August 24 A Peace Dispatch From Yellow Spring Ohio

I tell people that I am riding across the country to talk to my congressman and they almost aways respond with something like, good luck with that. This morning as I was leaving the home of a childhood friend who now lives in Dayton OH, two of his neighbors out walking their dogs stopped me. “Where did you get those bags for your bicycle?”  That lead to “do you have room on your bike for two more?” One guy was my age the other was 91 and he looked about 80. I could hardly get a word in as the younger of the two talked about all the different possibilities for technically fixing the climate change issue. But they both expressed hopelessness of Congress doing the will of the people instead of that of the ruling class. 

And that brings me to this deal with Iran. Over 62 years ago we destabilized and overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran. It was the Dulles Brothers foreign policy, holding both the CIA and the State Department hostage to their ideology of what benefits US companies benefits the world view. The installed American ruler lasted a quarter century until he was ousted by the Iranian revolution that brought us the rule of the mullahs. Now we have an opportunity to rectify our recent past history and allow Iran a normal national development into the twenty-first century. 

In the 230 plus years of our history, the history of the United States, Iran has not attacked another country. They have formed alliances with others in their region of the world with folks we don’t much cotton to, but they have not attacked anyone. They have signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and have abided by its mandates. They did not developed the capacity to make an atomic weapon until after extreme aggressive provocation by our previous administration. It is time for US to allow Iran back into the fold of the world community of nations and this agreement is the most likely path to accomplish that end. 

Members of Congress in both the Senate and the House need to step up and support this agreement or it will be US that will become ostracized from the community of nations. And given that there exists so much opposition from the evangelists of war, they need to step forward and actively promote the passage of this agreement.