On the morning of Saturday, February 28th, I was jolted awake by the deafening roar of an explosion.

However, this was no surprise. We had all been anticipating this moment.

Tears of joy cascaded down my face as my heart brimmed with an overwhelming sense of happiness.

To outsiders, this reaction might seem puzzling; being under attack typically isn’t a cause for celebration.

Yet, for Iranians, this sentiment resonates deeply: we have come to place more faith in foreign intervention than in our own oppressive regime.

We would rather face death with the potential for change than endure the regime’s tyranny indefinitely.

From the window of my I home in Narmak, Tehran, I saw smoke rising from the home of former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

My first thought is: I hope they are also got Ayatollah Khamenei.

I remember Ahmadinejad’s role in killing and imprisoning young people during the peaceful protests against his re-election on in June 2009.

He called the protesters who took part in the Green Movement “dust and dirt”, and at the UN he had said that Israel should be wiped off the map. Now he’s the one who’s dust.

For many years, we tried to peacefully demand change and reform.

During those protests we chanted “Obama, Obama ba oona ya ba ma ya” (“Obama: you’re either with us, or with them”).

But Obama chose ”them.”

Every attempt we’ve made to peacefully push for democracy since has only led to more suppression and executions.

So when I saw the explosion and the smoke rising from Ahmadinejad’s home, I felt happy a man responsible for so much suffering was dead.

I stood by the window and recorded the smoke with my phone. Perhaps one day it would become part of a film.

My filmmaking got me in serious trouble in November when I was arrested just for filming young people just joyously dancing in front of a street musician in a park in Tehran.

The morality police beat me with batons while threatening and insulting me, arresting me and taking my phone for examination.

It was the quick actions of my friends after my arrest saved me. They contacted my family in America, who erased my iPhone’s iCloud and all the data.

The same technological restrictions which makes life so hard in Iran actually saved me from prison, or maybe worse.

That same police station where I was arrested and tortured just months before is now rubble.

Another friend arrested a week before the bombing hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

We pray he is still alive and hasn’t been tortured too badly.

The bomb that exploded in Ahmadinejad’s house made me realize President Trump had heard our cry for freedom – he’d remembered the defenseless, unarmed people, after telling us: “Help is on the way.”

People had become so desperate that a wave of suicides or executions in prisons were about to begin.

The Trump attack turned the page and changed everything in favor of the people, appropriately starting with the killing of the terrorist Ayatollah.

His death in the first hours brought all of us back to life again. 

Ever since the bombing started, we have gone with our neighbors to our rooftops and balconies.

Despite the terrifying sounds of bombs, we chant “Long live the Shah” and “Death to Mojtaba Khamenei”, our slogans multiplying our courage and endurance, despite the regime’s agents firing bullets at the windows from where we chant. 

Unlike the twelve-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, when people fled Tehran and other big cities, no-one intends to leave. Most of my neighbors are still here, dealing with the same parking problems.

We intend to stay and take back our city and homeland from the terrorist regime.

It was during the 12-day war, we learned to trust Israel and America. They killed many IRGC members and very few innocent people, while the regime killed more than 30,000 in just two days.

The regime has once again shut down the internet, and we only receive news through foreign-language radio stations, even as the regime continues its smear campaigns and broadcasts false information on state television.

Armed agents parade through the streets on trucks and motorcycles to create fear, shouting through loudspeakers that the citizens should go to the mosques.

But the mosques are full of military ammunition and weapons, which could be targeted by Israeli strikes. Schools are also now used by the police. The regime wants lots of civilians there when they do strike, allowing for casualties to provide propaganda material so left-leaning media starts to pressure for the end of the war.

I have always been hopeful of studying filmmaking at an American university, where freedom of expression truly exists.

I had was admitted into three film schools, the NYFA Film School in Burbank, California, and Georgia State University and the University of Miami in May 2025.

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But just days later, all visas for Iranians, including students, were cancelled.

So there was joy at being accepted to the university, followed by deep sadness because the door was then jammed shut.

Iranians have almost no chance of obtaining foreign visas, with nearly 90 million people held hostage by this brutal regime, just like the 52 Americans who were held for 444 days in 1979.

But despite my loss, I accepted that President Trump’s visa policies were to weaken the regime, not hurt ordinary people.

News of Khamenei’s death felt like a confirmation of that belief to me.

The joy of that moment erased the sadness of the visa restrictions that had kept me from attending a film school.

To young Americans who believe in their country and its ideals, I want to say: we too are ready to sacrifice our lives and dreams to save our country.

Millions of us went to the January 8 and 9 demonstrations in 300 cities across Iran, inspired by calls from the crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi.

Old and young, men, women, and children, religious and secular, monarchists and democracy-seekers, and even government employees were among us.

An unwritten agreement amongst us all was we’d stand firm and not withdraw our support from Reza Pahlavi, because the way to move beyond this bloodthirsty regime is unity with the son of the Shah.

Inside every one of those black body bags you saw after the January uprising was an innocent young person, with big dreams and a full heart. One of them was my neighbor.

Another was Sadra Soltani, the brilliant son of my math teacher, Mr. Soltani.

I could have been one of them. On that night during the protest, bullets passed just inches from my ear as we ran, people falling to the ground behind me. 

I had always dreamed working as a cinematographer in a Hollywood movie. But that night, I felt as if I had become an actor in scenes so shocking that not Hollywood film could truly ever capture them.

This is a regime that opens fire with live ammunition on its own unarmed youth, killing more than 30,000 in two days. Just imagine what they would do with nuclear weapons or long-range missiles.

When the regime placed the American flag under our feet at the entrances of our universities for us to walk over, we never did.

In an act of defiance, we’d jump over it instead, without even knowing if you would extend a hand of help toward us. Now we extend our hand toward you and ask you to support President Trump, so the Hitler of our century (Khamenei), his other allies may also reach their long-desired fate (martyrdom), and we may free the world from this corrupt regime that funds terrorism across the world.

Most of those involved in the 1979 revolution now regret and acknowledge it was a mistake, and what was needed was reform, not a revolution.

Today, there’s no path to reform. Iranian figures such as Larijani, Rouhani, Hassan Khomeini, Mir-Hossein, Khatami, Zarif, Tajzadeh, Pezeshkian, Ghalibaf, Mohseni-Eje’i , and even Nobel Prize winner Narges Mohammadi are presented through the regime’s propaganda as a form of fake opposition.

The majority of Iranians want Reza Pahlavi to be our transitional leader and guide us to the ballot box.

We are all ready for Prince Reza Pahlavi to give the order for us to come to the streets.

We are waiting for Trump, who even said in his speech that we should stay in safe places and, at the right moment, come to the streets and free our country from this brutal regime. 

We no longer want to chant ‘death to America’ or any other country. We want to treat the whole world with friendship and restore our 10,000-year-old civilization that’s full of love, joy, dance and poetry.

I know that on the morning that first bomb exploded, a 34-year-old knot in my chest burst, releasing all the joy and freedom the people of Iran deserve.

Mohammad spoke to the Post from Tehran via friends in California. Efforts have been made to protect his identity.