Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives and Long Island Peace Groups
STATEMENT ON NO WAR ON IRAN
March 8, 2012
James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence: “We don’t believe [Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei] has made that decision [to develop a nuclear weapon] yet.” (1/31/2012)
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta: Iran has made “no decision yet” on nuclear weapons. (2/16/2012)
General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff: “I believe it is unclear” that Iran is choosing to make a nuclear weapon right now. (2/19/2012)
As we approach the 9th anniversary of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, we are once again seeing American politicians and pundits claiming that an oil-rich nation in the Persian Gulf, Iran, might soon build nuclear weapons. As before, with Afghanistan and Iraq, they are now calling for regime change in Iran, ignoring those two previous, disastrous, wasteful wars.
The likelihood of a war against Iran breaking out, either by “accident” or by design, is quickly accelerating. Such a war would be a catastrophe for the millions of Iranian people, for Israel, and for millions more in the region, as well as an economic and military disaster for the United States.
The pretext for the escalating threat of war against Iran is not that it possesses nuclear weapons, but that it might want to develop them in the future. Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. Both the Israeli and U.S. intelligence communities report this and both say that Iran has not made the decision to build a nuclear weapon as the three quotes above show.
A war against Iran would be a moral and strategic disaster and a crime. Just the threat of war, let alone an actual war against Iran, is a violation of the U.S. Constitution (according to the Supremacy Clause), international law, the UN Charter, and the Nuremberg Principles. Therefore, we call on President Obama and Congress to prevent another war in the Middle East.
We Demand:
- President Obama announce that the U.S. will not attack Iran or be drawn into war if Israel attacks Iran.
- The U.S. Government exercise its diplomatic and economic power as well as its international relationships to restrain the state of Israel from attacking Iran.
- An immediate cessation of sanctions and threats of war against Iran, assassination of its citizens, and other “covert” acts by the United States, Israel, and their allies that are instigating war.
- A Regional Accord establishing a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East in order to end this cycle of coercion, fear and war.
Endorsers: LI Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives; Suffolk Peace Network; LI School of the Americas; Code Pink LI; Pax Christi LI; Claire Deroche, UUCSR Social Justice Committee*; Great Neck SANE/Peace Action; LI Teachers for Human Rights (list in formation). *for identification purposes only
Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives