Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran

June 10, 2008 in Political Animals | 5 comments

The Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran works to establish a rational policy towards, and a new relationship with, Iran.

Supporters of the Campaign for New American Policy on Iran (CNAPI) believe new U.S. diplomatic leadership is urgently required to resolve tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

A military confrontation with Iran would have enormous human and financial costs and would plunge the Middle East into further chaos. Just the threat of military conflict elevates oil prices and fosters global insecurity.

While serious concerns regarding the Government of Iran’s statements and behavior persist, we believe America must pursue new, far-sighted and responsible policies towards Iran aimed at stabilizing the region and bolstering America’s safety, economic security and international standing.

CNAPI supporters believe sanctions cannot replace diplomacy as a means of resolving differences between nations. They also decry hostile official rhetoric which exacerbates tensions and reinforces misunderstandings and false animus between people in the United States and Iran.

Effective U.S. diplomacy with Iran, coupled with more open engagement between Iranian and American societies, could yield progress on all outstanding issues and foster mutually beneficial cooperation in efforts to stabilize Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other conflict zones.

What benefits could we reap from a peaceful resolution of the very real issues between the US and Iran? We’ll never know unless we try. It’s certainly a better option than another needless war of choice.

  1. John on June 10, 2008 at 5:23 pm

    To Quote Ronald Reagan…

    “Freedom has never been so fragile so close to slipping from our grasp as it is this moment. Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a Utopian solution of peace without victory, they call their policy “accommodation”. And they say if we’ll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as war mongers. By committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now you can give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters. Alexander Hamiltion said a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger, is prepared for a master, and deserves one.

    Now lets set the record straight…
    There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war. But there’s only one guarantee you can have peace and you can have it in the next second…surrender.

    Admittedly there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement. And this is the specter our well meaning liberal friends refuse to face, that their policy of accommodation is appeasement. And it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender, If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand, the ultimatum… and what then?

    He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the war, and some day when it comes time to deliver the final ultimatum our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have been weakened from within morally, spiritually and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for peace at any price, or as one commentator put it, “he’d rather live on his knees than die on his feet”. And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery.

    If nothing in life is worth dying for, then when did this begin? Just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses should have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the Pharoes? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the “shot heard round the world”? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazi’s didn’t die in vain.

    Where then is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies there is a price we will not pay there is a point beyond which they must not advance. And in destroying, they would destroy that which represents the ideas that you and I hold dear. This is the meaning, in the phrase of Barry Goldwater, “peace through strength”. Winston Churchill said the destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits not animals, and he said there’s something going on in time and space and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this the last, best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

  2. meatbrain on June 10, 2008 at 6:25 pm

    Do you have anything original to add, or is copy and paste the whole of your talents?

  3. Orion on June 13, 2008 at 11:45 pm

    So, you don’t like folks linking to other arguments, you don’t like them posting here…

    So…if it’s not original with the commenter, you don’t want to hear it? That kinda eliminates an awful lot of knowledge and such…Makes it easier though, doesn’t it? LOL

    Orion

  4. meatbrain on June 14, 2008 at 5:49 am

    So, you don’t like folks linking to other arguments, you don’t like them posting here…

    Jeff “Orion” Burhans is a proven liar. Mendacity such as this is to be expected.

    Perhaps Burhans can cite the specific occasions on which I have made statements supporting either of his claims.

  5. Orion on June 17, 2008 at 11:31 pm

    Meatbrain: (not liking folks linking to other arguments) “PW is incapable of making a cogent argument here, and thus it insists that I go elsewhere and let someone else do its arguing for it.”
    Link: http://thinkingmeat.net/2008/06/12/supreme-court-rules-on-detainees-rights/#comment-21788

    Meatbrain: (not liking them posting the text here) “Do you have anything original to add, or is copy and paste the whole of your talents?”
    Link:
    http://thinkingmeat.net/2008/06/10/campaign-for-a-new-american-policy-on-iran/#comment-21730

    Good enough? Or am I “hiding behind the dictionary” again, little one?

    Orion