Protesters rally across US after Iran strikes and reports of Khamenei killing | US news

As reports circulated that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, had been killed in U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran, anti-war protesters gathered across the United States, including in front of the White House and in New York’s Times Square, to voice their opposition to U.S. military involvement in the region.

“This was not approved by Congress, so what Trump is doing is on his own terms, it makes him a fascist and it makes the country a fascist state,” said Sue Johnson, a protester.

Trump, she added, “just couldn’t wait. He’s such an impatient kid. He says, ‘Well, ICE didn’t work, so let’s make something happen in the Middle East.’ He bombed Iran for no specific reason.”

“No president can attack, kidnap or bomb another country without the permission of Congress,” she said, while acknowledging that “it doesn’t matter what Congress thinks because this president goes and does whatever he wants to any country.”

This sense of fait accompli that accompanies the Trump administration’s recent foreign policy actions, including the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president, permeated the gathering of several hundred protesters in New York.

Many protests were sponsored by a coalition of left-wing groups, including: ANSWER Coalition, National Iranian American Council, 50501, American Muslims for Palestine, People’s Forum, Palestinian Youth Movement, CodePink, Black Peace Alliance, and Democratic Socialists of America.

The coalition listed other “emergency protests” on Saturday, including in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami and Minneapolis.

Others will take place Sunday in smaller cities, including: Albany, New York; Ellensburg, Virginia; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Decorah, Iowa; Gainesville, Florida and Springfield, Missouri.

Organizers released a statement calling “Trump’s illegal and unprovoked attack on Iran is an act of war that threatens to cause unthinkable death and destruction. But the people of this country reject another endless war and will take to the streets now and make their voices heard.”

DSA-aligned New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said earlier in the day that the US and Israeli strikes on Iran “mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war. The Americans don’t want this. They don’t want another war to achieve regime change.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has joined many Democratic lawmakers in demanding that Congress take immediate action to end Trump’s unconstitutional use of military force against Iran. The veteran civil rights group noted that it has “firmly insisted, from Vietnam to the war in Afghanistan, the two wars in Iraq, the military action against Libya, and the continued use of force in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia, that the Constitution makes clear that decisions on whether or not to use military force require the specific and prior authorization of Congress.”

This sentiment was echoed by Willie Cotton, 48, of Brooklyn, New York, who told the Guardian that he did not think it was in the United States’ interests for Iran to have a nuclear weapon “but I am opposed to American bombing.”

“I support the protests,” he said, “and I support the thousands of people who have been killed by the regime there. But the United States is not going there to help them, or to benefit the region, it is going there for its own interests and goals.”

Cotton acknowledged that Trump told the Iranians as he announced the strikes Saturday morning that the attack on Iran’s theocratic regime represented “probably your only chance for generations” to seize power.

“He said that to Venezuela, and then he said, here’s our oil two minutes later,” Cotton said skeptically. “The history of the United States is that it engages in these conflicts for its own benefit, not for the benefit of the people. I don’t think he’s straying from that line of protecting American business interests, including his own.”

“But it’s no different than Biden or Obama or anything. I’m not giving backhanded support to Obama. He had the same sanctions program that hurt Iranian workers,” Cotton said.

As a member of the Socialist Workers Party, he added, he strongly supports the defense of Israel following Hamas’ cross-border attack on the country on October 7, 2023. “It was Iran that organized the bombing campaigns against Israel and Israel has the right to defend itself. »

“But the United States is not defending itself here…it is advancing its goals all over the world.”

The protesters gathered as FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence teams were placed on high alert across the country. Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, said she was “in direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.”

Jacqueline, a woman who proclaimed “Stop the war on Iran!” ” holding signs in the name of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said that even if the protests had no effect in stopping the bombings, “we can at least express that people oppose another endless war in the Middle East.”

“It’s not in our best interest for the people here to deal with the cost of living crisis, the murders in the streets by ICE, and the United States is neither an arbiter nor a beacon of democracy. I think we’ve all seen that lie pretty clearly by now.”

Health worker Christina Perez, 44, said she joined in protesting “the Trump regime in general, all of it.”

“It’s like constant salt in the wound. You never know what you’re going to wake up to. Why is this person allowed to commit all these legal atrocities and no one stops them. It’s like creeping tyranny.”

When asked how she felt waking up Saturday to the news of the strikes, Perez responded:

“Unfortunately, I’m not surprised and why do I keep waking up to even more terrible bullshit. We’re distracted from the things that really matter because we’re constantly inundated. Americans have legitimate grievances, but there’s never any money to solve these problems and always money for war.”