{"id":506979,"date":"2026-03-01T08:15:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/506979\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T08:15:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:15:40","slug":"for-some-iranian-canadians-strikes-on-iran-signal-a-possible-turning-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/506979\/","title":{"rendered":"For some Iranian Canadians, strikes on Iran signal a possible turning point"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Iranian-Canadian Bahar Tarzi takes part in a demonstration against the Iranian government, in Richmond Hill, Ont., on Saturday.EDUARDO LIMA\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Bahar Tarzi woke at 4 a.m, to her social media feed buzzing with news that bombing had started in Iran. She immediately roused her still-sleeping husband and 13-year-old son with joyful shouting echoing in her Barrie, Ont., home: \u201cIt\u2019s happening! It\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been praying for this,\u201d said Ms. Tarzi, the founder of Iranian Canadian Social and Cultural Council. \u201cWe want an end to this dictatorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Toronto, Zara Marzban, 36, woke early to a call from her sister. That wasn\u2019t unusual: she\u2019s spoken to her family every day since coming to Canada four years ago. But she answered anxiously, sensing something had happened. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey are bombing,\u201d her sister told her. \u201cBut we are ok, we are safe in the houses don\u2019t worry \u2013 but the connection will be lost.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ms. Marzban leapt out of bed, scouring social media for news, understanding all too well what this could mean for young women if the attack leads to regime change. Growing up in Iran, she\u2019d been forced to wear a hijab started at age nine, and always felt under constant scrutiny. \u201cAs a woman, I didn\u2019t feel safe there.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mersad Katebi already had plans to join a Saturday protest against the Iranian government, when he picked up his phone and heard his 24-year-old cousin, back in Iran, announce with excitement that the war had started. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, oh, wow,\u201d says Mr. Katebi, 21, who left Iran five years ago, to study engineering in Toronto. \u201cIt\u2019s a feeling of happiness and joy.\u201d <\/p>\n

By Saturday afternoon, all three had joined thousands of other members of Iranian-Canadian community, dancing and cheering across kilometres of Yonge Street, in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto. <\/p>\n

What had been planned as a protest was now festive and uplifting, to the soundtrack of honking horns and thumping dance. A few people wore \u201cMake Iran Great Again\u201d caps. Many more swaddled themselves in the Iranian tricolour flag, including Mr. Katebi. Waving a smaller flag, Ms. Marzban, smiled broadly among the jubilant crowd, her hair covered only by a grey wool tuque.<\/p>\n

Across the country, many Canadians with Iranian roots expressed the same hope: that this foreign military intervention would be enough to weaken a violent and oppressive dictatorship and give the people a chance to restore democracy to their native country. <\/p>\n

Other member of the Iranian diaspora, watching from Canada, were more trepidatious, pointing out that Iran is a large and complex country, and that using foreign military action to bring about regime change could have unintended consequences and might further destabilize the Middle East. <\/p>\n

Analysis: Which regime? What change? Iran\u2019s complexity means there are no magic bullets<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so risky and there are so many unknowns,\u201c said Sasan Issari, a social worker and assistant professor at Trent University, who wants an end to the Iranian regime, but is not convinced that dropping bombs will accomplish it.<\/p>\n

He worries, for instance, that civilian deaths from American and Israeli bombs may galvanize anti-Western extremists. And he pointed out that a current internet blackout in Iran, means it will be easy for disinformation to spread. <\/p>\n

\u201cHistory has shown that when you bomb people to give them freedom, it has the opposite effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pouya Morshedi, a part-time lecturer in sociology at Acadia University who has studied the Iranian revolution of 1979, said he has dreamed for years that the regime might one day be gone, but war is uncertain and dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way that we can have hope for the future in Iran is through the people who are inside Iran,\u201d he said. \u201cThey make the decisions, they make the change, instead of those groups who want to \u201cliberate\u201d them in quotation marks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Morshedi, who has lived in Canada since 2018, heard from family members living in a city in southern Iran on Saturday morning, before the Internet was shut off in Iran. They were huddled in an apartment on the ground floor of a building, waiting out the bombs, for what might follow.<\/p>\n

What that might be – even if the regime falls, Mr. Morshedi said, is far from clear, and potentially full of conflict. <\/p>\n

Reza Hadisi, an Iranian-American professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, said he fears a repeat of what occurred after the invasion of Afghanistan, where a hardline regime was toppled only to return years later.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Will the U.S.-Israel attack help end Iranians\u2019 suffering \u2013 or make it worse?<\/a><\/p>\n

In Iran, people are \u201cjust so angry, so desperate, that they say \u2018anything is better,\u2019\u201d Prof. Hadisi said. \u201cI understand their anger, but I just worry that with war, who knows how it will go?\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump, who had been threatening military action after the Iran government killed thousands of pro-democracy protestors in January, justified the attack by claiming Iran had continued to work towards a nuclear arsenal with the goal of building missiles that could reach the United States.<\/p>\n

In a Saturday morning statement<\/a>, Prime Minister Mark Carney declared Canada\u2019s support for the intervention, calling the Islamic Republic the \u201cprincipal source of instability and terror throughout the Middle East\u201d and saying the regime must never be able to develop a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

Ms. Tarzi, for her part, says she is grateful that Mr. Trump decided to take action, and happy that her chosen country is supporting the decision. She believes that diplomacy was never going to work with a tyrannical regime willing to respond to peaceful, anti-government demonstrations by killing thousands of the country citizens, many of them young people. <\/p>\n

As those student protests began again this week, she said, fears among her family there had only grown that young people will continue to die – with or without the bombs, she said, their lives were at risk. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe country was living under a blanket of sorrow.\u201d she said. Her family has stopped buying cakes for birthdays; Valentine\u2019s Day passed without young people exchanging gifts or chocolate. \u201cEvery night they were crying.\u201d <\/p>\n

But not today, she said. At the rally, Ms. Tarzi received a call from her sister in Tehran, who had heard reports – later announced officially by the United States – that the head of the regime, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed<\/a>. Her loved ones were safe, and together, her sister confirmed. \u201cEveryone is happy and celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday evening, Ms. Tarzi, her husband and son, were planning to join friends at a community centre in Richmond Hill. There would be more dance, she said, more celebration at the prospect of an optimistic, \u201cnew day for Iran.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to share our joy with each other,\u201d she said. \u201cNow is the time of the people.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Iranian-Canadian Bahar Tarzi takes part in a demonstration against the Iranian government, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":{"0":"post-506979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-ca","15":"tag-canada","16":"tag-canada-news","17":"tag-canada-sports","18":"tag-canada-sports-news","19":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","20":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","21":"tag-canadian-news","22":"tag-economy","23":"tag-education","24":"tag-environment","25":"tag-federal-government","26":"tag-foreign-news","27":"tag-globe-and-mail","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","29":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","30":"tag-government","31":"tag-life-news","32":"tag-lifestyle","33":"tag-local-news","34":"tag-manitoba","35":"tag-national-news","36":"tag-new-brunswick","37":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","38":"tag-news","39":"tag-northwest-territories","40":"tag-nova-scotia","41":"tag-nunavut","42":"tag-ontario","43":"tag-pei","44":"tag-photos","45":"tag-political-news","46":"tag-political-opinion","47":"tag-politics","48":"tag-politics-news","49":"tag-quebec","50":"tag-sports-news","51":"tag-technology","52":"tag-travel","53":"tag-trudeau","54":"tag-us-news","55":"tag-world-news","56":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}