I hate Khamenei’s regime, but I love Iran even more

I’VE LOATHED the dictatorship of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for as long as I can remember.

- ARASH AZIZI

As a kid, I’d roll my eyes every morning during the obligatory salute to our supreme leader in the schoolyard. I resented the strictures, the atmosphere of moral probity the man in robes presided over.

In other words, you'd think I would be applauding Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack against the Iranian regime.

And yet, I’m not sold.

Since launching airstrikes against Iran on June 13, the Israeli prime minister has insisted that the bombs raining down on Tehran serve the interests of people like me. Framing his attack as a battle for liberation, he urges Iranians to rise up against Iran’s decades-long theocratic regime. He has even gone as far as to dub the Israeli operation “Rising Lion”, a reference to a cherished Iranian national emblem.

It's true, Khamenei’s regime jails and kills dissidents, stifles expression, censors our culture and pursues disastrous foreign policies that have climaxed in the current quagmire. It’s the primary reason myself and millions of other Iranians live in exile.

But instead of celebrating the Israeli strikes, I'm gripped with fear and trepidation about my country’s future.

I always knew a military intervention would be ugly. It would be ordinary Iranians, not state elites, paying the biggest price. That belief was confirmed this week as illusions about Israel’s “precision strikes” were put to rest; hundreds of Iranian civilians have fallen.

They include Parnia Abbasi, a 23-year-old poet; Mehrnoosh Haji-Soltani, a soulful young flight attendant; Amir Ali Amini, a student of taekwondo - he looks no older than 9.

But mine isn’t only a humanitarian concern but also a political one. The idea that this conflict will lead to a popular uprising which will bring down the regime is pure fantasy.