An Iranian American whose family fled the country decades ago says the current conflict involving Iran has stirred both deep sorrow and unexpected hope as he seeks to show support for Christians worshiping in Iran’s underground church.
Armin Assadi, who now lives in Minnesota with his wife, Ashlee Assadi, left Iran as a young child after his family witnessed what he described as “many atrocities.” According to KMSP-TV, the family escaped the country in 1988 when Assadi was 7 years old, first traveling to Pakistan before eventually resettling in the United States.
Tensions in the region escalated on Feb. 28 after the United States and Israel carried out coordinated strikes on Iranian targets. Reports indicated that the attacks killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with several senior figures in the regime.
In the days that followed, the conflict widened as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched missile and drone attacks toward Israel and several Gulf Arab nations.
Reflecting on the unfolding situation, Assadi said the moment has been emotionally complex, combining grief over the violence with a sense that change might be possible.
“Fear, sadness, grief, mourning, but at the same time, you have this weird sense of hope,” Armin Assadi told the local Fox affiliate in an interview. “Where, wow, Iran might be free for the first time in 47 years if what we think is happening is happening.”
Assadi said members of the Iranian Christian community in Minnesota had already been praying for people in Iran even before the latest conflict began.
He also spoke about the long cultural history of Iran and the desperation many Iranians feel under the current political system.
“That’s a level of desperation I don’t know how to convey to people. This culture has existed thousands of years before this regime ever existed,” Assadi said. “In honor of the Iranian underground Church, this is where we are going to be doing church in solidarity with them.”
Public attention to Assadi’s perspective grew after his wife shared a widely circulated message on Facebook on Feb. 28 asking others to pray for the people of Iran.
In the post, Ashlee Assadi called for prayers for both civilians and those involved in the conflict.
“Lord, protect our troops. Protect the Iranian people from the casualties of war. Shield the innocent,” she wrote. “Comfort the grieving. Strengthen the underground church. Let a holy battle cry rise from Your people across the world. Shake complacency. Awaken intercessors.”
She also wrote that many Iranians have long resisted oppression not through violence but through spiritual practices such as prayer and fasting, pointing to decades of atrocities committed by the Islamic regime that came to power in the late 1970s, which she said has imprisoned and killed Iranian citizens.
Ashlee Assadi said the ongoing war weighs heavily on her and her husband, who remain concerned for innocent people caught in the violence.
“We feel grief. We feel the weight of the innocent lives that’ve already been lost and the ones who may be caught in the crossfire of war,” Ashlee Assadi said about how she and her husband feel about the conflict.
At the same time, she said the moment carries a sense of possibility for the future.
“War is never light. It’s never clean. It costs something. But beneath the grief, something else is rising. Hope,” she added.
