Azad Salvati is haunted by the horrors that Iran’s Islamist regime has inflicted on his family.

A member of the Kurdish minority, he remembers when a 23-year-old cousin was killed for leading a rebellion against the authoritarian government’s oppression and persecution of his people.

“My mother and I washed his exploded body,” said Salvati, 51, of Portland. “I was just 9 years old. I will never be able to clear that from my mind.”

Given the recurring traumas of his youth, Salvati insists he is Kurdish American, not Iranian American. It’s also why, after the U.S. military bombed three nuclear facilities in his native land last weekend, he has hard feelings and complicated opinions about what’s happening in Iran, like other Mainers with roots in the Middle Eastern country.

Salvati, who came to the U.S. in 2004 as a political refugee, said he agreed with President Donald Trump’s decision to target Iranian nuclear sites, but he was disappointed when the president backed off his call to pursue regime change in Iran — an idea that divides even Trump supporters.

“Iran is still a menace for the whole region until that government is removed from power,” he said. “Why didn’t they finish the job? I had hoped everything would change. Unfortunately, now that dream is gone.”

Unable to communicate with family members still in Iran, he fears the military will ramp up arrests and killings in the wake of the bombings. He worries that the Trump administration’s “wishy-washy” foreign policy will lead to greater human rights violations.

“They are going to kill more people to show they are still in power,” he said. “Many are already scared to talk because they will be accused of helping Israel.”

Salvati, who is a heating and air conditioning technician, believes that ultimately only the Iranian people can bring about regime change, largely because other nations want Iran’s resources but don’t care about its people.

“They (don’t want to) change the regime because they need a scarecrow in that meadow,” he said. “They need a war in that region to sell weapons. It’s all about money and business.”

THE CYCLE OF REVENGE

Shahin Khojastehzad, 41, has a different perspective, having come to Maine at age 3, when his parents fled Iran after the 1979 Revolution ousted a monarchy that had been in power for nearly 40 years. His father, a former member of the Iranian air force, took jobs delivering pizza and newspapers.

Khojastehzad, whose company makes Handshake Digestif Bitters in Portland, disagrees with the Trump administration’s actions in Iran and believes the bombing will perpetuate an unending cycle of revenge that has mired the Middle East in unending wars.

“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,” he said, quoting a Bible-based saying often attributed to Mahatma Ghandi. “There’s no end to revenge.”

Khojastehzad, who is one of a few hundred Mainers with roots in Iran, believes the U.S. bombing of Iran violated international and federal law and he fears it will lead to more propaganda related to the Israel-Iran conflict and further destabilize the entire region.

“I want Iran to be a free country, but not this way,” he said. “We’re caught in between. We want to exist without any regime.”

He also sees similarities between what he views as authoritarian and religion-based actions by the Trump administration here at home and the actions of leaders in the Middle East.

“A true democracy has to deal with upset constituents without violence,” he said. “I don’t agree with the current administration, but I’m proud to be an American, and I can dissent when I disagree.”

A NEST OF BEES

Dr. Nima Moghaddas, a podiatrist in Calais Community Hospital, in the farthest reaches of Downeast Maine, also has mixed emotions about the U.S. bombing of Iran.

Now 56, she was born in the U.S. when her father, a colonel in the Iranian army before the 1979 revolution, was studying for his doctorate in public administration at the University of Southern California.

He was later forced into retirement from a university professorship in Iran because of comments he made against the monarchy, she said. After the revolution, she and her older sister returned to the U.S. to complete their educations and stayed.

“The poor people of Iran have had enough,” said Moghaddas, who has been communicating with family members via WhatsApp.

“They just finished rebuilding the city of Tehran and now it’s being destroyed,” she said. “They were telling people to evacuate, but you can’t expect 18 million people to evacuate. Some did. Most didn’t because they have jobs. That’s where they live.”

Meanwhile, social media reports say arrests and executions are increasing, she said, along with talk of regime change.

“But that’s hard without help because people without guns can’t stand up to a regime,” Moghaddas said. “I fear this is fueling radical Islamists even more. For the sake of everybody, I hope there’s a regime change, but I don’t think the regime in place now is going to take all of this lightly.”

It’s as if the Trump administration has poked a nest of bees, she said, and she worries about the outcome for all Iranians.

“They’re all family,” Moghaddas said. “When they get hurt, we all hurt.”

AN UNTRUSTWORTHY REGIME

Ghomri Rostampour, a multilingual interpreter and business owner who lives in South Portland, also worries about the potential next moves of Iran’s authoritarian theocracy.

A Kurd who fled Iran as a political refugee in 1998 and became a U.S. citizen in 2004, she has been glued to news reports and scrambling for information trickling out of Iran.

“I watch the news in several languages,” she said.

There are long lines for food and gasoline, she said, and cellphones are being confiscated at checkpoints. People are being accused of assisting Israel and executed without trial, she said.

“The Iranian regime is a sneaky regime,” she said. “You cannot trust this regime.”

Rostampour agreed with the U.S. bombing of Iran because it raised public awareness and may lead to regime change. Still, she understands the contradiction that exists between the decision to bomb Iran and the desire for peace.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty,” she said. “But I would rather have the U.S. (in Iran) than Russia or China. Ultimately, the people there want to bring peace to the region.”

WITHOUT FOREIGN INTERVENTION

Reza Jalali, an author, educator and human rights activist who was born in Iran and came to Maine in 1985, disagrees with the U.S. bombing of Iran.

More broadly, he opposes the U.S. bombing any sovereign nation, regardless of the country and who the rulers are, “because it risks getting the U.S. involved in another endless war.”

“With the U.S. bombing of Iran, I am torn between my love for my current home, which has given me a chance to build a new life, and Iran,” said Jalali, 72, of Falmouth. “I don’t believe we should be fighting other countries’ wars unless there are legitimate security reasons based on the U.S. intelligence community’s advice.”

Jalali noted that Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s national intelligence director, testified before Congress earlier this year that Iran wasn’t close to having a nuclear bomb. And while Trump claims U.S. airstrikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program last weekend, preliminary intelligence reports say it was only set back a few months amid a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

“What (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu was aiming for was not regime change but regime collapse,” Jalali said, “and it could still happen if the ceasefire doesn’t hold.”

The goal was to create chaos and lawlessness in Iran, with different ethnic groups and religious minorities fighting the conservatives in power and each other, he said.

“But the history of the region tells us you cannot parachute in with democracy and cause regime change,” Jalali said. “Democracy is born in the people’s hearts and imaginations. One day Iranians — on their own and with no foreign intervention — will get the freedom they have been denied for so long.”