As an Iranian American Christian from Los Angeles, I watch with alarm as a fringe religious prophecy creeps into the highest levels of American policy. What may sound like a spiritual metaphor—biblical End Times, Armageddon, divine vengeance—is now inspiring large-scale political decisions, putting lives at risk from LA to Gaza to Tehran.

After Hamas killed over a thousand Israelis and took hundreds captive on October 7, 2023, Israel has dropped the equivalent of several nuclear bombs on the Gaza Strip’s mass incarcerated Palestinian refugee enclave—with the U.S. supplying about 68% of Israel’s foreign-origin weaponry in this war. Amnesty International describes Israel’s response to October 7 as a genocide—killings “with the specific intent of destroying Palestinians in Gaza.”

In April 2024 in LA, masked vigilantes attacked UCLA’s nonviolent pro-Palestinian encampment for three hours with wood, metal, and fireworks before LAPD intervened. At the beginning of this year, Angelenos were devastated by the Eaton and Palisades Fires—worsened by global warming—taking dozens of lives, destroying thousands of homes, and creating eerie orange skies above Los Angeles.

The thought of my U.S. taxpayer dollars funding bombing campaigns of my ancestral homeland that could eventually become nuclear, threatening the beautiful ancient city of Isfahan that I visited in my childhood, is unbearable.

Now, the world is in the throes of President Donald Trump’s chaotic second term. Shortly after his inauguration, he once again withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accords—while LA was ablaze. More recently, as Angelenos have protested the federal government’s inhumane mass deportation campaign, which has lately targeted Iranian nationals, the Trump administration majorly escalated by sending in thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

On June 13, while the U.S. and Iran were in the middle of diplomatic negotiations around reinstating Obama-era restraints on Iran’s nuclear energy program, Israel under Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu, still waging a genocide on Gaza and facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court as of November 2024, began a large-scale attack on Iran. This represented the most significant attack on Iran since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988—culminating in the killings of at least 600 Iranians, including many civilians and children. In response, Iran attacked Israel with retaliatory strikes that killed dozens of Israelis.

In a televised address on Sunday, June 22, President Trump reported that the United States military under his command bombed three sites in Iran housing the country’s nuclear energy program, including Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, entering the U.S. into Israel’s offensive attack. He even at one point raised the possibility of a U.S. nuclear strike on Iran in the future. On Monday, June 23, Iran retaliated against the U.S. by launching limited missile strikes directed at an American military base in Qatar, with no casualties. Later that day on social media,

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