Statement and Call to Action

July 9, 2009

Dear Friend of United for Peace and Justice,

Over three weeks ago, Iranians held a presidential election. What followed remains unclear, but one thing is for certain: the Iranian government engaged in the suppression of the rights of Iranians to protest their government. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ed Hale

Part I of III

As United States 2008 presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama bickered over how they would “handle the Iran threat” in their first debate on Friday night, citing erroneous facts and competing with one another on who would hold out the longest from engaging in diplomatic talks with Iran, a small group of one-hundred and fifty American citizens representing fifty of the country’s most prominent peace and human rights groups were busy talking to the world’s media about the two-hour private meeting they held with the Iranian President two days prior.

The meeting – which was not revealed to the media until the next day to assure the safety and security for those in attendance – took place on Wednesday September 24 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City during the 63rd annual United Nations General Assembly Meeting. The goal of the meeting was “to introduce President Ahmadinejad to the peace community in the United States and to illustrate how this sector of civil society works to oppose war and the use of violence to resolve differences,” said the meeting’s facilitator, Mark Johnson, Executive Director of the global Fellowship of Reconciliation, the world’s oldest peace organization.

In an exhilarating live experiment in civilian diplomacy in action, the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel was transformed into a veritable who’s who of some of the most outspoken and prominent members of America’s peace, anti-war, and human rights organizations, including Medea Benjamin of A Global Exchange, Jodie Evans of Code Pink and Women for Peace, Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition, yours truly representing PeaceWithIran.com, and Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice. There were also representatives from Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Mennonites, the Lutheran Peace Fellowship, American Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, among many others. American citizens flew in from almost all fifty states to hold the private meeting with President Ahmadinejad in an effort to begin the process of what many consider long overdue open dialogues with Iran regarding how our two nations can work peaceably together to secure more peaceful relations with one another.

The issues raised during the two-hour plus talk, many considered vital for the future security of both the United States and Iranian citizenry, revolved around how the countries can begin putting aside their mutual distrust of one another in order to move forward in peaceful negotiations; both the US and the Iranian government’s recent crackdown on human rights, freedom of assembly, and dissidents; the current US occupation of Iraq; Iran’s controversially viewed policy toward Israel; their treatment of women and other minorities; the difficulty on both sides of obtaining visas to visit either country. Of course the big issue of the moment, will Iran accept a compromise on its nuclear fuel enrichment program, was also addressed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally Published in truthdig here

The failure by Barack Obama to chart another course in the Middle East, to defy the Israel
lobby and to denounce the Bush administration’s inexorable march toward a conflict with
Iran is a failure to challenge the collective insanity that has gripped the political leadership
in the United States and Israel.

Obama, in a miscalculation that will have grave consequences, has given his blessing to
the widening circle of violence and abuse of the Palestinians by Israel and, most
dangerously, to those in the Bush White House and Jerusalem now plotting a war against
Iran. He illustrates how the lust for power is morally corrosive. And while he may win the
White House, by the time he takes power he will be trapped in George Bush’s alternative
reality.

“Humanity Does Not Change”

There is nothing in human nature or human history to justify the idea that we are
progressing morally as a species.

We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to stay the hand of Israel, which is
building more settlements—including a new plan to put 800 housing units in occupied
East Jerusalem—and imposing draconian measures to physically break the 1.5 million
Palestinians in Gaza. We need, most of all, to prevent a war with Iran.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, in a letter to President Bush on May 8, threatened
to open impeachment proceedings if Bush attacked Iran. The letter is a signal that
planning for strikes on Iran is under way and pronounced.

“Our concerns in this area have been heightened by more recent events,” Conyers wrote.
“The resignation in mid-March of Admiral William J. ‘Fox’ Fallon from the head of U.S.
Central Command, which was reportedly linked to a magazine article that portrayed him as
the only person who might stop your Administration from waging preemptive war against
Iran, has renewed widespread concerns that your Administration is unilaterally planning
for military action against that country. This is despite the fact that the December 2007
National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program
in the fall of 2003, a stark reversal of previous Administration assessments.”

The administration, in rhetoric that is eerily similar to that used to build the case for a war
against Iraq, asserts that the Iranian Quds Force is arming anti-American groups in Iraq
and providing them with high-tech roadside bombs and sophisticated rockets. It
dismisses the National Intelligence Estimate conclusion that Iran suspended its nuclear
weapons program. The White House has not provided evidence to back up its claims. I
suspect it never will. And when Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz tells the Israeli
newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth an attack on Iran is “unavoidable” if Tehran does not halt its
alleged nuclear weapons program, what he is really telling us is we should prepare for war.
Conyers’ threat is too little too late, especially if the Bush White House, possibly assisted
by Israel, launches airstrikes on some or all of 1,000 selected Iranian targets in the final
weeks of the administration. But it is an effort. Conyers tried.

This is more than we can say for the presumptive Democratic nominee. Obama went
before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Wednesday and said he will
stand with the right-wing Israeli government, even if this means backing an attack on Iran.
“As president I will use all elements of American power to pressure Iran,” he said. “I will
do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in
my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.”
Obama went on to blame the Palestinians for the conflict, although the ratio of
Palestinians to Israelis killed in 2007 was 40 to 1. This is an increase from 30 to 1 in 2006
and 4 to 1 in 2000-2005.

“I will bring to the White House an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security. That starts
with ensuring Israel’s qualitative military advantage, …” Obama told AIPAC. “I will ensure
Israel can defend itself from any threat, from Gaza to Tehran. …”
Obama spoke about Israelis whose houses were damaged by the crude rockets, most
made out of old pipes, fired from Gaza on Israeli towns. He never mentioned the Israeli
siege of Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, or that Israel was deploying fighter jets
and helicopters to attack densely crowded refugee camps with missiles and iron
fragmentation bombs or that it had cut off food and fuel. He ignored the steady expansion
of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. He called for Jerusalem to become the
“undivided capital” of the Jewish state, erasing Arab East Jerusalem from the map in
contravention of international law. East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are
internationally recognized as occupied Palestinian territories, which Israel took over in
1967. Obama’s stance is the moral equivalent of assuring the Johannesburg government
during the apartheid era that one would support their repressive efforts to punish the
restive blacks in the townships.

The deterioration of the conflict in Israel, which would be accelerated by airstrikes on Iran
and an ensuring regional war, will propel us into the Armageddon-type scenario in the
Middle East relished by the lunatic fringes of the radical Christian right. And so, with
Obama’s enthusiastic endorsement, we barrel toward a Dr. Strangelove self-immolation.
No one will be able to say we did not go out with a spectacular show of firepower, gore
and death. Our European and Middle Eastern allies, who are numb with consternation over
our death spiral, are frantically trying to reach out to Tehran diplomatically.

The instant we attack Iran, oil prices will double, perhaps triple. This price increase will
devastate the American economy. The ensuing retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well
as on American military installations in Iraq, will leave hundreds, maybe thousands, of
dead. The Shiites in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, will see an attack on Iran as
a war against Shiism. They will turn with rage and violence on us and our allies. Hezbollah
will renew attacks on northern Israel. And the localized war in Iraq will become a long,
messy and protracted regional war that, by the time it is done, will most likely end the
American empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins.

The Israeli leadership, like the Bush White House, is increasingly bellicose and threatening.
The Israeli prime minister, after a 90-minute meeting with Bush in the White House on
Wednesday, said the two leaders were of one mind. “We reached agreement on the need to
take care of the Iranian threat,” Ehud Olmert said. “I left with a lot less questions marks
[than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American
resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian
threat and the need to vanquish it and intends to act on the matter before the end of his
term in the White House.”

This time around, unlike about the war with Iraq, the Washington bureaucracy, loathed by
the Bush White House, did not remain silent and complicit. The National Intelligence
Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program released last Dec. 3 distinguished Iran’s enrichment of
uranium at Natanz and Arak from its formal nuclear weapons program, which it said had
halted in 2003 after the American invasion of Iraq. Adm. Fallon, who put his country and
his integrity before his career, spoke out against a war with Iran, tried to stop it and lost
his job as the head of CENTCOM. He has been replaced with Gen. David H. Petraeus,
whose devotion to his career admits no such moral impediments.

” … There is no greater threat to Israel or peace than Iran,” Obama assured AIPAC. “This
audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. And the enemies of Israel should
have no doubt that regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in support
of Israel’s security. … The Iran regime supports violent extremists and challenges us
across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race
and … its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. … [M]y
goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

Barack Obama, when we need sane leadership the most, has proved feckless and weak.
He, and the Democratic leadership, is as morally bankrupt as those preparing to ignite our
funeral pyre in the Middle East.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama on screen receives applause during
his address before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference 2008 in
Washington.

Interesting perspective to keep in mind regarding peace with Iran and supporting the Human Rights Movement rather than hurting it by continuing to threaten the country militarily which would only yeild more blind protectionist patriotism for the current Fundamentalist-led government. Sums it up quite nicely. First published here: www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3573/context/archive

Run Date: 04/24/08

By Soheila Vahdati

Iranian activists are bravely pushing for women’s rights. But Soheila Vahdati warns that an outbreak of an Iran-Israeli war that involves the Bush White House would fan the flames of fundamentalism and destroy the cause.Editor’s Note: The following is a commentary. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the views of Women’s eNews.

(WOMENSENEWS)–In case you missed it, here’s how a Reuters story started out on the day Pennsylvania Democrats were nominating deciding who they want as a presidential candidate.

“Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton warned Tehran on Tuesday that if she were president, the United States could ‘totally obliterate’ Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel.”

While many American women may be measuring the next U.S. president for his or her policies on health care, gender pay equity and a struggling economy, women in Iran are looking for foreign policy approaches. More immediately, we’re also wary of what the remaining days of President Bush’s time in office might bring.

The possibility of U.S. military action against Iran has been rising this month along with the saber rattling between Israel and Iran.

Some analysts have speculated that Israel might attack Iran to stop its nuclear activities, which the West fears are a front for weapons development. Iran has responded by saying it will obliterate Israel if it comes under attack.

Amid this, female activists in Iran hope that war can be avoided, fearing the Iranian women’s movement would be among the first casualties.

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