Iranian Americans divided in reactions to US attacks
Corrections and clarifications: This story was updated to clarify the National Iranian American Council’s mission.
Military strikes in Iran have highlighted deep chasms between Iranian Americans seeking to overthrow the country's oppressive government and others who wanted a peaceful resolution through negotiations.
The United States and Israel launched military strikes and "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, President Donald Trump said, targeting the country's missile capabilities. The attack follows weeks of negotiations over Iran's nuclear and missile development programs.
"Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people," Trump said, calling the strikes "a massive and ongoing operation."
Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, the first Iranian American elected to Congress, said on social media, "Now is the time for Iranians to stand up and take back their nation and bring lasting peace to the Middle East."
Arizona Rep. Yassamin Ansari, the first Iranian American Democrat elected to Congress, said in a statement that she is balancing her family history with her responsibility as a member of Congress. She said she plans to support the War Powers Resolution that House Democrats intend to force to the floor next week. Her family fled the regime.
“Donald Trump has specifically said Americans and innocent Iranians will die in this conflict, yet he has not shared a real, comprehensive plan with Congress or a justification with the American people,” she said. “I want a free Iran and a future of democracy and dignity for the Iranian people. I also want American troops to be safe. Those goals must be part of a coherent strategy that does not risk chaos or another endless war in the Middle East and require seriousness and leadership equal to the stakes.”
More than one-third of the nearly 400,000 Iranian immigrants in the United States are in the Los Angeles area, and more than half live in California. Many fled Iran after the 1979 revolution.
Los Angeles City Councilman Adrin Nazarian, a Democrat, fled Iran when he was 8 years old in 1981 with his family, who are Christian Armenians, a minority in Iran that has faced discrimination. Now 52, he said there are mixed emotions with strikes.
“I want to see the ouster of this regime, but at the same time, I feel there is a price that’s really being paid by the residents of Iran,” he told USA TODAY. He said changes need to come from within Iran, not through military force from the outside.
Prominent Iranian and Muslim organizations outraged
The United States shouldn't have acted while diplomatic negotiations were still underway, said Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a Washington, DC-based organization that supports diplomacy and improving American relations with Iran.
“We are outraged by the decision to launch military strikes on Iran, at the very moment diplomacy was active and reportedly making progress,” Abdi said in a statement. “There has been no evidence of imminent attack from Iran that would justify bombing Tehran in broad daylight.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, encouraged Americans to contact the White House and their members of Congress to demand an end to the Trump administration's “unnecessary, unjustified, and unconstitutional" strikes against Iran "for Israel's benefit."
"The Trump administration has completed its transformation into the Bush administration by starting another unnecessary, unjustified and unconstitutional regime-change war in the Middle East under pressure from the Israeli government and its supporters," the CAIR statement said.
Reza Pahlavi, former shah's son, praises strikes
Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's last shah who lives in the United States, praised the strikes as "a humanitarian intervention."
"Its target is the Islamic Republic, its apparatus of repression, and its machinery of killing − not the country and great nation of Iran," Pahlavi said in a social media post.
Pahlavi has positioned himself as a leader in the West opposing Iran's Islamic Republic government. The country's current government came to power after overthrowing his father's Imperial State of Iran, which ruled Iran for decades, including centralizing power in 1953 during a U.S.-backed coup that toppled a democratically elected leader.
Pahlavi stressed that the people of Iran must be the ones to overthrow the government. Protests in Iran against the government this year have resulted in harsh crackdowns, and security forces have killed thousands of demonstrators.
"Despite the arrival of this assistance, the final victory will still be achieved by us. It is we, the people of Iran, who will finish this task in this final battle. The time to return to the streets is approaching," Pahlavi said.
He urged people to stay home for now and said he would communicate when it was time "for the final action."