By Sam Levine
Late in the evening of June 21st, Donald Trump made a strange and shocking statement on his Truth Social personal social media site. Shocking because he announced that the US had successfully attacked three nuclear sites in Iran, and strange because in the same post proclaimed that “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE.”
To call for peace in the same announcement that you have started an unprovoked war sounds like something out of a George Orwell novel, only now this kind of doublethink seems to be the official position of the United States government.
The response from the majority congressional Republicans was nothing out of the ordinary: fear mongering about Iranian nuclear weapons, praise for Trump, and glorification of war. However, there were a few notable exceptions to the rule. Thomas Massie, a Republican representative from Kentucky, called Trump’s act “unconstitutional”, having introduced a war powers resolution in the House in cooperation with Democratic representative Ro Khanna even before the announcement of Trump’s strikes.
The war in Iran has put pro-Israel Democrats into an awkward position, leaving them to ask themselves how to support a war in Iran while fronting opposition to Trump’s unilateral and unpopular actions. One day before Trump’s strike, Hakeem Jeffries put out a statement espousing rhetoric; calling Iran “a sworn enemy of the United States” that the state “can never be permitted to become a nuclear capable power.” He once again expressed his support for Israel’s “right to defend itself against escalating Iranian aggression,” without identifying that it was Israel who started this war without reason. However, Jeffries did point out that only Congress has the authority to declare war and that Trump unilaterally cannot make this decision.
It seems like Democrats like Jeffries don’t have a problem with the war itself, only that Trump did not have the politeness to inform them first.
Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss’s immediate reaction to Trump unprompted bombing of Iran was even more unhinged, demanding “Iran surrenders its nuclear program & ceases funding terrorists.”
The media has recycled many of the talking points used during the invasion of Iraq over twenty years ago— warhawks fear mongering about mythical nuclear weapons. The Boston Globe has been publishing a series of opinion pieces with titles like “Israel’s war against Iran is America’s war, too” written by Jeff Jacoby and other warmongers, who wrote similar pieces in the early 2000s about the threat of Iraqi WMDs. Few are pointing out how ridiculous it sounds that the US, the only country in the world to have ever used a nuclear weapon in war, and Israel, the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, is claiming that Iran, with no nuclear weapons, is the threat to peace.
Despite the media folding and rallying around the flag, the American people still have the trauma of Iraq and Afghanistan fresh in their minds. The public is not willing to sacrifice more lives and more of our tax dollars to the altar of the military industrial complex. A recent YouGov poll showed that only 35% of US adults support bombing Iranian nuclear sites.
The turnout at an emergency rally organized by the National Iranian American Council, MAPA, Arise and Resist coalition, Party for Socialism and Liberation, SEIU Local 509, and more, reflect this statistic. Upwards of a thousand protestors rallied at Park Street and marched through downtown Boston to the JFK Federal Building Sunday afternoon to show the world that the American people have learned their lesson from the forever wars of the past and will not be blindly led into another senseless conflict.
Today the attention is on Trump and the US military as we become directly involved in this conflict, but we cannot forget that the US has never been uninvolved in this war.
Without US weapons and political cover, Israel would not have been able to make the reckless decision to bomb Iran unprovoked. Everything Israel has done has been funded by US tax dollars; from the genocide in Gaza and occupation of the West Bank, to the bombing of Lebanon and Syria, and now the bombing of Iran.
A war with Iran will be dangerous for all those involved and Trump’s action “endangers people across the region and American service members dangerously deployed there”, said executive director of MAPA, Brian Garvey.
Hannah Didehbani, an Iranian-American organizer of the PSL said, “That this is a war about stealing Iran’s resources and putting down any resistance to U.S. hegemony in the region” rather than being about protecting the interests of everyday Americans who will pay for this war in blood and tax dollars.
Of the Massachusetts House delegation only Pressley, McGovern, and Lynch have signed onto Massie and Khanna’s resolution. Both Massachusetts senators have co-sponsored Bernie Sanders’ No War Against Iran Act which would prohibit the use of federal funds for military action against Iran. MAPA is calling on Massachusetts constituents to contact their senators and representatives to express their opposition to the US becoming involved in Israel’s war with Iran and sign onto legislation prohibiting Trump from unilaterally declaring war.
What needs to happen now is an immediate ceasefire between all parties, an end to US weapon shipments to Israel, and a return to diplomacy between the US and Iran.
—
Sam Levine is a MAPA intern and a student at Emerson College
