Iranian Americans Mobilize Against War and Nuclear Catastrophe

Growing up as an Iranian American, the fact that the United States could go to war against Iran always cast a shadow in the background of my life. We had close calls during the Bush era, most famously epitomized in 2007 by the late Senator John McCain chanting to the beat of a popular Beach Boys song, “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” and during President Trump’s first term when he exited the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action known as the JCPOA) and assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. 

Many Iranian American friends and I remained hopeful that the nightmare would never happen. Unfortunately, that nightmare became reality when Israel started bombing Iran on June 13, 2025, and over a week later, the U.S. joined Israel’s fight by striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz. To see videos and photos of places where I have cherished memories, like the area around Tajrish Square, and other corners of Tehran, in flames, cut a pain so deep, I lost the words to describe how I felt. 

As soon as I heard the news that Israel attacked Iran, I felt as if my heart left my body, floating towards the sky, leaving a gaping hole inside me. In addition to dealing with my anguish knowing that my family had to flee the bombing in Tehran, our work in the US became ever more important. As National Organizing Director at NIAC, my chief responsibilities include supervising our grassroots chapters across the country and leading campaigns in line with policy priorities which include stopping a U.S. war with Iran. As part of my work, I guided volunteers to organize protests, planned emergency actions, and set up constituent lobby meetings to urge Members of Congress to support Iran War Powers resolutions. Our members and volunteers also have had to balance processing the war and trying to get in touch with loved ones, while simultaneously mobilizing against it. 

NIAC’s grassroots volunteers and coalition partners mounted an immediate campaign against this war: organizing protests and vigils in cities across the country, flooding the phone lines of Congress to oppose war with Iran. They have stepped up in a moment to use their voices in the U.S., as Americans. Iranian Americans, and allies, are also stepping forward to share their stories in NIAC’s Iranian Americans Mobilize Against War testimony tracker. 

NIAC chapters would not have been able to quickly organize at this critical time without the preceding years of investment into its grassroots organizing infrastructure. Volunteers have been creative, distributing No War With Iran flyers on neighbors’ doorsteps and launching Instagram pages highlighting the Iranian casualties of the Israel-Iran war, which is mostly ignored by the US mainstream media. These efforts have spurred hundreds of calls to Congress anchored by three No War With Iran Action Hours, record-breaking several thousands of signers of our No War with Iran action alert, 15 protests organized and co-led across the country in cities like Boston, Chicago, New York City, and Washington D.C, with NIAC volunteers as featured speakers at every event. The rallies got 15 local and national media hits featuring our volunteers—including the New York Times.

Now, many in the Iranian diaspora are worried that the fragile ceasefire will collapse, especially since Israel has a proven history of violating ceasefires. This war also shows that conflicts and struggles are interconnected: if we don’t get a complete and permanent ceasefire that ends the genocide in Gaza, the situation between Iran and Israel will remain volatile.

Polling before, and immediately after President Trump launched attacks on Iran, showed broad opposition to U.S. involvement in Israel’s unprovoked war, including among Trump’s base. Most strikingly, 85% of people surveyed nationwide said they don’t want the U.S. to be at war with Iran. and YouGov / NIAC polling of Iranian Americans also finds that 62% of Iranian Americans believe diplomacy is the best way to address the nuclear issue, versus military action (22%) or sanctions (8%). As these stories and numbers show, the Iranian American community, and Americans writ large, prefer nonviolence and restraint over war and nuclear catastrophes. Mobilizing those voices helped push Trump to seek a rapid exit for a ceasefire.

Leading up to the 12-day war, saboteurs both in the U.S. and Israel sought to blow up the negotiating table between the U.S. and Iran. Speaking with clinical abstractions—“containment,” “surgical strikes,” “zero enrichment,” these sanitized phrases erase the toll of war on ordinary people: maximum-pressure sanctions that limit access to medicine, rising tensions that endanger loved ones, and the specter of war that could go nuclear in a region already battered by decades of conflict and failed regime-change efforts. If we truly seek a world without war and one rid of the threat of nuclear catastrophe, we must start by listening to those most affected by a lack of policies and agreements that prevent such escalation. 

Shawn Shahpari of San Diego, CA, states eloquently that leadership means showing the moral courage to choose peace and compassion:

“War is hell. I remember waiting in long lines in Iran to get milk or butter with ration coupons. There were days when we didn’t have enough to eat—my mother and I would sit down to meals of just bread and onion. These experiences left a lasting impression on me. I want my daughter to grow up understanding that doing what is right should always take precedence over ideology, religion, or nationalism. Compassion, not allegiance, must guide our actions.”

The same justifications to invade Iraq and Afghanistan are now peddled out for Iran by the same mainstream media outlets, policymakers, and pundits – ignoring the human costs of war. Even with a ceasefire in place, there’s no accountability for those who continue to peddle war. There’s a hunger from our grassroots base to organize beyond traditional centers of power in the U.S., such as Congress, and identify sources of power to use this moment to build up the anti-war movement while also achieving our goals when it comes to preventing a new nuclear weapons state and no war with Iran. 

Until there’s a reckoning of our systems, outside of Congress and the President, these same escalatory spirals will happen again. We need to think about places of power in ways that allow people  to have agency, and organize communities that can address them. The grassroots infrastructure NIAC has built along with other coalition partners in the growing anti-war movement is hopefully a step in this direction.

Photo by Thomas Huf and courtesy of NIAC.