iran’s internal affairs. In 1953, the United Kingdom, with the backing of the CIA, staged a coup d’etat in Iran, overthrowing the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, as he had nationalized the oil industry, endangering British interests in the region. Following the coup, the shah, the monarch of Iran, took complete control, ruling as a brutal tyrant for the following 25 years. Secret police became widespread, and dissidence was not permitted.
In 1979, a popular revolution overthrew the Shah and instituted a new government. Although during the revolution itself there had been a tenuous alliance between secular leftist revolutionaries & communists and hard-line Islamic extremists, both of whom had suffered under the Shah’s reign, following the revolution, the Islamists consolidated power and disenfranchised the leftists, instituting a new regime just as brutal as that of the Shah’s, and eventually engaging in a deadly war with Iraq.
The Islamic regime has lasted uninterrupted since then, with near constant human rights abuses and infringements. Going out in public as a woman without a hijab on is barred by law, and homosexuality is punishable by death– these laws, known as “sharia law”, a theocratic rule purportedly based on the Quran, are enforced in Iran by “morality police”.
Reasoning for the war is, at this stage, unclear. The administration has given multiple reasons. One potential reason given was to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities; the administration claimed last June, following the 12-day war, that they had already eliminated Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Another is that Israel was planning on conducting a strike against Iran that would’ve resulted in retaliation, requiring the US to strike first, which still leaves open the question of why Israel had to conduct the strike in the first place.
Furthermore, to many onlookers and pundits, similarities are emerging between the burgeoning war in Iran and the 8-year failed war against Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq, which resulted in the rise of ISIS.
Iranians, both at home and abroad, have a wide range of opinions on the war.
The King’s Page spoke to two San Marcos students of Iranian descent to hear their perspectives. Nika Entezari, a sophomore, supports the war.
“My parents left the war during the revolution, but the stories of what the regime has done have never left our family. When you grow up hearing about people being imprisoned, attacked with acid, or killed for speaking out, it becomes clear that this is just about people simply wanting to live freely in the country they once loved. For this reason, this war feels deeply personal.”
Senior Sabrina Rashti, Editor-in-Chief at the King’s Page, opposes the war. “I understand why a lot of Iranians are happy, the Islamic regime is finally done, but we’re killing people in the process, and it’s clear that [Donald Trump] isn’t in it for humanitarian reasons… I personally am against this war, I don’t think we should be bringing innocent people into this.”
