6-08-06, 9:06 am

In the face of mounting international isolation, eroding popular support and growing discontent even within the U.S. political and corporate elites, the Bush Administration has put the nation and the world on a collision course with Iran. This new diversionary effort to manufacture a crisis could well lead to another act of military aggression that will needlessly sacrifice thousands more innocent civilian lives in Iran, result in hundreds or thousands of additional deaths among U.S. military forces, and raises the risk of escalating into a war that could spread across the Middle East and beyond to a confrontation with Russia, China and other major powers.

A majority of the labor movement, the American people, and even (according to a recent survey) U.S. troops in Iraq agree, the U.S. must exit Iraq. Yet, despite this overwhelming sentiment for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, most of the members of both parties in Congress remain paralyzed and silent (or worse, complicit).

The invasion of Iraq was predicated on a campaign of misinformation, deception, manipulation of public sentiment, outright lies and propaganda orchestrated by the Bush administration and aided and abetted by the corporate media. We must not allow that to happen again with Iran. We cannot permit the administration to attempt to reverse its rapidly declining political fortunes by manufacturing a rationale for military aggression against yet another country.

The real immediate threat is not Iran. The most serious threat to our security and peace in the world is created by an administration in Washington that sits on the largest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in the world and has a declared policy and practice of unilateral preemptive military action in pursuit of its goals. Real security can only result from effective use of diplomacy and negotiation, which should be opened with Iran without pre-conditions. If the administration in Washington were serious about reducing the threat of nuclear weapons, it could begin by dismantling its own nuclear arsenal, which is larger than that of all the rest of the world combined, and cease its research on a new generation of tactical, theater and strategic nuclear weapons. It should renounce its threat of a preemptive or preventative attack on Iran, forswear use of nuclear weapons of any sort, and cease its efforts at destabilization and regime change in Iran - the very kinds of action that propel countries to seek nuclear arms as a deterrence.

The American people must insist that Congress stand up to the administration’s apparent determination to escalate the confrontation with Iran. Real security for our country and the world depends on it. If the administration is navigating our country and the world toward another disaster and Congress fails to act, the American people must do so - with our voices, with demonstrations and with our votes. If Congress fails to change the course of this administration, the people must change Congress.

### Issued June 6, 2006 (USLAW) 1718 'M' Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20036 Voicemail: 202/521-5265