US and Israel report explosion during attack on Iran
As nuclear talks stall and military tensions rise, the US and Israel attack Iran as Tehran is rocked by explosions.
Continued military attacks in Iran have highlighted the deep divide between Iranian Americans who want to overthrow the country’s tyrannical regime and others who want a peaceful negotiated solution.
President Donald Trump said the United States and Israel launched a military strike and “massive combat operations” against Iran on February 28, targeting the country’s missile capabilities. The attack followed weeks of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
“Our objective is to protect the American people by eliminating the immediate threat from the Iranian regime, which is an evil group of very powerful and fearful people,” Trump said, calling the attack a “large-scale, ongoing operation.”
“Now is the time for Iranians to rise up, take back their country, and bring lasting peace to the Middle East,” Oklahoma Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice, the first Iranian-American elected to Congress, said on social media.
Arizona Rep. Yasamin Ansari, the first Iranian-American Democrat elected to Congress, said in a statement that she is balancing her family history with her responsibilities as a lawmaker. He said he plans to support the war powers resolution, which House Democrats plan to push through next week. Her family fled the regime.
“Donald Trump has specifically said that Americans and innocent Iranians will die in this conflict, but he has not shared a true comprehensive plan with Congress, and he has not shared its legitimacy 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 security for America’s military. These goals must be part of a coherent strategy, without risking chaos or endless war in the Middle East, and they require seriousness and leadership that is commensurate with the stakes.”
More than a third of the approximately 400,000 Iranian immigrants in the United States live in the Los Angeles area, and more than half live in California. Many people fled Iran after the 1979 revolution.
Prominent Iranian and Islamic groups are outraged
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said the United States should not have acted while diplomatic negotiations were still underway. NIAC is a lobbying group that claims to defend the Iranian American community and promotes a variety of policy positions sympathetic to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“We are outraged by the decision to launch a military attack on Iran at the very moment when diplomacy is said to be active and progress is being made,” Abdi said in a statement. “There is no evidence of an 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 group, encouraged Americans to contact the White House and members of Congress to demand an end to the Trump administration’s “unnecessary, unjust and unconstitutional” attack on Iran “in the interest of Israel.”
“The Trump administration, under pressure from the Israeli government and its supporters, has completed its transition to the Bush administration by launching another unnecessary, unjust and unconstitutional regime change war in the Middle East,” the CAIR statement said.
Former Shah’s son Reza Pahlavi praises strike
Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah and a US resident, hailed the strikes as a “humanitarian intervention”.
“The target is the Islamic Republic, its repressive and killing apparatus, not the country or great power Iran,” Pahlavi said in a social media post.
Pahlavi positions himself as a Western leader opposed to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The country’s current government came to power after overthrowing the paternal Iranian Empire, which had ruled Iran for decades, including overthrowing the democratically elected leader in a 1953 U.S.-backed coup.
Pahlavi stressed that it must be the people of Iran who overthrow the government. Recent protests against the Iranian government have resulted in a harsh crackdown, with thousands of demonstrators killed by security forces.
“Despite the arrival of this aid, the final victory will still be achieved by us. It is we, the Iranian people, who will finish this task in this final battle. The time to return to the streets is drawing near,” Pahlavi said.
He urged people to stay home for now and said he would contact them when it was time for “final action”.
