·This story was first published at CPR news.
DENVER | On Friday night, Katayoun Donnelly called her family after she saw the news of the first military strike on Iran. Her mother, brother, aunts and many cousins all live there.
“It was surreal in that sense that I was watching it unfold from 7,000 miles away and trying to warn my family, including one of my cousins who’s a pharmacist at a hospital that had been close to one of the first sites that it hit,” she said.
Many Iranians in Colorado feel the same way as Donnelly does — anxious, emotional and maybe even hopeful after a weekend of multiple military strikes from the U.S. and Israel on Iran that killed the nation’s leader. The attacks continued on Monday.
Donnelly, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2002 at 25, went to bed restless, waking up several times during the night, describing it as the “life of an Iranian American.”
She felt that combination of fear and hope, even in the face of war. Having lived through a war in Iran earlier in her life, that’s a raw and intimate feeling for her.
“I was there … during the whole eight years of the Iran-Iraq war. So for us, war is not an abstract. When you have a population that is asking for intervention, asking to be hit, to me, that is not something that I read in the news and pass over,” said. “It’s extremely meaningful because I remember the sound of the explosions.”
Donnelly supports regime change in these circumstances, though she wants more protection of civilians, a notion adopted by the United Nations in 2005. She was brought to tears as she spoke about the civilians who are harmed in these situations, such as the strikes over the weekend that killed more than 150 school children and as many as a hundred civilians.
Katayoun Donnelly shares her conflicting feelings regarding the ongoing situation in Iran on March 2, 2026, in Denver. Donnelly immigrated to the U.S. in 2002 and still has family in Iran.
She’s worried for her family and others there, but believes the country needs a change.
“This is a part that is extremely confusing emotionally for us … just think about the amount of desperation in a nation to ask for. And this is the same nation that went to war for eight years to protect its territorial integrity,” she said.
Shideh Dashti of Boulder felt similarly. She tried to reach her dad and other family members on Saturday. She moved to the U.S. in 1999, in her last year of high school.
“We still haven’t been able to reach anybody in Iran, so we don’t know how they are,” she said.
On Saturday, Israel reported that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who led the Islamic Republic since 1989, was killed in a strike. Iranian officials later confirmed the news.
Dashti woke up that morning trying to make sense of what had happened, describing it as laughing one minute and crying the next.
“There is a glimpse of hope. For the first time, my community, I feel like we are daring to have hope that finally we can get rid of this murderous regime. That people can take over and determine their next chapter better this time,” she said. “But at the same time, this is war and civilians are getting killed and we can’t reach our family.”
Khamenei’s death, she said, brought a lot of joy and uncertainty.
“He was responsible a few weeks ago for the murder of more than 30,000 innocent individuals in the streets. But at the same time, we are extremely anxious about what’s to come,” Dashti said.
While there is hope of regime change, she feels that the government would once again squash uprisings if civilians don’t have military assistance.
“I’ve always been against wars. I’ve always been against violence. This is a very difficult situation. I feel for one second that this military attack, as destructive as it is, might be a path to the freedom of my people, but I’m also not naive to think that that is actually what’s going to happen,” Dashti said.
Payam Diba, 33, whose parents moved to Colorado in the 1980s, is hopeful about change — but skeptical about the U.S.’s intentions.
“Whenever a country meddles in another’s affairs, it’s usually not for the benefit of the people,” he said.
Still, it left Persians celebrating in Colorado, he said. His family’s restaurant south of Denver stayed open until midnight, with people dancing and cheering. It usually closes at 9 p.m.
“The Persian people have been waiting to see change for like 50 years. Their freedoms have been stripped away from them. They’ve been frustrated with the way the system has taken advantage of them for so long,” he said. “This kind of change is monumental.”
Colorado state Rep. Yara Zokaie, whose parents both fled Iran when the regime changed, said she also has a mix of emotions. She’s sympathetic to the fact that many Iranians want regime change.
“There is that desperate desire for regime change. I think all of us celebrated Khamenei’s death,” she said. “And yet, there is also concern for what happens now. There are bombs going off around my family members’ houses.”
She worries that the current situation will lead to a “forever war.”
“I don’t think that that is what they are asking for,” Zokaie said. “We all want a free Iran where people can live their lives as they choose and where there’s equal rights for women. But what is happening now, given America’s track record in the Middle East, we worry is not going to lead there.”