War With Iran Could Create Millions of Refugees
Iranians are already beginning to flee to neighboring countries.
After days of mounting tensions between Iran and Israel—and rising fears that the United States might directly join the fight—President Donald Trump said Thursday he would "make [his] decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks," pending negotiations. "The president has made it clear he always wants to pursue diplomacy, but believe me, the president is unafraid to use strength if necessary," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
It's unclear what shape U.S. involvement in the conflict might take. (As Trump told reporters on Wednesday when asked whether the U.S. would attack Iran, "Nobody knows what I'm going to do.") But even isolated strikes could very well devolve into a broader, deadlier, prolonged conflict with terrible outcomes. For one, it could create a large-scale refugee crisis.
Iranians have already begun to seek refuge elsewhere amid the conflict with Israel. Some have left for Armenia. "Observers in Turkey say the arrivals have increased since Israel on Friday launched strikes targeting Iran's nuclear program," reported the Associated Press. Though Turkish officials say the country "has not yet seen any increase in people trying to cross" its border with Iran, per Reuters, it "has stepped up security" there. Pakistan has suspended all border crossings from Iran, according to Al Jazeera.
Recent wars in the region provide some lessons about the potential displacement this conflict could cause. "Iran's current population is over 92 million—almost exactly four times the size of Syria when it collapsed and sent a quarter of its population abroad as refugees," Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, pointed out. "A similar refugee outflow from Iran would be about 23.4 million people and increase the worldwide refugee population by about 76 percent."
Afghan refugees in Iran, who already face ill treatment and deportation, could also be swept up. Iran is home to nearly 4 million Afghan refugees. Over 1 million Afghans left their country for Iran after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, including some who assisted the U.S. and other foreign governments during the war.
Brown University's Costs of War Project estimates that 38 million people have been displaced from and within Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya, and Syria by the wars the U.S. has fought since 9/11. Though 26.7 million people have returned home following their displacement, that "does not erase the trauma of displacement or mean the displaced necessarily have returned to their original homes or a secure life," notes the Costs of War Project.
The U.S. has previously welcomed people who became displaced during American military interventions, including after the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm. But there's little reason to believe that the Trump administration would welcome displaced Iranians to the United States (for one, the White House earlier this month barred the vast majority of Iranian nationals from entering the country).
The Trump administration will own the consequences if it decides to go to war against Iran—a war Americans largely don't want. That includes the refugee crisis it could produce.
