EAST LANSING, Mich. — As U.S. and Israeli airstrikes continue to pummel Iran, one Michigan State University student is watching the conflict from a few thousand miles away, hoping it leads to the new beginning for his country.
- Kourosh Hoshiyar, a PhD student in organic chemistry at MSU, left Iran in 2023 and arrived in the U.S. weeks later.
- He says the Islamic Republic has suppressed Iranian people for 47 years and believes the majority of Iranians want regime change.
- Hoshiyar says his ultimate goal is to return to Iran one day as a professor but only if conditions allow.
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Kourosh Hoshiyar remembers his final day in Iran, July 2, 2023, vividly. He said goodbye to friend in northern Tehran and spent a final night with family before flying to Germany and eventually the United States.
Now in his third year as a PhD student in MSU's organic chemistry program, Hoshiyar is watching the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran's Islamic regime with complicated emotions: fear for his family, grief for his country, and a cautious, hard-earned hope.
"It could be a new beginning," Hoshiyar said. "It could be a new beginning for a lot of Iranians."
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Hoshiyar says the decision to leave Iran wasn't easy, but the writing was on the wall.
Economic hardship under the Islamic Republic made basic life nearly impossible, he said, describing a system where a significant portion of a monthly salary could be consumed by something as simple as a carton of eggs.
"There is not enough equipment, there is not enough opportunity in Iran to study and work on what you want," Hoshiyar said.
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The contrast became clearer when he arrived at MSU. Shahid Beheshti University, one of Iran's top institutions, had a single nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instrument for research. Michigan State has more than 12.
Communication with his family has been strained since the conflict began. Internet inside Iran has been largely shut down, leaving Hoshiyar dependent on one-way phone calls: his mother calling him, not the other way around.
"They can call us, I cannot call them," he said. "There is only one path, and that's only one direction."
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After four days without contact, his mother reached him. She had moved to a new apartment, a place she told him was safer, Hoshiyar said
"She was good. The family, my brothers, everyone were good," Hoshiyar said. "I was happy to hear their sounds."
Despite the relief, Hoshiyar says the fear never fully goes away. War, he says, is unpredictable and the Islamic regime even more so.
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Hoshiyar says he has heard reports of the regime moving political prisoners to locations it believes may be targeted, effectively using them as shields.
Still, Hoshiyar believes the majority of Iranian people want the regime gone. He is hopeful the conflict leads to a referendum and a democratic transition, pointing to exiled opposition leader Prince Reza Pahlavi as someone who could guide the country through that process.
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"We are looking at the whole regime change in the best scenario," Hoshiyar said. "Free election, and then people can choose what they want."
His dream, through all of it, remains the same: finish his PhD, and one day return to Iran as a professor at Shahid Beheshti University, inspired by the teachers who changed his own life.
"I hope we reach the position that we can take the power and live together with peace," he said. "Making the country reach the position that no one else in my country were suffering from what we have suffered during the last 47 years."
Speaking out, he acknowledges, carries risk. His wife warned him that appearing on camera could endanger their family back home.
It was a risk, he said, he was willing to take.
"That was a risk that I thought I could take here, for Iran."
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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