150 Members of Congress to Biden: Return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Deal)
John Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif named winners of the Chatham House Prize 2016 for the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Deal)
Could it be a moment to halt the drift – or is it a stampede? – towards Middle East War and put the United States on path towards Middle East peace, not just with Iran, but for a reduction of tensions throughout the region. War with Iran – which is where Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign is headed would have devastating consequences not just for Iran but for American allies in the region with global consequences.
Why play with that fire?
What a fine way to begin the New Year by working for Middle East peace by the United States and Iran returning to the Joint Comprehesive Plan of Action (the Iran Nuclear deal)!
At a time when Donald Trump is doing everything to complicate the incoming Biden presidency – and his lethal antics are far from over – the President-elect is going to have his head filled with domestic woes so knotted up as to defy definition, no less addressing.
One thing that Biden can do – and has suggested he will do – to ease international tensions so as to better concentrate on deconstructing the domestic gridlock he’s inherited – is to return to the United States to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – otherwise known as the Iran Nuclear Deal – as it was agreed upon in 2015 by all participants (China,Iran, Russia, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union) and to do so without piling on new conditions.
This would permit Biden to concentrate on “flattening the curve” and ultimately defeating the Coronavirus pandemic, on reviving the flagging U.S. economy made worse by Trump Administration polices – and non-policies and in reviving American commitment to international cooperation instead of Trum’s “going-it-alone-American-first” nonsense.
At the heart of that 2015 agreement, given approval by the United Nationsl Security Council – Iran would severely limit its production of enriched nuclear materials in exchange for the United States and the Europeans lifting sanctions against Iran.
A Congressional letter signed by 150 members of the House of Representatives was released yesterday, December 23, 2020, calling on the Biden Administration to do precisely that. Among the signators are four representatives from Colorado – Jason Crow, Diana De Gette, Joe Neguse and Ed Perlmutter. In its opening paragraph:
With respect to Iran, we agree that diplomacy is the best path to halt and reverse Iran’s nuclear program, decrease tensions in the region, and facilitate our nation’s reincorporation into the international community. We are united in our support for swiftly taking the necessary diplomatic steps to restore constraints on Iran’s nuclear program and return both Iran and the United States to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as a starting point for further negotiations.
Although not a main focus of the presidential campaign, Joe Biden has noted support for returning to the JCPOA. In response, Iran’s President Hasan Rouhani has stated that should the United States return to the Iran Nuclear Deal, that Iran would do so within an hour and that no negotiations were needed to restore the deal. It could be done with a simple executive order.
Encouraging the Biden Administration to return to the JCPOA without renegotiating the agreement will be an uphill battle despite the Congressional support. Many members of his new foreuign policy team are former architects of recent Middle East wars and strong supporters of sanctions against Iran. Given the opposition to returning to the agreement by AIPAC, neo-conservative elements strong in the Administration as well as groups like John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, widespread public support for the U.S. returning to the agreement is a pre-requisite for Biden taking the lead on this. He won’t do it unless he feels a strong wind behind his back.
A strong peace campaign is needed.
With this in mind, on January 21, a coalition of organizations here in Colorado – including the state chapters of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, J-Street, the National Iranian-American Council and others, under the recently formed umbrella of Colorado Citizens Concerned With the JCPOA and Middle East Peace – will hold a “Zoom Conference-Seminar” on the subject. (see Colorado Citizens Concerned with the JCPOA and Middle East Peace Facebook page for more information).
Ferry from Djerba to the Tunisian mainland. 1966. Photo Credit: Tom Rochon
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What follows is an edited audio tape of last night’s (December 22, 2020) KGNU – Hemispheres – Middle East Dialogues with Ibrahim Kazerooni and myself. Middle East Dialogues is produced and hosted by Jim Nelson.
Christian Baptismal Bath from the Roman Era in Tunisia (Bardo Museum – Tunis)
Ten years ago on December 17, 2010, a street vendor in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid – after his unregistered fruit and vegetable cart was confiscated by local authorities – poured a container of flammable liquid (gasoline) on his head and body, lit a match and immolated himself. The fire he set not only killed him but was the spark that set off the greatest revolt in modern Tunisian 1956 post independence history.
Four weeks later on January 14, 2010, as a million people gathered in protest demanding he step down, Tunisian President Zine Ben Ali and his wife Leila Trabelsi and both of the family entourages fled the country. More than 300 individuals are said to have died in the uprising against Ben Ali — most of them at the hands of regime forces.
The Arab Spring had begun, in Tunisia of all places.
Now ten years later, Ibrahim Kazerooni and I look back – what happened in Tunisia in particular and the Arab Spring in general. Did the revolt lead to radical reform or revolutionary change? If not why not and what happened. The mainstream media in the U.S.A and elsewhere still praise Tunisia as “the only successful revolution of the Arab Spring. Accurate? Or something of an overstatement, if not a lie?
Stay tuned to KGNU Boulder Colorado. Tuesday, December 22, 2020 6-7 pm Mountain States Time. 1390 am, 88.5 FM. Streaming at http://www.kgnu.org.
In many ways, because of the dry climate, Tunisian Roman ruins are among the best preserved in the world. Above, a well preserved Tunisian Christian baptismal bath. Hidden in what today is an overwhelmingly Moslem Sunni religious emphasis today is an almost 500 year Christian period from around 200-700 BC. Three significant theologians arose in North Africa, all enjoying native African ancestry: Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine.
The World the Prenskys, Magaziners, Wyschevjskies, Jacksons Left – East Central Europe in the Early 20th Century – 1
The Wyschevjskies in Bialystok – 1900 in the Russian Pale. I think Grandma Sarah’s mother, Sarah’s sister and sister’s husband.
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The situation for Jews throughout the Pale had already deteriorated before they left for the United States, all within a period of five years of one another but that situation was about to deteriorate. The anecdotal information passed on (from our “Aunt Mal”) is that most the extended family did not survive even the horrors of WW1! Concerning those who did – their letters in Yiddish – stopped abruptly after September 1, 1939. From then on,… silence.
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Have immersed myself in Polish-Jewish history, these past COVID-19 months.
This has included two works by Norman Davies, – his two volume “God’s Playground” – indispensible for understanding the historical context of why my ancesters left the Pale for the United States in the first decade of the 20th century, White Eagle Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War: 1919-11920 and the Miracle on the Vistula. And now Ezra Mendelsohn’s The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars. All these books are worth reading – they are well researched, carefully written and whatever controversies they have triggered – I am convinced that all three have weathered “the test of time.” Unable to gleen more than the barest details as to their personal histories – there is some, but it is sketchy, anecdotal and in some cases contradictory – I decided it would be more worthwhile to probe the historical context of their immigration to the United States.
This has been an enriching experience.
One needs to keep in mind the rather extraordinary instability of these central European political entities beginning with the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (as it was called) which totally collapsed in 1795. Sliced up and gobbled up by three European powers (Prussia, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire) Poland ceased to exist until it re-emerged, phoenix like at the end of World War One. The fighting on the Eastern Front of that war as Russia and Germany (mostly) vied for control saw power in many of Jewish districts change hands fifteen, twenty times or more. That instability continued in the post war period in which regional players – the budding USSR, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus – found themselves trying to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of three empires (German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian) by wars of territorial expansion pretty much on the part of all the players. The main post WW 1 war in this region, thr Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920 only added to the ultimate franticness of the world war, and left the Jews of the region – as well as all the other ethnic and religious minorities – in a state of profound instability and anxiety.
It was a whole mid-continent at sea, only to settle down around 1924,5 for about a decade when, with the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, the regional situation would once again deteriorate into unspeakable horror and chaos which made the earlier tragedies appearing mild in comparison. We all know what followed – Hitler’s program to exterminate the Jews, to “decapitate” – the term they used – the intellectual and political leadership of Poland and reduce all slavic peoples to unskilled forced labor (before exterminating them as well)… the horrors of WW2 that are well known and should not be ever forgotten, not by Jews, Poles, (what were) Soviets and many more.
After the partitions of 1795 (actually there were three – 1772, 1793, 1795) Jews who lived through that sprawling region that was broadly known as the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth found themselves in three quite different political and social living situations that effected the world views of the varying communities in different ways. My – our – grandparents all found themselves in that part of old Poland-Lithuania that came under control of Russia. Vilnius, Bialystok, Grodno from whence they hailed were all administered by the Russian Czars. That would remain the case until the end of WW 1 when the political unity of the region – after the postwar wars cited above had ended – collapsed and these three centers of Jewish life would find themselves located now in three different countries: after what is referred to as “the Battle of Bialystok, that city/region returned to Polish control; After two other post WW1 battles – the Battle of Grodno, Battle of the Neiman, Grodno, some fifty miles to the northeast also came under Polish control while Vilnius, with hardly a Lithuania-ethnic population at the time reverted to the newly independent nation of Lithuania.
John Buttney – Rest In Peace – 1938-2020
John Buttney in 1968 in Colorado. Found the photo on-line. Have fond memories of his wearing leather vests
I woke on this snowy mid-December morning to the news that John Buttney had died in California. Bruce Goldberg, his partner in “social justice crime” back in the day, the late 1960s, had just gotten the news and had contacted me as well as a slew of others in a group email. And for that – thanks Bruce.
It saddens me a great deal. It’s unsettling too for obvious reasons.
Another old friend and “companero” had died, leaving another hole in my being. Sometime not that long ago I came to the conclusion that while I am who I am – that I am little more than a mix of the people who have touched me and who I might have touched through my 76 years, one month and eight days on this planet. Just mix them all up in some kind of psychic jar, add a little red wine – no add a lot of red wine – and somehow the mixture is me.
High up on that list is one John Buttney.
Buttney along with Bruce Goldberg were Colorado leaders in the 1960s radical student movement, Students for a Democratic Society or SDS as it was popularly known. The Boulder Chapter was one of the most militant, strategically and organizationally sophisticated and effective chapters in the country. Their reach and influence extended far beyond the Boulder campus. It was Boulder SDS that exposed the way that the University of Colorado was joined at hip with the country’s military industrial complex through research contracts offered to many departments.
Its militant opposition to the then war in Vietnam and exposure of the horrors that the U.S. military committed in that Southeast Asian country produced a powerful on-campus anti-war movement that never had the same energy, vitality, smarts and downright humanity after SDS’s influence began to wane and it was replaced by other more dogmatic, mechanical elements.
By the time I came on the Boulder scene, Buttney and Goldberg had been forced by federal indictments to curtain their political activities. They were still in Colorado, at least for a number of years. During that time I became friends with John and (his then) wife, June Buttney, I don’t want to exaggerate the bond we shared – I was a late comer and never did work with Buttney or Goldberg in SDS, only connecting to them afterwards. But I understood that the Buttneys – both of them – were special and was drawn to them and am glad we became friends and that they both saw whatever it was in me that was worth their time and friendship. So I got to know them some. Lucky me. Read more…
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists. All indications point to Israel as responsible. Could not happen without “a wink and a nod” from the Trump Administration
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(note: Ron Forthofer is a retired professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health. In 2000 he was the Green Party candidate for Congress in Colorado’s second congressional district. He has been active in the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in Boulder since the early 1990s)
Insanity reigns — the US, Israel and Iran
by Ron Forthofer
All too often, events occur that make me feel that I am living in ‘Bizarro World’. The recent talk and extensive US corporate media coverage about whether or not the US and/or Israel will soon attack Iran is one of these occasions. The alleged rationale for such an attack is the possibility that Iran might pursue the development of a nuclear weapon. This rationale ignores the religious ruling or fatwa issued by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei against the acquisition, development and use of nuclear weapons.
In its reporting on the possibility of the US or Israel attacking Iran, the US corporate-controlled media usually fails to mention that these threats are illegal under international law. Of course, illegality is not an issue for the media when these two countries are involved.
Why do the US and Israel continue to play the risky game of needlessly provoking Iran? One possible reason is that Netanyahu would like to see Iran respond in order to draw in the US into a military conflict with Iran. His thinking may be that the US would so weaken Iran, something that Israel cannot do without using its nuclear weapons, that Iran could no longer prevent Israel from achieving hegemony in the Middle East. Perhaps the revenge motive drives Trump and the US neocons. They cannot forgive Iran for overthrowing the Shah and humiliating the US in 1979 as well as for Iran following its own interests.
In addition, also seldom mentioned is the fact that the US is the only nation that has dropped atomic bombs on another country. The US is also a country that many nations claim has not complied with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Moreover, Israel is a country that has not even accepted the NPT and also has nuclear weapons. Also generally ignored is the fact that the US and Israel routinely violate international law with their unprovoked attacks on other nations. These are the two nations threatening Iran over the possibility that it might develop nuclear weapons. Such incredible hypocrisy and the media fails to call it out! Read more…
Magaziners and Prenskys Come To America – 2
On February 10, 1914, six months prior to the outbreak of World War One. Abe Prensky renounced all allegiances to other foreign governments – in his case the government of “Nicolas II, Emperaor of all the Russias” and swore allegiance to the United States of America. Four months later, on June 11, 1914 he was sworn in as a citizen of the United States of America. Seven years after he arrived in the United States through Ellis Island, my paternal grandfather had become a U.S. citizen. Three years prior, on March 15, 1911 he had married my grandmother, Molly Jackson in a civil ceremony. Both had been born in 1888 in the Pale, that area of the Russian Empire to which Jews were restricted; he in Grodno Gubernia, today in Belarus, she in the Vilnius (Vilna) Ghetto, destroyed like so many others by the Nazis and their Lithuanian henchmen during World War II.
The fifth of seven siblings (five brothers and a sister, Bertha) all of whom had emigrated to the United States from Grodno, he was a 24 year old plasterer, she, 20 years old was unemployed, living at 55 Forsyth St (an address that no longer exists underneath the Brooklyn Bridge on the Manhattan side). The marriage certificate No 8248 of the City of New York Department of Health stated that Abe Prensky, who resided at 330 E. 120 St., Manhattan (today in Harlem) was born in “Russia” and that his father was Chiam (misspelled – its Chaim) Prensky, and his mother Ida Pairs. Mollie Jackson’s father was named Julius Jackson – certainly the Americanization of an Eastern European Jewish name), her mother, one Lea Dubinsky.
John Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif named winners of the Chatham House Prize 2016 for the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Deal).
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A campaign to that end is being spearheaded by a number of groups and individuals, among them the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the National Iranian American Council and J-Street. Parallel peace efforts are coming together all over the country, a first step towards reducing tensions in the Middle East and for putting a broader peace agenda – so missing in the recent presidential contest – back to center stage of American political life
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Returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action: a bright spot in an otherwise somber Biden Middle Eastern political vision.
One of the first major tests in foreign policy for the incoming Biden Administration will be their ability – or lack thereof – to steer the United States back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly – and purposely misnamed the “Iran Nuclear Deal.” It will also be a test for this country’s peace movement. Can its diverse elements come together to give Biden the backbone he needs to accomplish the task? No doubt there will be intense opposition from the usual quarters to such an effort.
Looking at Biden’s new foreign policy team – not much there when it comes to the Middle East (Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan) working for a shift in U.S. policy towards reducing tensions – is going to be pretty much of an uphill battle. Yet despite the record of this team of Obama retreads, supporters of humanitarian intervention, enthusiasts for the overthrow of the Khadaffi government in Libya, for the partition of Syria and Iraq (de facto or de jure), there is one bright spot: they seem to be serious about the United State re-entering the JCPOA. This sector of power in America has come to the realization, reluctantly perhaps, but still, that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a fact today that will not go away nor will that governemt be overthrown by military means – there will be no repeat of the 1953 US engineered coup that overthrew the Mossadegh government.
As Iran has proven time and again, that intimidate and threats – as well as punishing sanctions won’t work, negotiated agreements with Iran is the only viable path. Furthermore, that despite attempts to characterize the Iranian government as authoritarian, anti-democratic, it is obvious that the overwhelming majority of Iranians have proven time and time again, that they stand with their government when it comes to the threat of foreign intervention. Read more…
The K-P Line – Test Audio – The Assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh – Implications for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
Introducing the K-P Line video series
The K-P line (Cretacous- Paleogene boundary where the “K” stands for Cretaceous in German) in geology refers to the geological divide which separates the extinction of most dinosaurs – minus the birds – with the rise of the mammals some 66 million years ago. It suggests breathtaking shift in Nature.
In global geo-politics it refers simply to Kazerooni and Prince – the thoughts and ideas of Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince mostly about the techtonic shifting geo-politics of the Middle East, an integral part of a larger picture.
We are learning to use a certain interview platform called StreamYard through which we intend to do the interviews and post them on – as they are referred to – “different internet platforms” (Facebook, Linked-in, YouTube, etc). These first early interviews are testing our modest abilities to use the system, much of which is technically problematic. We are working out the glitches.
I was able to edit out some of the more glaring technical problems with the audio in this test, but not the video. (Don’t ask why – not worth explaining).
But after listening to the edited audio I was convinced that the analysis there is solid enough to post for the public which is done below. In it, I interview Ibrahim K about the political implications of the recent assassination of Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, presented in the US media more from a technical view point – how it would or wouldn’t effect the Iranian nuclear program – rather than from the point of view of international law and just plain ethics for what it was – a war crime.
The first of many…
Ghassan Suliemani and Javad Zarif. On January 2-3, 2020, Suliemani was “drone assassinated” by the Trump Administration. Most Americans have no idea how destabilizing and politically destructive that murder was to U.S. Middle East policy…
Audio: “ From Trump to Biden, Consistencies and Differences in U.S. Middle East Politics” ” Tuesday, November 24, 2020 @ 6-7pm MST, KGNU: Hemispheres, Middle East Dialogues, hosted by Jim Nelson. (edited)
Hemispheres the Middle East Dialogues with Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince. The audio is edited to shorten it about.
ME Dialogues, Ibrahim and Rob looked at the Trump transition as well as president-elect Biden and a few his potential foreign policy picks as they concern the Middle East. Some of the names that have been mentioned recently are Michele Flournoy, Tony Blinken and James Sullivan.
Who are they? What can we expect from them in terms of improving U.S. Middle East policies, if anything? With the current adminstration still in the White House until January there is plenty of time for Trump to make the start of Biden’s foreign policy difficult.
That’s the Middle East Dialogues on Hemispheres.
Who’s threatening Whom?
“ From Trump to Biden, Consistencies and Differences in U.S. Middle East Politics” ” Tuesday, November 24, 2020 @ 6-7pm MST, KGNU: Hemispheres, Middle East Dialogues, hosted by Jim Nelson.
Shocking New Figures Show How Just Much the US is Fueling the Violence in Yemen
Shocking New Figures Show How Just Much the US is Fueling the Violence in Yemen
Center for Freedom and Justice – Colorado Interviews Rich Forer, Author of Wake Up And Reclaim Your Humanity.
Rich Forer Interviewed by Jennfer Otey on Zoom
Watch the YouTube interview above.
During the 2006 Israeli offensive against Lebanon Rich Forer, a Jewish Zionist from Trenton, New Jersey was forced by the events on the ground to reconsider his support for Israel. He studied the issue, read extensively and in this process came to new understandings about Israel and Palestine.
In this interview, he explains the process by which his ideas changed.
This is the first in a series of social media interviews by the Center for Freedom and Justice – Colorado..
As it is the first interview, there were minor technical problems (with the video) although the audio comes through just fine.
The Center for Freedom and Justice – Colorado supports a civic organization in Beit Ummar, West Bank, Palestine. Beit Ummar is a town of 18, 000 Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank, that area totally controlled by the Israeli military, the Israel Defense Force. Beit Ummar is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements. Arrests of Beit Ummar citizens, many of them children are common place as is the destruction of farm land and olive groves in the surrounding area. Israel is trying to make life in Beit Ummar unliveable; our goal at CFJ-Colorado does what it can from the Denver area to help make life more liveable for the Beit Ummar Palestinians. We have supported educational projects, computer programs for youth and most recently a project to develop an organic farming project near the town.
CFJ-Colorado can be reached on Facebook – Center for Freedom and Justice Colorado. A website is in preparation.
“Everyone Does Better When Everyone Does Better.” Fifty Years After The Kerner Commission Report – a 2018 talk by former U.S. Senator Fred Harris
The Kerner Report, 50 years old, still one of the better guide for understanding racism in America and ideas of how to deal with it.
The Commission’s measures were vetoed by then President Lyndon Johnson. Harris was on the commission.
Fred Harris comments on the work of the Commission, what happened and didn’t happen to the report – Don’t make US Senators from Oklahoma like him any more…
Also available in pdf form.
Senator Fred Harris at 50th Anniversary of the Kerner Commission Conference.
Dear Friends,
Center for Freedom and Justice – Colorado – a kind of informal Peace Corps like group that works on civic issues in Beit Ummar, West Bank, Palestine, a town of 18,000 people not far from Hebron – is starting a Zoom series this coming Monday. Our first interview will be with Rich Forer, a member of our group and the author of two books on Israel-Palestine, the latest being “Wake Up and Reclaim Your Humanity” . He will be interviewed this coming Monday, November 16, 2020 at 7 pm Mountain Time (9 pm Eastern Standard Time). We hope you can join us for this and the Zoom interviews that follow.
The information and link to the zoom are below.
Best,
Rob Prince
On November 16 at 7 PM Mountain time, Jennifer Otey of the Center for Freedom and Justice—Colorado* will interview Rich Forer, author of the newly released Wake Up and Reclaim Your Humanity: Essays on the Tragedy of Israel-Palestine . The interview will include a discussion of the root causes of suffering and conflict. A Q&A will follow the interview.
Join the Zoom meeting with the following link. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82508101839?pwd=UUZaM1liY0pybjhhQ3lxYyt0UlY1QT09
Meeting ID: 825 0810 1839
Passcode: 001971
For One tap mobile
+12532158782,,82508101839#,,,,,,0#,,001971# US (Tacoma)
+13462487799,,82508101839#,,,,,,0#,,001971# US (Houston)
To dial from your location: Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdoyrNSOVY
*CFJ-CO is a non-profit organization dedicated to:
- Assisting the occupied West Bank town of Beit Ummar in agricultural development and other income-generating projects.
- Increasing citizens’ awareness of their legal rights.
- Providing social, educational, and recreational services to neglected areas of Beit Ummar, thereby empowering individuals, giving them hope for a future, and reducing criminal activity.
- Helping to build a popular movement of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation while simultaneously advocating a peaceful and just solution to the current impasse.
—
Prince
robertjprince.wordpress.com
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 