Opponents of the Saudi Arabia–led war in Yemen aren’t the only ones welcoming the Senate’s rebuke of Trump policy toward the desert kingdom: So are a substantial number of Iranian Americans and Iranians living in the US, who see the Senate vote as likely slowing what they fear is a march toward war with their homeland.



These people say the administration’s frequent references to Iranian influence in the Middle East and its insistence on maintaining unchanged its relationship with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s chief regional rival, reminds them of the George W. Bush administration’s rhetoric about Iraq and Saddam Hussein before the US invaded that country in 2003.

“Obviously, this administration needs a check,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director for Project South, a human rights organization based in Atlanta, who is originally from Tehran.

Since pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal in May and reimposing sanctions in August and then again in November, the Trump administration has tried to build a case that Iranian influence in the region and the world needs to be contained. Administration officials have highlighted Iranian missile testing, insisted that the US needs to continue to support the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen to contain Iran, and accused Iran of attempting to exploit the international financial system.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to the United Nations this week to talk about Iran’s ballistic missile development program, vowing to “work with a coalition to build out a set of responses that deliver deterrence against Iran and its continued proliferation of ballistic missiles and ballistic missile systems that have the potential to carry nuclear warheads.” The Trump administration also has restricted entry to the US of Iranian citizens.

Sina Toossi, a research associate at the National Iranian American Council, said the prohibition of Iranians from entering the US is particularly worrisome since Iranians wanting to flee their country are among the nationalities most affected by the Trump administration’s move to limit travel to the US. Iran is one of six countries whose nationals are blocked from entering the US.

“I see widespread anxieties [about policy] against Iran and how it’s affecting our relatives back home,” he said. “Our relatives can’t come to visit us here, not even our grandparents.”

According to the US Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey, 470,341 people reported being first- or second-generation Iranian. The Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, or PAAIA, a nonprofit that claims to represent Iranian American interests before lawmakers and the general public, said that number is an undercount, and that the actual number ranges from 500,000 to 1 million.

Among those hundreds of thousands, it’s unknown how widespread concern is that the Trump administration is preparing for war with Iran. No polling exists on the subject, although PAAIA polling suggests 77% of Iranian Americans are opposed to the travel ban.

And some Iranian organizations fiercely oppose the idea that the Trump administration is laying the foundation for war with Iran. “In the 39-year history of the Iranian clerical regime, there has never been any risk of the United States going to war with Iran. The Trump administration’s publicly-stated policy is to pressure the regime into changing its behavior, including its resort to terrorism, malign activities in the Middle East, ballistic missile program, and brutal crackdown at home,” said Ali Safavi, the Washington-based spokesperson for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is widely believed to be associated with the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian exile group.

“In reality, the biggest threat to the regime is coming from the Iranian people as evident in nationwide uprising over the past one year calling for regime change,” Safavi added.

But for Shahshahani, the warning sign is that the administration is aligning itself with segments of the US Iranian population and claiming that they are speaking for the Iranian people.

“The administration launched this initiative called Iranian Voices — they went to LA, they gave a speech to a handpicked group of Iranian Americans with very particular political agendas,” she said, referring to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “Supporting Iranian Voices” speech at the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Library this past July. “To me it was very similar to what the US administration did in the lead up to the Iraq war in terms of aligning with certain Iraqis.”

Toossi also believes the administration is preparing for war. Of the 12 demands administration officials have made toward Iran, he said, “They’re these maximalist, untenable demands. The signal to Iranians is going to be regime collapse or war. It’s a regime change agenda.”

He pointed to John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, who told members of the MEK that “we here will celebrate in Tehran before 2019” at a gathering in Paris last year, before he assumed his current post. In that same address, Bolton said, “The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change and, therefore, the only solution is to change the regime itself.”

The MEK did not respond to a request for comment.

Asked why a policy that says it stands with the people of Iran doesn’t allow them to come to the United States, a State Department spokesperson wrote in an email, “The President signed Proclamation 9645 to protect the security and welfare of the United States … The signing of the Proclamation in September 2017 followed an extensive review and engagement period with countries around the world, which identified several countries — including Iran — as deficient in information sharing practices.”

Asked to comment on whether the administration is laying the foundation for war with Iran, a State Department spokesperson said simply, “The United States seeks to build a strong coalition of nations to deter Iran’s threats in the region and around the world, ensure freedom of navigation, and convince the Iranian regime to end its destabilizing activities. We do not seek war.”

“I don’t think it’s the intention of this administration to go to war with Iran. I think frankly that is not something that they would want,” said Barbara Slavin, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative. “However, I think it’s fair to say the language this administration is using is very reminiscent” of the lead-up to the war with Iraq.