The start of the war in Iran last month brought "a lot of anxiety and mixed feelings" for Rep. Yassamin Ansari, the first Iranian American Democrat in Congress.
"It was a weird feeling of something you knew was going to happen, but the uncertainty of what comes next was quite heavy," Ansari told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl in an interview that aired on Sunday. "I immediately called my parents."
The Arizona congresswoman was born and raised in the U.S. Her parents fled the Iranian regime -- her father was studying in the U.S. and unable to return home in the wake of the 1979 revolution. Her mother came on her own as a teenager.
"Women were losing their rights," Ansari explained. "And my grandfather had been supportive of the monarchy before it fell, and so he was briefly imprisoned. And that's when they decided to send my mom here by herself."
On Feb. 28, the Trump administration launched airstrikes with Israel on Iran and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since the outbreak of war, the U.S. and Israel have continued striking Iran, while Iran has retaliated with missile and drone strikes across the region. The initial strikes followed weeks of growing tensions and U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June.
Ansari said that she had complicated feelings about the war, given her family's history with the Iranian regime and her concerns over the implications of President Donald Trump's military action.
"From the standpoint of somebody who's grown up with wanting to see change in Iran, positive change, a better future for the people of Iran, but in my role as a U.S. congresswoman, knowing very well what we're dealing with in a President Donald Trump, and knowing that there is no plan or clear objectives for what the war is about, [I] had a lot of anxiety and mixed feelings," Ansari said.
The news that Khamenei was killed in the initial strikes brought "a feeling of hope" for Iran's future, Ansari said. But she said her parents also had concerns.
"If this isn't managed carefully, a country of 90 million people could very well fall into civil war. And I think that has been their concern from the beginning, and my concern as well," Ansari said.
Ansari said the ongoing war has "caused a lot of internal strife" within the Iranian diaspora in the U.S.
"There were a lot of debates about whether or not people should be hopeful, what the right thing is to do," Ansari said. "There are many people who feel that there was no other way to weaken this regime than outside military intervention."
She said there's part of the diaspora that supports Trump's military action and another completely opposed.
"They really actually do believe that Donald Trump has a good plan here and has positive intentions, and that's real," she said. "I don't agree with that. There's another camp that I think is very anti-war, and believes that bombs are not going to free people."
There's another group somewhere in the middle, hoping that this war will steer the country in the "right direction," Ansari said.
"We're already in this war. So what can be done? And I've been thinking a lot about that," she said.
Ultimately, Ansari said she wants deescalation.
"I just want to see the best for Iranian people who have had to live under this regime for the last 47 years," she said.