Iranian-Americans gloomy about prospects for detente with Tehran
Vienna, United States, Jan 10 (AFP/APP): They are relieved but hardly at peace: Iranian-Americans in a town outside Washington say that even as tensions with Tehran ease, they’re not optimistic about prospects for real detente between the two long-time enemies.
“I hope, I wish, that war is not going to happen,” said Massoud Mossadad, owner of a grocery store specializing in Iranian and other Middle Eastern products in Vienna, Virginia.
The community is home to a sizeable chunk of the estimated 80,000 Iranian-Americans in the Washington area.
“Unfortunately, if it happens, imagine how many people will lose their husband, their parents, their sons,” said Mossadad, 63. He has lived in America for 40 years after leaving his country following the Islamic revolution of 1979.
He and others spoke Thursday after the United States and Iran apparently stepped back from the brink of war following the US killing in a drone strike of the powerful Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, in Iraq last week.
Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles towards Iraqi military bases housing US troops but none were hurt. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Iran was apparently “standing down” after the world feared a major conflagration.
Trump issued a call for peace, but in the grocery store and elsewhere in Vienna, people of Iranian origin were anything but upbeat.
“I was very scared because my mom is supposed to leave for Iran in two weeks to visit our family after a long time,” said Mitra Davani, a 37-year-old dentist.
Iranian-born but living in Vienna since 2005, Davani said she was particularly shocked by Trump’s threats to attack Iranian cultural sites, in comments that caused an outrage because such an act would be considered a war crime.
Trump later backed away, saying he likes to “obey the law.”
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