Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Iranians in Marin County support the war because they see it as a first step in the liberation of their homeland.

"I think most everybody here is for it," said San Rafael resident Iraj Zolnasr, 40, who left Iran in 1975 to study accounting at San Francisco State University, of the nearly 1,000 attending the festivities on a crisp night under a full moon.

Even though he still has family living in Iran, he said he supports a U.S. war because that part of the world desperately needs democracy. The militant administration ruling the country fosters suicide bombers by not providing decent homes and jobs, he said, and does not represent how the majority of Iranians feel.

"Most people don't like them," he said, referring to the Iranian government.

Tiburon resident Reza Razavi, 37, the son of the woman who organizes the Marin gathering every year, said his family moved to Marin nearly 26 years ago at about the same time of the Iranian revolution. He tries to stay out of political discussion but he said the situation in Iraq has gone on long enough.

"I say, 'Get it over with,'" he said.

Firouzeh Zandi traveled from Walnut Creek to jump over the fires and be with people from her home country. She left Iran in the early 1970s to study at SFSU and the University of California at Los Angeles. She returned to her homeland later in the decade but left shortly thereafter because of the Islamic revolution.

Zandi likes living in America but she said she has never been able to replicate the love neighbors have for each other in Iran. Unlike here, she said people go out of their way to help people, even strangers, whenever possible.

"You feel like everybody cares about you," she said.

She said she goes back about once every year, with the most recent time being in January. She said she wants peace in the Middle East like many people in Iran but, in this case, supports what the United States is doing - on one condition: "if there's a glimmer of hope that they might overthrow the government of Iran."

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