|
An open letter by American intellectuals to
Barack Obama on Iran, urging him to use his influence to stop Bush
from launching another war
ccun.org, July 6, 2008
Dear Senator Obama,
We the undersigned may have different views on U.S. foreign policy
with respect to Iran. We all, however, are deeply concerned about
the stories in the press in the past few weeks suggesting that the
Bush administration might be considering a military strike on Iran,
that it might give a green light to such an attack by Israel, or
that it might engage in other acts of war, such as imposing a
blockade against Iran.
We welcomed your stand against the war on Iraq in 2002. And we were
encouraged by your early campaign statements emphasizing diplomacy
over military action against Iran. Today, you have an opportunity to
forestall a repeat of the tragic Iraq war. We hope you will use that
opportunity.
We agree with the conclusion of Muhammed ElBaradei, the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, that "A military strike ...
would be worse than anything possible. It would turn the region into
a fireball..." A military attack, he said, "will mean that Iran, if
it is not already making nuclear weapons, will launch a crash course
to build nuclear weapons with the blessing of all Iranians, even
those in the West." (Reuters, June 20, 2008.)
We don't know, of course, whether an attack on Iran is in fact being
considered, or if there are serious plans to initiate other acts of
war, such as a blockade of the country. But we call on you to issue
a public statement warning of the grave dangers that any of these
actions would entail, and pointing out how inappropriate and
undemocratic it would be for the Bush administration to undertake
them, or encourage Israel to do so, in its closing months in office.
An attack on Iran would violate the UN Charter's prohibition against
the use or threat of force and the Congress's authority to declare
war. Moreover, the public right to decide should not be foreclosed
by last-minute actions of the Bush administration, which will set
U.S. policy in stone now.
We were heartened by your earlier comments suggesting that an Obama
administration would act on the understanding that genuine security
requires a willingness to talk without preconditions (something Iran
has offered several times to no avail), and that threats and
military action are counterproductive. We hope you will follow
through on these commitments once in office, but also that you will
speak out now against any acts of war by the Bush administration.
Sincerely,
Michael Albert ZNet
Cathy Albisa exec. director, National Economic and Social Rights
Initiative
John W. Amidon U.S. Veterans for Peace
Stanley Aronowitz Professor of Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY
Rosalyn Baxandall Distinguished Teaching Professor, SUNY Old
Westbury
Phyllis Bennis Institute for Policy Studies
Stephen Eric Bronner Professor (II) of Political Science, Rutgers
University
Charlotte Bunch exec. director, Center for Women's Global
Leadership, Rutgers Univ.
Noam Chomsky Institute Professor (retired), MIT
Ray Close retired CIA Middle East specialist; Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Rhonda Copelon Professor of Law, CUNY Law School
Hamid Dabashi Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative
Literature, Columbia Univ.
Lawrence Davidson Professor of Middle East History, West Chester
Univ.
Ariel Dorfman author
Stuart Ewen, Distinguished Professor, Hunter College & the Graduate
Center, CUNY
John Feffer co-director, Foreign Policy in Focus
Bill Fletcher, Jr. exec. editor, BlackCommentator.com
Libby Frank Women's Internat'l League for Peace & Freedom,
Philadelphia
Arthur Goldschmidt Professor emeritus of Middle East History, Penn
State Univ.
Tom Hayden author
Doug Henwood Left Business Observer
Doug Ireland journalist
James E. Jennings exec. director, U.S. Academics for Peace
Nikki Keddie UCLA (emeritus), historian, Iran specialist
Janet Kestenberg Amighi v.p., CDR (sponsor of Holocaust child
survivor research)
Rabbi Michael Lerner chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives;
editor, Tikkun mag.
Mark LeVine Prof. of Modern Middle Eastern History, Culture and
Islamic Studies, U. Cal., Irvine
Manning Marable director, Center for Contemporary Black History,
Columbia Univ.
David McReynolds former chair, War Resisters Internat'l
Rosalind Petchesky Distinguished Prof. of Poli. Sci., Hunter College
& the Graduate Center, CUNY
Rachel Pfeffer interim exec. director, Jewish Voices for Peace
Katha Pollitt writer
Danny Postel No War on Iran Coalition, Chicago
Matthew Rothschild editor, The Progressive magazine
Stephen R. Shalom Prof. of Poli. Sci., William Paterson Univ.
(Rev.) David Whitten Smith Univ. of St. Thomas, Minnesota (emeritus)
Meredith Tax writer; president, Women's WORLD
Michael J. Thompson editor of Logos
Chris Toensing editor, Middle East Report
Cornel West Professor, Princeton University
Stephen Zunes Professor of Politics, Univ. of San Francisco
Please join these signatories and sign below the list.
(organizations listed for identification purposes only)
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ObamaIran
|
