NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

Four days before President Donald Trump ordered U.S. airstrikes of three Iranian nuclear sites, State Rep. Darya Farivar issued a notice about growing fear within Washington’s Iranian community. Her June 18 statement described families watching “in anguish” as loved ones faced violence abroad—words that would prove tragically prophetic when Operation Midnight Hammer struck Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan facilities on June 22.

“My community is hurting. … For Iranian Washingtonians, this is not some distant policy debate. It is deeply personal,” Farivar said. “It’s fear at the dinner table. It is grief without recourse. It is the heartbreak of being unable to provide safety for those who once dreamed of refuge here.”

The first Iranian American woman elected to the Washington State Legislature, Farivar represents a community of about 15,000 Iranian Americans, representing about 0.19% of the state’s population.

Seven B-2 stealth bombers dropped 14 bombs on the fortified underground facilities in what Pentagon officials called the first operational use of the 30,000-pound “bunker buster” weapons for penetrating underground targets.

“I was sickened, I felt deeply disgusted,” said Aria Fani, director of the Persian and Iranian Studies Program in the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department at the University of Washington (UW)’s College of Arts and Sciences. “This was completely unnecessary.”

For Fani, whose academic work focuses on the nuanced history between Iran and the United States, the June 22 bombing felt like watching decades of potential diplomatic progress fall apart in real time.

“It would foreclose pathways to diplomacy, a return to the nuclear treaty that Trump withdrew from in 2018,” he explained, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Trump abandoned during his first term. “And it further demonstrated the power of Benjamin Netanyahu in manipulating U.S. presidents into doing his dirty bidding.”

From his office overlooking the UW campus, Fani has spent years studying the historical relationship between Iran and the United States—a relationship he argues is far more intricate than current political rhetoric suggests.

“Prior to the 1979 revolution, Iran and the U.S. had very friendly relations,” he noted, pointing to President Jimmy Carter’s description of Iran under the Shah as “an island of stability in the Middle East.” The nuclear program that the Islamic Republic developed, he said, “was inherited by the previous regime. The U.S. gave the Shah a nuclear program.”

This historical context, Fani argues, is crucial to understanding why the bombing represents such a dangerous miscalculation. Unlike Iraq under Saddam Hussein or Libya under Moammar Gadhafi, Iran remains a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has opened its facilities to international inspection.

“Out of the three of them—us, Israel, and Iran—only one of them has signed the Non-Proliferation treaty, and that’s Iran,” he said. “Only one of them has opened its nuclear facilities to international inspection. And that’s also Iran. Only one of them has not started a war, invaded another territory, currently occupying another territory or conducting a genocide. And that’s also Iran.”

The immediate aftermath of the strikes has already begun to validate some of Fani’s concerns. Iran’s parliament voted to suspend its connection with the International Atomic Energy Agency, potentially ending the international oversight that has been a key issue of nuclear diplomacy.                    “If you’re the regime and you’re pursuing political survival, why on earth would you want to remain loyal to a system that is so obscenely hypocritical that it only applies to regimes that are hostile to U.S. and Western capitalist interests?” Fani asked.

The strikes may have achieved the opposite of their intended effect, he argues, making Iran’s eventual development of nuclear weapons more likely, not less. “What Netanyahu and Trump did made inevitable the acquisition of nuclear bombs for Iran,” he said. “Now, whether it will happen under this regime or under a different regime that is perhaps friendly to the West… that is yet to be seen.”

For Iranian citizens, the consequences are likely to be immediate and harsh. Fani predicts the Islamic Republic will use the external threat to justify increased domestic repression.  “The Iranian regime is notoriously incompetent, corrupt, repressive,” he said, noting the particular vulnerability of dissidents, prisoners of conscience, and members of the Baha’i faith. “I can imagine the civilians will be put under far more pressure now because it will be much easier to crack down on domestic dissidents under the banner of espionage for Israel or collaboration with the West.”

The strikes have also exposed Iranian Americans to potential discrimination and increased scrutiny at home.

The timing is concerning given the Trump administration’s renewed immigration crackdown. “This is happening at a time when the rogue agency called ICE is terrorizing communities across the United States,” Fani said, referencing reports of Iranian asylum-seekers and immigrants being targeted in Los Angeles. “What I fear most is a Japanese-style camp that this administration can put people behind bars under the bogus and nebulous category of threat to national security.”

Despite his harsh criticism of the strikes, he expresses relief that the ceasefire announced by Trump appears to be holding. But he remains pessimistic about the long-term consequences of what he sees as a fundamentally misguided approach to Iran.

“The United States doesn’t have a shred of credibility,” Fani said. “I’m just deeply concerned about people moving back into Tehran to resume their normal lives. I’m concerned because the Islamic Republic is going to become more rabid and oppressive, given the period of hostility that they experience from Israel and the U.S.”

For Iranian Americans in Seattle and beyond, the future is uncertain. As they watch events unfold thousands of miles away, they’re left to navigate the complex terrain of being American citizens whose genealogical homeland has become the target of their adopted country’s military actions. The question that lingers in the minds of many in the community, as Fani put it, is simple: “What is the endgame?”

Resat Kasaba, a professor in the Near and Middle Eastern Studies Program at the UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, does not see any valid reason why the bombing was carried out.

“I think I was very concerned and there was also a sense of despair,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of someone who has seen many Middle Eastern conflicts.

For him, the strikes triggered memories of previous American military interventions that promised swift resolution but delivered long-lasting chaos.

“I am old enough to remember some of the earlier military interventions in the Middle East by the United States. And I know that they usually don’t come out the way people claim that they will,” he said.

Professor Kasaba tries to make sense out of the same confusing rhetoric heard by others. While the massive bombs damaged Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the ultimate strategic purpose remains unclear.

“The Trump administration seems to be arguing amongst itself, basically that they don’t really have a clear message about the outcome,” Kasaba noted, highlighting the mixed signals coming from Washington about whether Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated or set back three to six months as stated in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s initial reports.

As a scholar focused on regional dynamics, he sees Turkey’s position as a major player. Despite being NATO’s second-largest military power, Turkey—like Saudi Arabia—appears more interested in regional stability than escalation.

“They are very concerned, even if they don’t necessarily like the Iranian regime. They’re very concerned that a collapse of that regime would lead to chaos in a very big country that is right at the center of the Middle East,” he explained. The swift ceasefire announced by Trump just days after the strikes has left Kasaba even more perplexed.

“It just seems odd to me that a war was started first with an Israeli attack and then the U.S. joining, and then it was stopped. And then now it is presented as if peace came through the Middle East, but the issues and concerns are still there.”

“I think domestic politics in Israel, which, ironically, with all the attention that we pay to that country in the U.S., never really gets enough attention,” Fani said. “And so, I don’t think we should forget what is happening in Gaza. All eyes should remain on Gaza and what Israel has planned for it.”

“I mean it is the most grotesque violation of human rights that I have witnessed in these 39 years that I’ve been on this planet.”