By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
Niloofar Sabzevari (photo provided)
“We all share the same pain and we all have the same enemy,” Niloofar Sabzevari said of the country of her birth and the object of the current war in the Middle East.
She was speaking, of course, about Iran. Listening were members of the Jewish Community Relations Council, who’d gathered March 18 for their monthly meeting at the Trager Family JCC. The lunchtime session was an opportunity to hear from the woman who’s among the most visible representatives of Louisville’s ex-pat Iranian community, which she numbers at “two or three thousand.”
Sabzevari, who almost everywhere goes by “Niloo,” works for U.S. Bank and has lived in Louisville for 15 years. As her JCRC remarks demonstrated, she is a woman of strong words and stronger opinions.
To wit: She unabashedly, unapologetically, and unreservedly condemns the ultra-repressive Shiite theocracy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled Shaw Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Indeed, she believes that the Iranian people would be best served if Reza Pahlavi, the 65-year-old former crown prince now living in exile in the U.S, were to return to Iran head a secular, transitional government.
Such a scenario would depend, of course, on toppling the present Islamic regime, dismantling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and likely abandoning efforts to develop nuclear weapons – an exemplar of “easier said than done.”
Nonetheless, Niloo is adamant that Pahlavi is the right man for the job, whenever and however it opens up.
“People want him,” she told her JCRC audience, “and the reason they want him is not because he’s a king (to be), but because he’s been the only one fighting for his country since he was 17. He is promising that he wants to take his country through a secular democratic process to be a secular democratic country. We trust him. The Iranian people trust him.” And “if the United States would acknowledge him, the whole world would start to accept him.”
Meanwhile, over the last several weeks the U.S. and Israel (mostly the latter) have decapitated nearly all the principals of the current regime, from then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on down. Reflecting the thorny reality of the Iranian landscape, his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was hastily installed as Supreme Leader – and who looks to be even more extreme than his father.
When large numbers of ordinary Iranians took to the streets of Tehran in January to rail against the repressive regime, the elder Khamenei showed no hesitation in sanctioning the murder of as many as 30,000 to 40,000 of those protestors.
Iranian citizens, Niloo said, continue to resist. “I’m very proud to say how brave these people are, and how resilient. And I want to let you know that we, the people of Iran, are not the enemy of Jews or Israel.” In fact, “when October 7 happened, we came and said, ‘We stand with Israel.’ You know why? Because we truly, with our whole soul and body, felt what they went through – because we are living under the regime that funded Hamas and Hezbollah.”
Niloo praises the governments of Israel and the U.S. for prosecuting the present war, which she says is necessary to rid the world of Iran’s murderous apparatus. “Do you know who should be complaining? The people of Israel.” But “they’re not complaining, because they know this needs to be done.”
Yet she cautions against allowing political factionalism to compromise that essential mission.
“Unfortunately, there are many people, left or right, because of their hate or love they have for Trump or Bibi (Netanyahu) or whatever, who close their eyes to this horrible thing that is happening right now. History will show that what the U.S. and Israel are doing is a huge favor.”
Referring to the ongoing assassinations of regime leadership, “we appreciate the way the U.S. and Israel are fighting because they are being very precise in targeting these guys.”
During a brief Q&A, one JCRC member asked: “What do you believe the chances are that there will be a regime overthrow and the prince would come in? What would it take? Do you think people will do that?”
“I am sure that people will take to the streets again,” Niloo answered. “But as of right now, Prince Pahlavi, Bibi Netanyahu and Trump have told people, ‘Don’t come out; stay in your house until we know that at least there is a balance,’ because people are unarmed.”
Significantly, she said, “there are groups in opposition; there are websites and links that bring people together” – though as she pointed out at the beginning of her talk, the regime often imposes nationwide internet blackouts.
Queried whether she’s in favor of a ceasefire, Niloo’s response was instant and unequivocal: “No, no, no.” That would simply encourage authorities to continue murdering innocent Iranians.
In other words, you don’t negotiate with the devil.
“Imagine you are living the Holocaust today,” she said. “What would you do? Would you just talk beautifully with them?
“No.”