When U.S. and Israeli airstrikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28 and plunged the Middle East into war, Indiana’s Iranian diaspora was thrust into a state of anxious, round-the-clock vigil — checking phones for news, struggling to reach family across an unreliable internet, and wrestling with feelings too complex to reduce to a single reaction. The Indianapolis Star explored that experience in a March 23 feature by reporter Alexandria Burris, turning to Hussein Banai, associate professor of international studies in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, for analysis and context.
Banai brings both scholarly expertise and lived experience to the moment. He left Iran at age 15, after growing up through the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. That conflict, he told the Star, felt comparatively orderly — fought near borders, outside cities, with air raids a rarity. Today’s war looks entirely different. “It’s taken an entirely different dimension because the costs on the economy are being raised,” Banai said. He described watching family members in Tehran leave the capital for safety near the Caspian Sea.
Like many in the Iranian diaspora, Banai believes the Islamic Republic — which he called massively unpopular — needs to go. But he described himself as numb, anxious and concerned about a war with too many unknowns. With the Trump administration offering shifting rationales and no clear exit strategy, he said the endgame remains opaque.
“If there’s one thing that everyone agrees on, it’s that there’s a lack of a coherent military strategy.”— Hussein Banai, Indianapolis Star, March 23, 2026
Banai also pointed to what he sees as a critical missed opportunity. During the January protests — when Iranian shopkeepers, students and civilians took to the streets and the government responded with mass arrests and thousands of fatalities — President Trump set a red line for Iranian leaders, but no action followed. “They could have had a lot more support on behalf of the people and they waited instead until Feb. 28 to start this war,” Banai said. The delay, he argued, has deepened bitterness within the diaspora and left those inside Iran hesitant to risk open resistance. “There are bombs raining down,” he said. “Why risk your life — go out there even though you hate this regime?”
The article captures the range of views among Iranian Hoosiers, from those who support the strikes as the long-awaited downfall of a brutal government, to those who oppose regime change by military force on principle, to Banai’s more cautious position. Some in the diaspora see a messy conflict that could drag on; others feel Iranians should have risen up with international support rather than enduring a war. Banai noted that the regime’s hardline supporters have grown more entrenched, while those hoping for change are weighing personal risk against uncertain prospects.
Banai is among the country’s foremost scholars on U.S.-Iran relations, with research spanning democratic theory, diplomatic history and Iran’s political development. He is co-author of Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the US-Iran Conflict (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) and co-editor of International Studies Review, the flagship journal of the International Studies Association. His commentary has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, Time, BBC News and CNN, among many other outlets.
Read the full article at the Indianapolis Star (subscription required) or via InkFreeNews. Learn more about Hussein Banai and the Hamilton Lugar School's Department of International Studies.