‘Trump is doing a favour for humanity’: Hopes and fears of LA’s Iranian community
Luxury Persian rugs are stacked in piles in the Los Angeles shop which Eric Saddigh has owned for decades.
He shakes out a small handwoven rug with a peacock design. “This one is $25,000,” he says. A lot of his customers are Beverly Hills millionaires. The opulence seems far removed from the horrors of war, but for Eric, who left Iran aged 15, his homeland is never far from mind.
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Portraits of the shahs, the monarchs who ruled Iran until the 1979 revolution, are displayed on the wall. The tricolour flag is hanging in the doorway, and in Eric there is optimism that the war launched by the US will result in a freer Iran.
“I was just watching the news in Iran. They’re all joyous,” he says. “They are being bombed. At the same time, they’re okay with it. It’s amazing. I mean, I’m sitting here, I’m cheering, but I’m not under the threat of bombs.”
I ask if Eric thinks Donald Trump did the right thing by launching strikes.
“Donald Trump is doing a favour for the whole humanity,” he says. “Keeping these people’s hands off nuclear bombs. And some people, like Democrats, they’re full of baloney. They created this monster.”
Eric’s father is 91 and still lives in Tehran. They usually communicate via WhatsApp, but since the war broke out two weeks ago, communication channels have been shut down, and he’s been relying on his father to contact him.
“My dad says it is chaos there, but he’s not afraid of the bombs; collateral damage is a part of war,” he says.
“God forbid, if my father gets killed, I would understand. I’m not going to be against it happening, there is a price to pay for freedom. Two months ago, 50,000 of our citizens got murdered – that bothers me. But we are trying to get free from this evil Nazi regime.”
Portraits of the shahs are displayed on the shop’s walls
The Westwood and Beverly Hills areas of Los Angeles are home to the biggest diaspora of Iranians anywhere in the world. It’s known colloquially as Tehrangeles or Little Persia.
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In Atari cafe, in so-called Persian Square, the birthplace of the Iranian business community here, waiters bring out platefuls of kebabs and rice. Serge Abdishoo, who left Iran with his family aged eight, is waiting to meet a friend.
“It feels like we’re on the cusp of finally being able to breathe again after 47 years, if it’s actually successful,” he says. “But I mean first and foremost, my concern is for America… this is the country that’s been housing us, caring for us all these years.
“What are the repercussions to Americans? Innocent lives can easily be lost here due to that. I hope Homeland Security has a plan in place and that things have been controlled, but I’m very concerned.”
Iran’s pre-Islamic Revolution flag alongside the US flag at Mr Saddigh’s shop
Mohammad Ghafarian owns a bakery and fruit and vegetable shop selling lavash bread, dates and other fresh food to a mostly Persian customer base. Mohammad, who has been in America for 53 years, is desperately hoping for change in Iran.
“I would love to go back to at least visit my brothers, my sisters,” he says. “In the end, I think this war is not finished so soon. But we’re going to have a hard time in America because of the prices going up, the price of oil going up, price of everything, grocery, everything goes up.”
Mr Saddigh, who left Iran at 15, acknowledges ‘there is a price to pay for freedom’
The American intervention isn’t universally popular here. Aida, who is of Armenian descent, is running errands in Tehrangeles.
“I have many Iranian friends, and I understand they want a new regime, but this is not something so easy. It is a mess,” she says.
“This is not gonna end unless somebody throws a bomb, a nuclear bomb. Because right now, it will be one fighting with the other. How can this end so quickly? Donald Trump won’t and Iran is [intent on] revenge. So when revenge is in the game, that game doesn’t get over so quickly.”
Aida is one of few dissenting voices in this area, though. Seven thousand miles from Iran, the overwhelming majority here support the war in their homeland and celebrate the US president who brought it about.
