How many Innocents must will die?
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (June 19, 2025) – I was in the middle of the bar. Doing my best to imitate Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Flipping bottles. Catching them behind my back. Praying I wouldn’t drop one and send shards of glass into the ice.
The China Club was packed. It was a Monday night. In the 90’s, Monday night at the China Club in Hollywood was like being at Studio 54 in New York in 70’s. Anyone who was anyone was there. Musicians. Actors. Politicians. Wannabe’s. Everyone.
Through the smoke, a dark-haired woman walked up to the bar and ordered a drink. She was young. She was flirtatious. She lived in Beverly Hills. She was a real estate agent and was currently negotiating a sell to Sly. Her whole life was ahead of her.
I found out later, she was Iranian. She was cool. She was the first Iranian person I had ever met. She has been a friend for 30 years.
She told me her father was once a successful businessman in Tehran. When Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and seized power in 1979, the Shaw and his Western partners were out. Business owners and academics fled the country for fear of persecution under the Khomeini as he ushered in his idea of the Islamic Republic.
Like many Iranian families, they fled to Europe. Her family eventually moved to Paris, and they lived there for ten years before moving again to Los Angeles, California.
What brought the Iranians to California? Maybe it was the climate. Like Southern California, Iran is hot in the summer and rainy in the winter. There is a cosmopolitan feel to Los Angeles that was probably like Iran of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Although the feeling is different now, foreign people were once welcome to Los Angeles and the United States.
But the two points that brought the Iranians to the U.S. are what used to bring so many immigrants to the United States. Opportunity and Freedom.
In my experience Iranians want the same basic things people across the world want.
Flash forward forty years and the Iranian population is Los Angeles is stable. They are successful businesspeople, scientists, and academics. They are normal people contributing to American society in their own way.
Iran, however, is a different story. The country has been a hotbed of war and civil unrest for the past four decades. The Iranian Revolution lasted until 1983. Two domestic rebellions also happened in 1979. The war between Iran and Iraq lasted for eight years between 1980 and 1988. From 1984 until 1996 the KDPI revolted against the government. People were tired of being suppressed and women wanted to be free of restrictive Muslim customs. This unrest lasted between 1999 and 2020.
In 2023, Hamas invaded a part of Israel, murdered concertgoers, and held them hostage. Iran supported Hamas and the attack against Israel.
Israel responded to Hamas and bombed Gaza, in what some say, is an Israeli-led genocide against the people of Gaza.
On June 12, 2025, Israel launched an attack against Iran to set-back Iran’s nuclear program. Yes, some nuclear facilities have been damaged, and some nuclear scientists have been killed.
But, missiles exploded in the Tehran too. Schools, hospitals, and business areas have been hit by Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, and hundreds of civilians have been killed, reports the New York Times.
Earlier today, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he would make his decision whether to “attack Iran” within two weeks. Why is the United States considering attacking Iran? Did Iran attack the United States recently? No. Did we currently uncover Iran’s plan to attack the United States? No.
What is the reason, President Trump is even considering attacking Iran? Didn’t President Trump, some would call an illegitimate president, promise to not involve the United States in global wars while campaigning?
Why is Trump considering to taking the United States to war? What is he trying to distract us from?
This goal of this article is not to defend Hamas, Israel, or Iran. Each of those countries has committed recent and historical atrocities. There is a long history of distrust. For me, an American, I wish we would stay out of it. The problems in the region have existed for a very very long time.
My concern is with the innocent people who will be killed. Innocents have already died. Young children. Grandparents. Mothers and fathers. Many more who will be killed if Israel continues the war, and, if the United States enters the war.
The worst-case scenario could be hundreds of thousands of deaths for innocent Iranian people. These are people that only dream of escaping a repressive regime. People who only want to live free, work hard, become educated, and raise families. Women, like Mahsa Amini, who in 2022, died after the religious morality police in Iran, according to eyewitnesses, beat her into a coma for not wearing her hijab correctly.
War is not a topic a president should discuss on social media. People’s lives are a stake, and a prudent leader would not be flippant about the subject.
Reference content courtesy of The New York Times, PBS, Vox, Amnesty International, BBC, The Institute for the Study of War, The Times of Israel, AFP/Getty Images, and musixmatch
