Abroad and at odds: How the war has divided Iranians in the diaspora

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that the war on Iran has sharply divided Iranians living abroad, even among people who oppose both the government in Tehran and the military campaign led by the United States and Israel. The article says the conflict began six months earlier, has killed civilians, disrupted the economy and pushed diaspora communities into arguments over whether outside pressure could ever bring political change in Iran.

The piece focuses on several voices. Peyvand Khorsandi, an Iranian who left for the UK as a child, says he opposes the war despite his family’s history of conflict with the Iranian state. He argues that support for the strikes, including backing for Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s deposed shah, is misguided. Others in the diaspora, including Naz Radboy, see the war in broader anti-imperial terms and say they support Iran’s right to resist foreign pressure, even while criticizing repression at home.

Al Jazeera places this split in a wider historical context, noting long-running Iranian distrust of US and British intervention, including the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh. The report also says rights groups have accused Tehran of using the war to intensify arrests and coercion, while Western leaders initially justified the attacks partly on humanitarian grounds.

The article suggests the diaspora’s divisions reflect a larger uncertainty about Iran’s future: many are disillusioned with both the current government and the consequences of war, and there is little consensus on what political change, if any, should look like.