StopWarOnIran.org – 2007-01-15 22:19:16
http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml
The growing threat of military action against Iran was made very clear last week as President Bush used his prime time “surge” speech to issue threats against the people of Iran. This speech was immediately followed by a US attack on the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq and the arrest of Iranian consular personnel.
As this time, the US has deployed two full carrier groups to the Persian Gulf. Each carrier carries more than 80 combat aircraft including F/A-18 Hornets, F-14 Tomcats, SH-60 Seahawks, S-3B Vikings, E-2C Hawkeyes and EA-6B Prowlers, capable of flying more than 150 strikes a day.
In addition, each carrier group includes guided missile cruisers, fast frigates, guided missile destroyers, and submarines, all equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
We know from reports last year that the Pentagon’s Central Command and Strategic Command planners are already identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an attack and that the planned strikes could kill thousands of Iranian people.
We must mobilize now to against the threat of a new war. Over the next few days and weeks, Stop War On Iran will be organizing meetings, rallies, and protests across the country to build a movement to stop another disastrous war.
So far, we’ve gotten more than 20,000 signatures on the Stop War On Iran petition, and we’ve sent nearly half a million petitions to Bush, Cheney, Congress, and Halliburton. But we must do more — the threat of an imminent attack is growing. We need your help.
We cannot count on politicians (of either major party) to stop the war — we must build a grassroots movement to stop another brutal war. Here’s how you can help:
• Sign the Petition – Send a message to Bush, Cheney, Congress, and Halliburton
http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml
Duplicity of the UN Security Council
NEW YORK (January 11, 2007) — In light of the imposition of new United Nations Security Council sanctions directed against Iran, and in the face of a massive US-led military build-up in the Persian Gulf, StopWarOnIran.org campaign calls on all peace loving and justice-seeking people to endorse SWOI’s demand for US withdrawal of its naval forces from the Persian Gulf and for the annulment of U.N. Resolution 1737.
Under the ongoing pressure and probable offer of economic incentives from the United States and Britain, the United Nations Security Council on December 23, 2006 approved Resolution 1737 that:
* Requires Iran to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and to stop work on the construction of a heavy-water research reactor at Arak.
* Prohibits all member states from supplying Iran with items including dual-use equipment and prohibits Iran from exporting any related equipment or technology to other countries.
* Requires all states to avoid providing Iran with technical assistance, training or financial services that could contribute to a nuclear program advancement.
* Requires all states to freeze the assets of a specified list of individuals and entities identified as having a key role in Iran’s nuclear program, and requires all states to notify the sanctions committee of travel by those individuals outside of Iran.
* Requires the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment as a necessary pre-condition for the resumption of Iran-European Union (EU3) negotiation.
US plans to strangle Iran go far beyond the formal UN Security Council decisions. Immediately after the Council vote, US Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns said, “We’re certainly not going to put all our eggs in the UN basket…We’d like to see countries stop doing business as usual with Iran…We would like countries to stop selling arms to Iran. We would like countries to try to limit export credits to Iran.” He boasted that the US already has had “full-scope sanctions on Iran in every conceivable area” in place since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Finally, Mr. Burns clearly stated that the US differences with Iran go far beyond the nuclear issue. “Our beef with the Iranians is threefold,” he said. First is their effort to attain a nuclear capability, second is their support for the Palestinian and Lebanese movements and their interference in Iraq, and third is the system of their governance domestically, according to Burns.
Washington recently called for “regime change” in Iran and began working towards that objective. Congress approved a more than $100 million budget to finance covert and overt activities to provoke insecurity and undermine the country’s economic, social and political stability.
Iran Is in Compliance with International Nuclear Treaties
In each major nuclear issue confronting the United Nations nuclear non-proliferation regime, the United States and Britain have tried to replace the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with the Security Council.
In cases of disputes with the other Council members, as with Iraq, they feel free to by-pass the UN and begin a pre-emptive war without the consent of the international community that they are so fond of appealing to rhetorically.
Iran has consistently placed its entire nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards; furthermore, it adopted and fully implemented the Additional Protocol for over 2 years and announced its readiness for extension of its implementation, while permitting over 2,000 person-days of IAEA inspections of all its relevant and even unrelated facilities.
Iran has been singled out and charged unfairly with violations of the UN nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran signed onto the NPT and has fulfilled its commitments to the Treaty and has dutifully complied with the NPT governing rules and IAEA regulations.
The UN nuclear energy agency (IAEA) has consistently declared that Iran has made no diversion of nuclear materials and equipment for purposes other than the use for civilian nuclear energy. Iran has the right to enjoy its legitimate and inalienable rights to research and development of a nuclear industry for peaceful use, as it is stipulated in Article Four of the Treaty.
Iran Has Attempted to Meet Demands
To build confidence and eradicate any Western misconceptions regarding Iranian “intentions,” the Iranian government had voluntarily suspended its nuclear enrichment and processing operations for a period as along as 15 months while holding marathon negotiations with EU3 — Britain, France, and Germany — for nearly three years.
Despite this Iranian display of good will and dialogue, the EU3 not only failed to provide a resolution entrusting Iran to produce its own nuclear fuel (in accord with the provisions of the NPT), but collaborated with the US behind the scenes and accused Iran of the “intention” of building nuclear weapons.
To portray Iran as a threat to peace in the Middle East or in the continents of Europe and America is slander. Contrary to the history of the US, UK, Germany, Japan, France, Russia and Italy, Iran has not initiated a single war against any nation on earth in the last 250 years.
StopWarOnIran believes the US has targeted Iran for reasons other than its nuclear energy program. The US anti-Iran foreign policy has its deep roots not in Iran’s future plans for proliferation of military nuclear technology, but in Washington’s insatiable thirst for controlling Iran’s present and tangible flow of gas and oil.
By extension, it is the US and EU’s craving to control Iraq’s oil reserves has attracted hundreds of thousands of Western troops and armaments to the region (not for the non-existent presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction or terrorists ready to invade Europe and the United States)
No government in the Middle East, with the exception of Israel’s, considers Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program a threat to its national security. The only country in the Middle East that is armed with nuclear weapons—most likely more than 200 of them—is Israel, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged recently.
This state has been at war with all its neighbors for the entirety of its existence. Yet the IAEA has made no demand to receive an entry permit to visit Israel’s nuclear stockpiles and the UNSC has issued no resolution of sanctions against it.
The menacing presence of the USS. Enterprise, which includes all the warships that compose Carrier Strike Group 12 (CGS12) Destroyer Squadron 2 and Carrier Air Wing1 (CVW1) in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, is a clear sign of US plans of intimidation and hostility. And now the US has sent a second carrier group to the Gulf. It is not Iran, but the US and the UK that are a serious threat to peace, security and progress in Iran and the entire Middle East region.
Here’s How You Can Help:
• Sign the Petition – Send a message to Bush, Cheney, Congress, and Halliburton
http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml
• Tell a Friend – Help get the word out
http://stopwaroniran.org/friend.shtml
• Donate – Help with organizing meetings, teach-ins, protests
http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
• Put a link to Stop War On Iran on your website
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