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As Zainab Haider drove home with her two children on Tuesday evening, her mind was preoccupied with the looming deadline set by President Donald Trump for Iran to meet U.S. demands. She found herself questioning the safety of her relatives back in Iran, fearing the worst-case scenario of a devastating conflict.
Her emotions were a tumultuous blend of anxiety, fear, and isolation, especially as others around her seemed unfazed, continuing with their daily routines despite the potential for catastrophic events. However, Trump ultimately stepped back from his ominous warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” opting instead for a two-week ceasefire in the ongoing conflict.
For Haider, and the countless other Iranians residing in the U.S., this development was yet another instance of emotional upheaval, as they remain caught in a perpetual state of uncertainty about Iran’s future and the safety of their loved ones still living there.
The intense discourse surrounding the conflict has permeated the thoughts of many, often hindering their ability to concentrate on work or other aspects of life. While some have taken to the streets to protest the war, others remain quietly concerned, closely monitoring the unfolding situation and pondering what lies ahead.
Among the voices calling for peace, Haider joined a protest in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday, advocating for an end to the hostilities. Similar demonstrations took place in major cities including New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as communities rallied together in pursuit of peace.
Aside from speaking out against the war, Haider thinks that mobilizing will create “the kind of pressure that makes it harder for Trump to swing back to this aggressive posturing.”
“It’s a huge country,” she said of Iran. “Trump is not going to ever be able to defeat it or wipe it out, but it is possible to do damage. It is possible to do something that affects millions of people, millions of lives.”
Worries for family members back home
Haider, a municipal planner and an organizer with the Austin for Palestine Coalition, said hearing Trump offer such an ultimatum was frightening.
She does not support regime change, saying that was something for the Iranian people to settle, not the United States. Still, she wanted to speak out even though she came to the U.S. by way of Pakistan with her parents when she was young. She has memories of the neighborhood bakeries and the juice shops she used to visit with her mother and their neighbors.
Iranian-American Sheila Amir said that Trump’s social media posts made her fearful on multiple levels.
Her first concern was for her Iranian relatives. She has not been able to confirm that they’re OK in the past week amid an internet blackout that has blanketed the country.
But the North Carolina-based writer said she also was concerned that an escalation in the war could put her U.S. relatives who are in the military at risk. Their duty, she said, is to “serve and protect the United States of America,” not to destroy the people of Iran.
Complex feelings for those who support the war
Even those who are supportive of U.S. attacks that directly weaken the Iranian government are struggling to reckon with the most recent threats against civilians.
In recent weeks, Roya Rastegar has had many difficult conversations with her family about the conflict. Rastegar and her wife are both Iranian-American. Rastegar said people in her family have been killed by the Iranian government in the decades since the Islamic Republic took power, and the majority of her wife’s family is still in the country.
Rastegar, a filmmaker and cofounder of a pro-democracy nonprofit called the Iranian Diaspora Collective, said the frequent reversals have made it more difficult to explain the conflict to their children.
“It’s very hard to hold on to the idea that we do not know what’s going to happen,” she said.
Rastegar said that the war has presented an impossible moral dilemma. She is deeply concerned that intensified attacks on Iran could cause even more harm to civilians. But she also believes that de-escalating the war without dismantling the Islamic Republic will pose the greatest risk to Iranians inside the country, who would continue to face severe and deadly repression.
“It’s really nauseating to just think about my people as being stuck between a regime that’s still killing them and an administration — the U.S. — that is issuing these kinds of threats,” Rastegar said.