ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Members of Georgia’s Iranian community reacted to airstrikes carried out in the country over the weekend that toppled the regime’s longtime leadership and potentially carved a path for the creation of a new government.

Hundreds of Iranians were killed in the attacks, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran for more than three decades. His death – and the ensuing power void – leaves more questions than answers for the future of Iran and its people.

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In Georgia, some Iranians were cautiously optimistic about what comes next.

“We’re at a very critical moment in Iran’s history,” said Shohreh Mirfendereski with the group Iranian American Community of Georgia. “This war is imposed on the Iranian people. It’s not something that they want. Iranian people want regime change. And you can hear it through the slogans on the streets.”

Mirfendereski fled Iran herself during the 1979 Iranian Revolution and says in her circles, Iranian people are excited for what appears to be a new beginning. Mirfendereski says that could look like a short-term government run temporarily by the National Council of Resistance, a coalition of Iranian dissident groups that has long pushed for regime change, or the installation of Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose family was deposed when he was just 16 years old in 1979.

“People do not want anything less than regime change,” said Mirfendereski. “But they want to change the regime by their own hand; they don’t want the interference of any other country.”

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On Monday, President Donald Trump praised the military action and said it was necessary to both world peace and regional stability.

“We’re ensuring that the world’s number-1 sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon,” Trump said during a press conference. “I said that from the beginning: They’re never going to have a nuclear weapon.”

But some Georgia lawmakers were concerned by Trump’s surprise unilateral action against Iran.

Speaking in Walton County on Monday, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D–Georgia, said Trump was entering dangerous territory by not first consulting Congress ahead of the deadly airstrikes.

“The president is behaving illegally,” said Warnock. “The declaration of war is clearly in the hands of Congress.”

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Warnock also expressed concern over Georgia’s role as a military state, and the risk that could come to Georgia servicemen and women if the conflict were to widen.

“This is a grave decision, and it deserves a debate in the United States Congress,” he added.

The Consul General of Israel to the Southeastern United States, Eitan Weiss, expressed that Israel and Georgia’s Jewish community also had a lot of stake in the ongoing conflict. Israel, an ally of the U.S., helped with the weekend’s military operations.

“Enough is enough,” Weiss told Atlanta News First on Monday. “We take a stand in order to change the world, make a better future for everyone, and I really hope that the Iranian people will do what they need to do: take power into their own hands and take back the country that belongs to them.”

MORE COVERAGE:

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