National Call-In Day for Diplomacy With Iran
Tuesday, June 10
Call your congressional representative: 1-800-788-9372
Talking points:
The U.S. must talk to Iran! Ask your rep to co-sponsor H.R. 5056 to appoint an envoy to Iran for the purpose of easing tensions and normalizing relations with Iran.
The U.S. and Iran share common interests in a stable Iraq, Afghanistan, and Middle East.
The U.S. pursued negotiations with North Korea and Libya. It's time to talk with Iran.
It is essential that we push back against the Bush administration's push for bombing Iran. Your phone calls are an important part of the pushback. Please call today!
The same people who called for attacking Iraq now are raising the drumbeat for military action against Iran. The Bush administration is labeling Iran as one of the greatest threats to U.S. security, despite the November 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program.
Bombing Iran would bring disastrous consequences:
The entire Middle East would descend into further violence putting the well-being of innumerable civilians at risk.
U.S. standing in the world would plummet, and oil prices would soar.
A U.S. attack would only strengthen hardliners in Iran.
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Monday, June 9, 2008
National Call-in Day on Diplomacy with Iran
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5 comments:
While I fully support diplomacy with Iran, the problem with this statement is that it assumes that the US has an interest in a stable Middle East, which history shows it clearly does not. It is in the U.S. imperialists' interest to have a destabilized Middle East because it "justifies" (in the perception of the U.S. population) continued U.S. interventionism.
Harold, while I agree with the validity of your comment, I think that as a tactic of talking to other people, especially a member of Congress, the statement is worthwhile. Who can say, "I am for destabilizing the Middle East." I think that kind of thinking was a subtext of the Bush administration's long-since abandoned rhetoric (if not abandoned policy) about what it was doing in Iraq. And while I agree it may not be in imperialism's interest to have a stable region, it certainly is in our interest and the people who live there. Still, you make a good point, I think.
Don't get me wrong, Joel - I plan on making the calls because its the right thing to do, and because I respect human rights (not to mention international law).
This whole issue with Iran is crazy. Iran has done nothing wrong - according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there is no indication that Iran is or was working on a nuclear weapons program (essentially the same conclusion of the National Intelligence Estimate). The Islamic Republic has been vilified by the Bush Administration and the media, while maintaining all along that it is only interested in nuclear power for peaceful means.
It is in no one's interest for Iran to possess nuclear weapons, but at the same time, Ahmadinejhad and his elders would be crazy not to be at least considering it as a deterrent to American and Israeli aggression. The repeated threats of the Bush Administration against Iran constitute a serous violation of the UN Charter - just another war crime in the very long catalogue of American war crimes since WWII. The media is complicit in these crimes as well, as they continually present Ahmadinejhad as some sort of maniac - which he is not. He's never actually said that Israel should be wiped off of the map - he is constantly mistranslated for the purpose of vilifying him. All the while, the planning of the Bushies and their Israeli client state continues and war with Iran looms closer and closer.
Of course, Iran's threat to wipe Israel off the map, its spreading of Nazi-like stereotypes of Jews and subsidizing Islamic extremist intervention in Iraq, are mere schoolyard bully talk. Iran is to be watched and held in tow with UN sanctions. This is a country who population in 1979 was 15 million and today is 70 million. Ahmadnijahad has dreams of a caliphate. Let's not be naive.
Ahmadinejhad's dreams are in keeping with those of the country's Mullahs - who are extreme, but their plans for the Middle East are not really in line with those of al-Qaeda, which seeks a Islamic Caliphate. I don't fall under the delusion that Iran is really a functioning democracy, as the reform movement, once vibrant and influential, has essentially been squashed, but it is naive, I think, to believe the lies of the Bush Administration that Iran is really playing an important role in subsidizing "terror" groups in Iraq. The Admin is simply trying to build a base of support, once again based on lies, for the perhaps impending invasion of the Islamic Republic.
Yes, Iran should be watched - not by the US (obviously the world's chief violator of international law), but by the UN.
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