On Friday November 30th, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a new round of sanctions against Iran as an amendment to the so-called Defense Authorization Act. This amendment, sponsored by U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), broadens the scope of current sanctions on Iran to include Iran’s shipping industry and ports. According to Menendez, “By passing these additional measures ending sales to and transactions with Iranian sectors that support proliferation — energy, shipping, ship-building and port sectors as well as with anyone on our specially designed national list — we will send a message to Iran that they can’t just try to wait us out.”
This criminal act of collective punishment of the people of Iran is being taken at a time when the existing economic sanctions have already caused a tremendous amount of suffering for the Iranian people without having any impact on nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East.
It is clear by now that these sanction have nothing to do with Iran’s civilian nuclear program and everything to do with guaranteeing the U.S. hegemonic domination of the Middle East and Israel’s regional monopoly on nuclear weapons.
Veterans For Peace strongly believes that the main obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the nuclear crisis in the Middle East has been persistent intransigence of the U.S. and Israeli governments, as most recently evidenced by their sabotage of the UN-sponsored Helsinki Conference on A Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East. VFP once against stresses its position that the only rational and lasting solution to the current nuclear crisis in the region is the establishment of a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East.
Veterans For Peace strongly condemns this latest criminal act by the U.S. Senate and calls upon all pro-peace and justice citizens of the United States and the world to raise their voice of objection against this new round of victimization of the Iranian people.
VFP calls upon all citizens of the United States to contact their senators and express their abhorrence with the Senate vote. We invite all peace-loving people to add their names to VFP’s open letter to President Obama and the Congress to support a nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East: http://www.vfp-iwg.org/?page_id=471.
We call upon all VFP chapters and members to actively mobilize and organize the public opinion against all sanctions on Iran, and in support of the establishment of a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East.
Veterans For Peace
Submitted by Faraz Azad
Chair/Coordinator of VFP Iran Working group
faraz@vfp-iwg.org