Iranians’ concerns over war between Islamic Republic & US

The Iranian public is obviously concerned about the likelihood of a military confrontation between Iran and the US.

 Iran wire (H Rastgoo) – This concern has especially increased due to a number of recent unexpected events. One example is Donald Trump’s tweet on May 19: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!” The tweet came after a rocket landed less than a mile from the US embassy in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone. Hours after his tweet, the US president said he did not want to wage war on Iran — but his earlier comment had already attracted widespread attention.

Another recent example took place on May 12, when four commercial vessels, including two Saudi tankers, were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Also on May 14, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are viewed as being associated with Tehran, attacked a major oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia with explosive-laden drones. The Iranian foreign ministry expressed concern over the May 12 sabotage, but many Iranian hardliners praised the sabotage, as well as the Houthis’ attack.

Given such worrying developments, it is no surprise that news stories and reports that directly or indirectly concern military preparations or warnings on both the American and Iranian sides have been among the most-read material on Persian media outlets. At the same time, there is a massive amount of heated debate on social media about the prospects of a military confrontation, and Iranian officials and Iran-based public figures have been speaking more than they have before about this issue.

A large amount of online debate indicates that Iranians have not been this concerned about the possibility of military conflict since 2003, in the run-up to the US attack against Iraq, during the attack, and in its aftermath.

The Official Position

The official position of Ayatollah Khamenei and his associates is that the US and its allies will never dare to wage war on the Islamic Republic because they are well aware of Iran’s retaliation capabilities, i.e., its missile force and extraterritorial proxies.

On May 14, 2019, Ayatollah Khamenei said: “There won’t be any war,” adding: “We don’t seek war, and they [the Americans] don’t either. They know it’s not in their interests.” He concluded that there is no need to negotiate with the US to evade the risk of war: “Negotiation between us and the US is a poison, and to negotiate with the current [US] administration is a double poison.”

The Supreme Leader had made similar remarks in the past, too. Based on the Leader’s position, his followers have come up with slogans such as “There won’t be any war; we won’t negotiate”, which have been largely propagated through social networks and hardline media outlets.   

The Leader’s associates accuse those expressing concern over a possible military confrontation of being weak and defeatist. In particular, they accuse the politicians, public figures and activists who share this concern of deliberately laying the groundwork for the Islamic Republic’s surrender to the US. The Leader’s associates liken the current situation to the pre-nuclear talk’s era when Iranian moderates suggested that the only solution to ending devastating economic sanctions would be by negotiating with the US. The hardline figures accuse the so-called moderates of trying to make the Islamic Republic engage in useless talks with the Americans, which will lead to giving strategic concessions to the enemy without obtaining anything in return. The hardliners especially highlight the experience of the nuclear agreement that resulted in no improvement in Iran’s economic conditions, concluding that any new talks with Washington will lead to a similar outcome.  

But many Iran-based activists and public figures are warning about the possibility of military confrontation between Iran and the US. They believe that certain factions within the US government want to wage war on Iran and that they might be able to materialize their objective if the ongoing tension continues.