By Stella Henretta

Shaken and afraid following various U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran, faculty assistant and mentor at the University of Maryland Persian Flagship Program Maryam Rezaeizadeh’s mother relocated from her home in Tehran to a single-family house with her other daughter.

“[My mother’s] displacement breaks my heart every time I see her or talk to her because I don’t recognize this woman,” Rezaeizadeh said. “She’s become frail and has lost weight. Whenever I think about the horrible idea that she might be the next ‘collateral damage,’ I’m about to lose my sanity. This is what fear does to you.”

Rezaeizadeh is not the only one living through this nightmare. Many Iranian and Iranian American students and faculty at the University of Maryland currently have family in Iran under constant threat of foreign attacks.

Senior Persian studies major Josh Mizrahi identifies as a first-generation Persian American Jewish person with family in Iran and Israel.

“From my family in Iran, I’ve heard that one of my cousins has been severely injured from a rocket, but thankfully is alive, and my friends and family in Israel are in [a] constant state of unease due to rocket sirens every 10 to 20 minutes,” Mizrahi said. “On both ends, it’s very stressful and upsetting.”

Meanwhile, sophomore international relations and global and foreign policy major Noosha Sadeghi was worried during the interval when her mother was stuck in Iran during the war. Sadeghi’s mother eventually fled Iran on March 8.

“I never knew the next time I was going to be able to talk to her again because we could only talk when she reached out because of the internet shutoffs,” Sadeghi said. “I was scared something horrible would happen if I posted about Iran. It made me feel like I wasn’t standing up for my people, but I was protecting my mom.”

Iranian and Iranian American students and faculty with family in Tehran, in particular, expressed concern regarding their families’ safety.

“I mean, basically my whole family is there, except my parents, so I’m very worried about them because they’re in Tehran and hearing the bombs, and I’m afraid their house will also be hit,” said junior animal science major Melika Ebrahimi.

In response to the war in Iran, many UMD Iranian and Iranian American students and faculty have offered different perspectives on whether the United States should have pursued violent intervention.

Mizrahi thinks the U.S. bombing of Iran was beneficial because it led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Personally, I think with all the killing and murders of Iranian civilians by the Islamic Republic of Iran, someone needed to intervene to help put an end to it,” Mizrahi said.

Rezaeizadeh, who is also a public policy researcher and practitioner specializing in gender, security and Middle Eastern affairs, believes that human security involves the protection of individuals’ dignity, livelihoods and freedoms.

Military intervention, according to Rezaeizadeh, rarely produces the conditions necessary for democratic development as it overwhelmingly harms civilians, destroys infrastructure and exacerbates long-term instability.

“I do not believe the United States should have bombed Iran,” Rezaeizadeh said. “While Iran is frequently framed as a principal adversary in U.S. strategic narratives in the Middle East, the threshold for the legitimate use of force, particularly under international law and just war theory, requires clear evidence of an imminent threat. In this case, such a threshold was not convincingly met.”

Rezaeizadeh explained her position is not rooted in sympathy for the Iranian regime, but rather is deeply against the regime’s systematic suppression of civil liberties, gendered repression and broader authoritarian practices. However, rejecting the regime’s behavior does not logically or ethically justify endorsing large-scale military intervention, she added.

Rezaeizadeh also cited historical evidence, from the Iraq War to the War in Afghanistan, demonstrating that external military force often entrenches authoritarian resilience, fuels nationalist backlash and weakens indigenous civil society actors rather than empowering them.

“I am not a warmonger for any nation, anywhere. My normative commitment is to human security, not state militarism,” Rezaeizadeh said. “In my view, meaningful pathways to democratic transformation in Iran, or elsewhere, are far more likely to emerge through bottom-up social movements, transnational advocacy networks, targeted diplomatic pressure and economic accountability mechanisms, rather than through coercive military force.” 

Sophomore public policy major Ava Faghani shared her fear that the military force being used by the U.S. at present will not trigger regime change for Iranian citizens.

“What scares me most of all is this effort for change and violence not translating into systemic change for the better. There have been so many innocent lives lost, which can never be justified. I think the closest thing to justice is if the people in Iran have a safe government and freedom after all of this,” Faghani said.

Many UMD students and faculty feel that there is little they can do to alleviate the situation. Mizrahi said he feels powerless.

“I see and hear everything that’s going on, and there’s nothing I can do,” Mizrahi said. “As someone who prides myself on taking action, it feels very difficult not really being able to do anything.”

To comfort himself, Mizrahi said he will continue trying to stay in touch with his family in Iran. He also likes using art and drawing as an outlet to relieve stress and reflect on what’s going on around him.

Rezaeizadeh uses similar tactics to stay grounded, such as building support systems with friends or, as an educator, sharing experiences with students.

“Because I oppose violence and especially military attacks for spreading democracy, I have chosen to stay informed, accept invitations from academia when they want to understand Iran beyond news headlines or what the mainstream media is feeding them, and to investigate, explore and view this catastrophe from a different perspective,” Rezaeizadeh said. “I believe this is invaluable because, unfortunately, genuine stories are rarely found in mainstream media.”

Faghani said Iranian Americans have always had a stigma against them, and recent events have worsened the hate and discrimination.

“A lot of my relatives have so much hope that the regime can change for the better,” Faghani said. “They’ve now lived the majority of their lives here, but their hearts always care deeply about Iran and their home.”

Sadeghi said that Iranian citizens want what’s best for them and their country.

“What many Iranians want is simply the freedom to determine their own future without repression or outside control,” she said.

Featured Image: Pre-1979 Islamic Revolution Iranian flag outside of H.J. Patterson Hall on April 8. Photo by Stella Henretta. Photo by Stella Henretta.