MAGA’s newest stans: Iranians

Persians for Trump are here in force.

Steve Bannon was broadcasting his War Room show live from the CPAC exhibit hall on Friday morning. A small crowd had gathered around the sound stage, and one of Bannon’s minions passed the mike to an onlooker named Nima Poursohi, who was wearing a “Persians for Trump” T-shirt, a Trump-Vance hat, and mirrored sunglasses. Bannon asked him what his shirt was all about. “I’m proud to represent the Iranian–American community and their quest for freedom after 47 years of repression and tyranny under a repressive regime,” Poursohi yelled into the mike.

But he was only getting started.

“I cannot tell you how grateful the people of Iran, and the Iranian–American diaspora is for President Trump, because no other president had the courage to stand up to the Islamic regime,” he continued. “There is not a single Iranian- American who does not like Trump. President Trump, you hear me loud and clear: We love you, we’ll forever be grateful. You are the next King Cyrus the Great,” he said, invoking the founder of the Persian Empire, who is credited with liberating the Jews from captivity.

Bannon, who opposes deploying American ground troops to the Middle East, asked him if the Iranians finally overthrew radical Islam, “would they be a great ally to America?” Poursohi was unequivocal. “You have no idea, brother,” he replied. “The Persians would be the greatest ally ever.”

Poursohi seemed to speak for the remarkably large contingent of Iranians who have come this week to Grapevine, Texas, to attend the nation’s oldest conservative convention. President Donald Trump’s traditional MAGA base may be torn between their opposition to the foreign wars he had campaigned against and his latest foray into a messy Middle East conflict. But the Iranians at CPAC had no such reservations.

Ray Rezaeifar, an Iranian who has been in the US for 15 years and works as an engineer in Houston, told me that Iranians have always attended CPAC, but that this year at least five times more of them showed up. “I support President Trump. I love him—his ideology,” he told me. “We truly appreciate President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. They really support Iran.”

At first glance, the Iranians might seem an unusual pocket of support for Trump and the larger conservative movement. After all, the MAGA faithful are inclined to see anyone from the Middle East as a potential terrorist threat rather than an ally in the fight against woke liberals. Indeed, Iranians have not been exempt from the mass deportation efforts of the Trump administration. Hundreds have been swept up in the effort and many have been Christian converts and political dissidents.

But the Persians at CPAC are staunch Republicans who supported Trump long before the war started. And many of them have been finding common cause with MAGA’s Islamophobes, who have seen a resurgence in the past year since the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mandami, a Shia Muslim.

In early March, Poursohi attended the anti-Islam protest in front of Gracie Mansion organized by January 6 rioter Jake Lang, where two teenagers allegedly inspired by ISIS, threw explosive devices into the crowd.

Some of the Iranians I met at CPAC said they may have been raised Muslim, but no longer practiced. Others were Baha’i, part of a religious minority that’s persecuted in Iran. One man told me that he is first an Iranian, but if pressed on his religious affiliation, he considers himself a Zoroaster, following the ancient Persian belief in the ethical tenets of “three good things.”

Iranians have been carrying signs around the convention center that say, “Don’t Sharia My Dog.” They’re put out by a Texas group trying to pass an anti-Sharia state ballot measure by focusing on conservative Islam’s restrictions on dog ownership. The signs dovetail with legislation introduced in February by Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), called the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act” that would block federal funds from any state that bans dog ownership. (None has.) “In America, we will not allow anyone to tell us that we cannot have dogs,” Fine said when he introduced the bill. “There are 57 countries that are Sharia compliant; the United States will not be the 58th.”

What also unites many of the Iranians at CPAC, aside from their dislike of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is their nostalgia for the days of the shah, whom they hope Trump will return to power. They have set their sights specifically on “King” Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah who was deposed in the 1979 revolution because of his corrupt and repressive governance. Pahlavi was scheduled to speak at CPAC on Saturday.

On Friday morning, Akbar Ravari, from Katy, Texas, was watching the War Room broadcast with his wife. He came to the US two years before the Iranian revolution, but his wife only arrived two years ago. They were both wearing new T-shirts with the image of Trump and Pahlavi emblazoned across the pre-revolutionary Iranian flag. Ravari loves Trump and had been hoping to see him at the conference. He was deflated when I told him that the president was probably going to be in Florida golfing on Saturday. Nonetheless, Ravari told me he “100 percent supports the war” in Iran, and believes that restoring the shah’s son will return democracy and women’s rights to his native country.

But Trump seems likely to disappoint his Persian supporters. According to the New Yorker, Trump and his aides refer to Pahlavi as the “loser prince,” because they don’t believe he has sufficient support within Iran to lead an uprising against the existing regime. (Pahlavi, a longtime resident of suburban Maryland, hasn’t visited Iran in at least 50 years.) And recently, Trump has suggested that “me and the Ayatollah” might jointly oversee the operation of the critical Strait of Hormuz, a partnership that would seem anathema to Iranian exiles in the US.

But thus far, those comments didn’t seem to have dimmed Trump’s support among the Iranians at CPAC. When I asked about Trump’s comments regarding his potential cooperation with “the Ayatollah,” Ray Rezaeifar told me the president is “very good and talented with playing with the media.” He thinks Trump was just joking. “He’s looking for peace. President Trump is a smart guy. He’s protecting America.”