At 16, I learned that my life was not my own. Born into a Baha'i family in Iran, I was marked—not for anything I did, but for what I believed. The Islamic Republic has barred Baha'is from universities for 47 years, excluded them from many jobs, and denied them peaceful burials. Hundreds have been executed or killed since 1979. I watched adults I loved lose livelihoods and freedom. At 11, I was expelled from sixth grade in a horrifying manner; school officials wanted a mob of students to kill me. My family had no choice: they hired a smuggler to get me across the border to Pakistan.
This is not history; it is this week's news. Human rights groups report dozens of Baha'is detained in Iran this year alone, with the crackdown intensifying as Tehran's confrontation with the U.S. and Israel escalates. When a government feels cornered, it often turns to its oldest scapegoat—the Baha'i community. A new generation is living through what many have survived. I recognize the pattern because I lived it.
What does persecution feel like from inside? It is watching parents unable to protect their children. It is realizing as a teenager that your faith is a public liability. It is leaving behind country, language, community, and family, arriving with nothing because nothing was all we were allowed to keep.
What they could not take was my faith. Baha'i teachings center on service, unity of humanity, and the idea that honest work is worship. Those values came with me. They became my North Star as I built a life in the U.S., eventually as an entrepreneur. I landed in California as a refugee and made my way to UC-Davis. Without network or capital, I found in the Bay Area a place that cared less about my origins and more about what I could build. That is America's defining gift: tolerance for outsiders and appetite for unconventional paths. It allowed a Baha'i refugee with an accent and no family wealth to co-found AutoWeb, an early online car marketplace that went public in 1999. I later built other companies and now lead One Planet Group, a private equity firm.
America took me in when my own country rejected me. I helped build companies, created jobs, and paid into the economy that gave me a second chance. That is not charity repaid; it is a promise kept on both sides.
Meanwhile, Iran's fanatical government remains dangerous. Growing up in the 1980s, I saw banners quoting Ayatollah Khomeini: “War is a blessing.” That mentality has not faded. Military weakening does not touch ideology, and ideology—not pragmatism—drives Tehran's choices. A government that treats its own people as expendable will not moderate after a setback.
Beyond its borders, Iran uses Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to create permanent regional crisis, sacrificing innocent Palestinians, Lebanese, and Yemenis to maintain its grip on power. These are not allies; they are instruments. A government that sacrifices those it claims to champion is not a rational actor to trust. It treats its 93 million citizens as enemies. The world cannot assume a signed nuclear deal will be honored. Until the international community understands who it is dealing with and stands up for the Iranian people rather than profit, the Islamic Republic will only grow stronger.
I think of young people taken to gallows every morning, Baha'is detained now, and the youth and women of Iran—teenagers like I once was. The world has looked away for half a century while an entire nation has been persecuted. Iran's current turmoil could make it worse. I do not have a solution to Iran's politics, but I know what it means to be forgotten while your government decides your destiny. The U.S. offered me the American dream; it must not forget those still waiting.
