Mahla Shaghafi, an Iranian-American woman who said she’s never voted for Donald Trump, nevertheless found herself wearing a hat riffing off of the president’s famous mantra.
On Saturday afternoon, this self-described Democrat sported a Make Iran Great Again baseball cap, as she shouted down a much larger anti-Iran war demonstration at the Embarcadero Plaza. Shaghafi, along with a few dozen others, came to challenge the larger group of approximately 200 anti-war protestors.
“The only president in the world that had the balls to take care of this murderous Islamic Republic was Trump,” she said. “None of us are happy about losing more innocent people in any country. But, you know, it’s war.”
Shaghafi, who said she migrated to the United States as a teenager, four years before the 1979 revolution that swept the Islamic Republic into power, was part of a group of dozens of Iranian-Americans that came out Saturday to rally in favor of the recent military action that has killed numerous members of Iran’s government and wreaked chaos across the region.
The main San Francisco event was organized by longtime progressive and antiwar groups including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, along with the Answer Coalition, – it was one of numerous other sister protests that took place (opens in new tab) around the country on Saturday.
For the past few months, Iranian-Americans have protested all around the region and country, including on the Golden Gate Bridge (opens in new tab), for regime change in their motherland.
But now that the U.S. and Israel have been at war with Iran for a week, killing the country’s spiritual and political leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along the way, some are starting to celebrate — and are starting to challenge anyone who believes regime change at the hands of the American military is unjust.
It remains unclear as to whether the Islamic Republic government will be brought down as a result.
Over the course of the afternoon, several San Francisco police officers descended upon the plaza to create a line between the two groups as yelling matches became increasingly combative.
The counterprotestors waved “Lion and Sun” Iran flags dating to before the 1979 revolution, with some also holding Israeli and American flags. Antiwar protestors also flew contemporary Islamic Republic of Iran and Palestine flags, while some covered their faces with keffiyehs.
Speakers denounced the “rich man’s war” and argued taxpayer dollars would be better spent on jobs and education. While these antiwar speakers lamented the horrors of the bombings in Iran over the past week, counterprotestors took the opposite tack. They likened the military operations of the last week to “rescue” and “humanitarian” missions.
Armin S., a 44-year-old who migrated from Iran 22 years ago, suggested that if Iran’s current government would stop committing acts of terrorism and massacring their own people, there would be no war.
“That’s how we can get rid of these people who are monsters,” he said. “They’ll kill everyone — every last person on Earth.”
Similarly, an Iranian woman named Sara J., 44, who also declined to give her last name, said the hope for a regime change inspired this week couldn’t have happened without American involvement – and hoped it would end as soon as possible.
“There is no sense of freedom in Iran in the past 47 years,” she said, noting how women have been punished for showing their hair, or drinking alcohol, which is officially illegal in Iran.
As the antiwar protestors made their way south on the Embarcadero before marching along Howard Street, one of the counterprotestors, Aidin Tavakkol, accused them of being paid actors, few of whom have real ties to Iran.
“They’re protesting to save the Ayatollah so he can continue killing our people,” Tavakkol said. “They’re taking our oil money and spending it on Hamas and Hezbollah and all those people that these people like.”
After the antiwar protestors had drifted out of view, the counterprotestors, who will hold another demonstration Sunday afternoon on the Embarcadero, stuck around the plaza to dance in celebration of the accomplishments of the last week.
“They just hate Trump so much and they hate Israel so much,” Tavakkol added, “that they can’t see the humanitarian aspect of it. It’s really sad to be honest.”