Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council, issued the following statement after reports that the U.S. military struck warehouses in Syria reportedly “used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups.”
“We remain deeply concerned about the risk of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalating to full blown regional war and these latest tit for tat attacks only affirm those fears. If the leaders of the U.S. and Iran truly want to step back from the brink, they will need to take decisive steps in that direction, not engage in the dangerous tit-for-tat game of exchanging bombings when external tensions have never been more fraught.
“Regional war would be a disaster for everyone involved and Americans do not want to send loved ones to die because the President failed to stop a completely preventable war. Such a conflict would also be devastating for Iranians. In the past week, an esteemed group of Iranian human rights and democracy advocates opposed to the Islamic Republic reiterated that a military attack on Iran will destroy the movement for democracy in the country. ‘The transition from the tyranny of the Islamic Republic to democracy will be achieved on the basis of the struggle of Iranians, not with a military attack on Iran,’ they wrote. ‘A military attack on Iran can not only help the survival of the rule of the Islamic Republic, it is an obvious threat to peace and democracy and will bring a huge avalanche of suffering and destruction to our country.’
“Peace requires an end to veiled threats issued by both sides. It also means Iran working to rein in the “resistance” forces that have reportedly targeted U.S. positions in the region, and the U.S. actively working toward a ceasefire in Israel rather than appearing to give a blank check to indiscriminate bombing that has led to a disastrous civilian toll and increased risks of a wider war. Right now, it appears that both the U.S. and Iran are frogs in boiling water, failing to recognize the danger until it is too late. Now is the time to step back from the brink.”
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