CAPA’s position on the U.S./Israel war on Iran:

• The U.S. and Israel must end their illegal and immoral war on Iran. 
• Congress should vote for a War Powers Resolution bill to end the war and also vote to cut off all funding for the war on Iran
• We must work to cut off all U.S. military aid to Israel.
• The U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran risks sparking a nuclear apocalypse.
• Our most urgent task is to participate in and build support for a popular domestic campaign to end all U.S. and Israeli wars and occupations in the Middle East.

CAPA POLICY STATEMENT ON THE IRAN WAR
Chicago Area Peace Action is disheartened to witness the start of the long-feared U.S./Israel – Iran War, a war that could lead to consequences worse than almost anyone once thought possible. 

CAPA calls for the U.S. government and Israel to stop the war on Iran. Congress should vote for a War Powers Resolution bill to end the war and also vote to cut off all funding for the war on Iran. The U.S. and Israel have not only violated the UN charter by committing a war of aggression, but are also committing war crimes by targeting civilians and vital infrastructure.

All wars are horrific; all invite unforeseen and dangerous outcomes. That is especially true of this one. By every account, the justifications for the U.S./Israeli attacks are unclear, often changing day by day. The potential for regional instability increases with each day of fighting. The world’s economy is disrupted badly. Thousands of people, most of them civilians, have been killed. The dangers of triggering broader, world-threatening conflicts are real. The list goes on. 

Our repeated attacks on Iran and the region have taken place in the midst of peace negotiations, thereby undermining Iranians’ assumption of good faith. This behavior has convinced not just Iran’s government but much of its population that any ceasefire promised by the West will simply lead to more attacks.

The analysts CAPA most relies upon (see our growing resource list below) are broadly convinced that this war will end either in the destruction and balkanization of Iran, or in an acceptance by the U.S. and Israel of a vastly decreased military footprint in in the region. 

Furthermore several things suggest that the US is ill-equipped to win and that Iran is positioned to withstand what may be a very long war. The U.S. has lost much of its anti-missile radar network and U.S. and Israeli conventional weapons now seem entirely inadequate to the task of defeating Iran. Meanwhile, Iran has directed its factory and alliance networks to shift their resource allocation toward repelling an expected U.S. invasion since at least the 2003 destruction of neighboring Iraq.  Israel’s relatively tiny geographic footprint and population size ensure that even if it can briefly dish out more destruction, a 90-million strong Iran, which is the size of Western Europe geographically, can take far more damage than Israel can.  Moreover, Iran’s mountainous terrain likely would render U.S. and/or mercenary troop deployments futile.  And the large Iranian crowds who have staged multiple pro-government rallies denouncing the bombing and the assassinations of its former leadership attest to the inaccuracy of Western predictions about Iran’s collapse from within. 

CAPA has long endorsed the cessation of all military aid to the state of Israel. Now, it demands a radical return not just to decision-making structures capable of enforcing the U.S. Constitution’s guards against Presidential and Congressional wars of choice, but also to cultural norms under which the U.S. public does not desire to rule the world. 

We fear that if these goals are not achieved, the world is headed for a time of serious instability, a time that could threaten the very survival of humankind as we know it. 

One of the most chilling—and least discussed—possibilities in this war is its potential for pushing the world across the threshold to a nuclear conflagration. Due to their ongoing involvement in Israel’s U.S.-assisted genocide in Palestine, the Israeli and U.S. leadership classes have become inured to horror and have a misplaced faith in the impossibility of Western defeat. This alone could prompt Iran to step up (rather than limit) its development of a bomb and could trigger the previously unplanned use of nuclear weapons by either side—an eventuality that would have cataclysmic results for the entire world. 

We conclude that our most urgent task is to participate in and build support for a popular domestic campaign to end all U.S. and Israeli wars and occupations in the Middle East. The consequences if we do not succeed in that task will be grave, not just for the Middle East but for America and the world.

Become part of CAPA’s Foreign Policy Working Group (FPWG) if you want to join us in this critical task. We meet at 6:30pm on the last Monday of each month via zoom on the last Monday of the month via zoom. Contact fpwg@chipeaceaction.org for more information.

For additional resources we’ve created an Iran Resource page for a deeper dive into the background as well as current events.