Iran: Diplomacy, Not War
Howie Hawkins for Congress
25th District, New York
www.howiehawkins.org
Media Release
For Immediate Release: July 10, 2008
For More Information: Howie Hawkins, 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org
Hawkins Says Diplomacy, Not War, Best Way to Engage Iran
(Syracuse, NY) - Howie Hawkins, the Green Populist candidate for Congress, said today that Democratic and Republican presidential candidates were overreacting in their response to the recent missile tests by Iran. Hawkins said he opposed the mounting bipartisan effort to drag the US into yet another war in the Middle East.
"Iran is doing little more than showing the school yard bully that if the bully starts throwing punches, he is going to get hurt, too. Iran is not a threat to the US. Iran has not attacked another country in over 250 years. The US, in contrast, has repeatedly attacked Iran. The major party presidential candidates are in danger of talking us into another war by trying to appear tough. We need diplomacy, not school yard strutting," Hawkins stated.
"A CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 because it had nationalized their own oil resources. The US installed and armed the Shah's military dictatorship. In the 1980s, the US provided encouragement and arms to the attack by Saddam Hussein's Iraq against the Iranian regime that had overthrown the Shah in 1979. The US navy joined in to sink the Iranian navy during that war," added Hawkins.
"The US should accept Iran's repeated offers in recent years for comprehensive negotiations to resolve the issues around Iran's nuclear power program and all other outstanding issues," Hawkins said. Such talks are supported by independent experts such as Thomas Pickering, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN during the administration of the first President Bush.
Hawkins noted that Congress is expected to vote soon to impose a naval blockade against Iran, which would be considered an act of war. An economic blockade of Iran would send oil prices soaring even higher. Last week, a story by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in The New York revealed that the leadership of both parties in Congress had agreed to a request by President Bush for $400 million for a covert war in Iran to overthrow its government.
"The silence of the major party candidates in the 25th congressional district on US intervention in Iran is disturbing. Here we are sliding into third war in the Middle East and not a word of dissent from either candidate from their party leaderships' aggressive actions toward Iran," Hawkins said.
The leaders of both major parties have supported Bush's push to go to war with Iran. Senator Obama reacted to the Iranian missile testing by saying that Iran "must suffer threats of economic sanctions with direct diplomacy opening up channels of communication so we avoid provocation, but we give strong incentives for the Iranians to change their behavior."
Republican McCain stated, "Ballistic missile testing coupled with Iran's continued refusal to cease its nuclear activities should unite the international community in efforts to counter Iran's dangerous ambitions." McCain also said the tests shows the United States needs effective missile defense "now and in the future," including the planned missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland.
HR 362, which may be voted upon in the next weeks, states that: "Congress demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program." HR 362's co-sponsors include 96 House Democrats and 111 House Republicans.
The resolution builds upon economic sanctions imposed by Bush against Iran in October. In addition to targeting more than 20 Iranian companies and the country's 3 major banks, the sanctions were aimed at Iran's uniformed security force, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the Bush administration characterized as "proliferators of weapons of mass destruction" and as a "supporter of terrorism." These two accusations are the same pretexts used by the Bush administration and Congress for the invasion of Iraq.
As Seymour Hersh recently reported in current issue of The New Yorkeer, "Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership." This covert war has included support for anti-Iran terrorist organizations including PJAK, MEK, and Jondollah, which is believed to have links to Al Qaeda. MEK terrorists have received training at US military installations in Nevada.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all.
Hersh noted that the sign-off on the covert war by the House and Senate leadership of both parties and the ranking members of each house's intelligence committee came in early December, shortly after a National Intelligence Estimate by the US intelligence community reported that Iran had shelved its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
Hersh recently told NPR: "Frankly, the guys I know in the inside-- in the Special Forces, high up in DoD, high up in the intelligence community--if you push them hard enough, they tell you that Iran has been more of a force for stability in Iraq than negative."
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stated last October: "Have we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can readily be used into a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No. I'm very much concerned about confrontation, building confrontation, because that would lead absolutely to a disaster. I see no military solution. The only durable solution is through negotiation and inspection."
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