Strikes celebrated by many in Chicago's Iranian community, demonstrators against US troops on ground
President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Saturday, with daytime strikes in the joint U.S.- Israel attack targeting military and government sites, officials said. The military action is drawing strong reaction from the Chicago area, as Illinois leaders are speaking out while demonstrations got underway downtown Chicago.
U.S. officials said the operation in Iran could potentially last days, and Trump acknowledged that there may be American casualties. President Trump later confirmed that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. While President Trump is now saying that Khamenei is dead, Iranian officials are still saying that is not true, even as celebrations appeared to be breaking out across Iran.Iran live updates: Trump confirms Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead after US-Israeli strikes The question now isn't just whether the existing Iranian regime will indeed collapse, but what are the real consequences to the United States. Some experts are warning this could unleash renewed acts of terror against Americans in the U.S. and abroad."This war did not start now. This war started 47 years ago," Iranian community organizer Pegah Piri said. "What President Trump is doing is ending the war." Dozens gathered in Chicago's Daley Plaza Saturday afternoon. Community leaders are making it clear they do not want U.S. boots on the ground either. They hope, as President Trump has called for, the Iranians themselves will finish the job. "That's what we're hoping for, that Iranian people will be able to come back out on the streets and take over the government," Piri said. But will they? University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape, the author of "Bombing to Win," explained the history. "For over a century air power has tried to topple governments. It has never toppled a government," Pape said. This is in fact not the first time the United States has called on the people of a country to topple a dictatorial regime, having unsuccessfully used this same tactic in Iraq in 1991 following a 39-day bombing campaign against Saddam Hussein. "They rose up and Saddam Hussein slaughtered thousands of them in days," Pape said. "And we had to stand by helplessly and watch the bodies pile up in the streets. The number of people estimated to have been killed by the Iranian regime in recent pro-democracy protests range from a low of 7,000 to more than 30,000. President Trump is using this fact, as well as Iran's renewed effort to rebuild its nuclear program, to justify the joint U.S.-Israeli operation. Democratic leaders in Congress spoke out against the military operation Saturday, which was undertaken without legislative approval. "I have no expectations that the regime is going to suddenly find peace and change their ways," Illinois U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider said. "I just believe that the Constitution is supreme."While the administration has said civilians are not being targeted, the Iranian news agency is reporting a girls elementary school was among those hit in the strikes, killing at least 85 students. It is images like those, and history itself, that lead some to fear that Iran, already described as the world's primary state sponsor of terrorism, could retaliate directly against the United States. "There are reports from our own, leaked by the FBI, that there already sleeper cells of the Iranians inside the United States," Pape said. "Maybe that's not true, we don't know." Federal officials and local police here in Chicago are saying so far there is no actionable intelligence to indicate an immediate threat. But, there is a heightened state of alert.
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