Iranian voices in Seattle may not be unified, but we still must listen

As much as it might complicate the hyperpartisan, left-right U.S. political paradigm, local Iranian American perspectives on the war don’t fit into neat ideological boxes.

Like in every community, there are a multitude of views as well as varying personal experiences.

Since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, local Iranian American community members have protested, rallied in support and everything in between.

On Feb. 28, for example, a protest against the war unfolded at Pike Place, and on the same day a demonstration on the Eastside organized by Voice of Iran included a car rally in support of the strikes.

Washington-based Voice of Iran said in a statement it supports a transitional period of leadership by exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, and its work reflects the “demands of Iranians inside the country and unequivocally supports U.S., NATO, and international intervention, including military action, to help the Iranian people end this brutal regime.”

For Iranian Americans like Leyla Salmassi, the war in Iran has caused deep fear and anguish. 

“I’m upset, I’m angry, I’m sad. I cry multiple times a day,” she said.

Salmassi said she is disturbed that there is a war being waged without approval of Congress, dismayed by the needs in the U.S. that are already unfulfilled due to inadequate funding that will now be used for war, and as an Iranian American, “I’m upset to see my country of birth being subjected to this violence.”

Salmassi, who lives in Seattle and came to the U.S. as a child before the 1979 revolution, said that while there are many conflicting opinions within the community about the war, the focus for her is making sure the voices and perspectives of Iranian people in Iran — not those from outside of Iran — stay front and center.

She said the sovereignty and self-determination of Iranians is very important to her and that “there is no doubt that it’s been 47 years of oppressive practices by (the current) government.” Salmassi said Iranians should be the ones to decide their own future, not foreign governments or the Iranian diaspora in the U.S. or Europe. Trump, for his part, said last week he should be involved in picking Iran’s next leader. 

“There’s so many examples that we can draw from and say, foreign intervention never works. Bombs do not liberate people,” she said. Movements have to be homegrown and organic, and Salmassi said the means matter as much to her as the ends. One of the earliest tragedies of the war was the killing of 165 people, mostly children, at a girls school in a bombing likely conducted by the U.S., The Washington Post reported. As of last Wednesday, almost 900 people had been killed across the region, The New York Times said. 

Since the ruthless killing of at least 7,000 protesters by the Iranian government in early January, I have seen a number of progressive Iranian people from around the world lament the conspicuous silence from non-Iranian progressives who would typically stand up for people who are being brutally repressed by state violence.

This moment desperately calls for the ability to be able to hold multiple truths at once, embrace nuance and complexity and, as always, keep the self-determination of the people most directly harmed at the forefront. For example, it’s possible to speak out against the terror of the Iranian regime while also speaking out against the terror of U.S. bombs.

Salmassi said part of what is happening is that “it’s easy to oversimplify things and say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It’s a lot more complicated.”

Aria Fani, the director of the Middle East Center at the Jackson School for International Studies at the University of Washington, said the questions at the heart of this war raise critical questions about rule of law and sovereignty; they are much bigger than how Iranian Americans like him feel about it.

Fani said the U.S. and Israel are carrying out a “monumentally lawless, criminal and reckless war” that is an “act of imperial thuggery meant to demoralize and force every nation and the global south to fall in line or face consequences.”

He said it was the height of journalistic and moral bankruptcy in the media that last week you did not see the term “war crime” used to describe bombing and killing a country’s leader without any congressional authorization or justification under international law. “The U.S. has fully gone rogue that they don’t even feel like engaging international institutions and norms like the UN Security Council,” Fani said.  

“(Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) was a bad guy. I despise Trump to my core. I would never want him assassinated. I would never want him to be carpet-bombed in the White House,” he said. “That’s gangster justice. And gangster justice is no justice.” 

The shifting justifications for the war by the Trump administration also highlight the illegitimacy, Fani said. “We’re at war for — take your pick: Missiles, nuclear program, imminent threat,” Fani said. And for every rationale given, there are a million questions, he said. 

“I’m just horrified to imagine what kind of regime is going to come out of this, because the regime is not going to collapse,” Fani said, particularly if Khamenei’s son succeeds him as supreme leader, as was announced Sunday. 

Salmassi said ultimately it’s up to the Iranian people to choose their own future. “I don’t want the poor people of Iran to jump from one tyranny into another tyranny. And I hope that after 47 years of suffering, I hope that they will have a chance at a democratic process to actually choose what will happen in Iran.”