Stop another war in the Middle East

Following are excerpts from an Oct. 26 “Sanctions: Another step towards war?” statement in response to the latest attack by the Bush administration on Iran’s sovereignty. Go to www.StopWaronIran.org to read the entire statement and to sign a petition against U.S. aggression targeting Iran.

We have seen this before! The Bush Administration, with no visible opposition from the Democratically-controlled Congress, has taken another major step toward war—this time against the people of Iran.

Today, the Bush Administration announced a harsh new program of sanctions leveled against the people of Iran. Executive Orders 13382 and 13224 target the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces, and three of Iran’s largest state-owned banks, freezing any of their assets held in U.S. banks and prohibiting any U.S. citizen or company from engaging in financial transactions with these organizations. Sanctions themselves are an act of war! This is understood internationally. The Bush Administration’s latest announcement is clearly a precursor to military action against the people of Iran—as such actions and language were in 2003.

The sanctions package, combined with the sending of a second U.S. carrier group to the Gulf earlier this year, comes at the same time when the media are reporting that Bush is determined to strike Iran before the end of his term. More than half the U.S. Navy is now off the coast of Iran. ABC News reports that the Bush administration has requested $88 million to modify B-2 bombers to carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb super “bunker-buster” designed to destroy hardened targets deep underground.

Just as in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush Administration is using claims about “weapons of mass destruction” to build support for military action. The Democrats in Congress have done nothing to oppose the growing threat of war. In fact, many of them, including leading presidential candidates, are actively supporting the administration’s drive to war against Iran.

Bush’s war in Iraq has already caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and almost 4,000 U.S. deaths. The cost will be over 2 trillion dollars with no end in sight—while infrastructure in the U.S. is collapsing.

It is clear that we cannot rely on politicians to stop a new war against Iran. The only force that will stop an attack is a massive international grassroots movement of opposition.