Dear Mr. President Shares His Views on Iran With Me

Dear Mr. President,

Your September 18 letter about Iran arrived yesterday, a masterpiece of spin and hypocrisy. I’ve never written a letter on Iran—maybe mentioned it in passing—but here’s your response to my “perspective” on Iran anyway. Right off, you talk about how Iran “failed to live up to its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.” The next paragraph is devoted to your “comprehensive action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, including…the strongest sanctions against Iran in history.” No outrage or concern over Israel’s nuclear weapons or Pakistan’s or India’s, none of whom signed the treaty. But they’re allies, not part of the Axis of Evil and none have the 4^th largest reserves of oil on the planet. No mention either of Iran’s new president, Rouhani, reaching out to you, offering to talk, a chance for diplomacy. Do you have to be forced and shamed into diplomacy here too? As for sanctions forcing Iran to give up its nuclear program, another political fantasy. Sanctions impose misery on the people, not their leaders. More than half a million children died as a result of our sanctions on Iraq which did nothing to topple Hussein. It’s always the children who suffer most from sanctions. And then there’s the blatant hypocrisy: “My administration is also pressuring Iran to end its policies of supporting terrorist groups abroad, pursuing destabilitzing activities throughout the region, propping up a dictator in Damascus, and suppressing the rights of its own people.” We support terrorist groups too, Mr. President—from the jihadists fighting Russians in Afghanistan to rebels fighting Qaddafi in Libya, and now rebels in Syria associated with Al Qaeda. (I contend that U.S. Special Forces and the CIA are also terrorist groups.) As for supporting dictators, we have a long history, from the Shah of Iran to Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Hussein in Iraq and Mubarak (and now Gen., el-Sisi) in Egypt. And how can you accuse Iran of destabilizing the region when everywhere we go, chaos, mayhem and instability follows in our wake from Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya, Pakistan and Yemen? But my main question is this: Why is U.S. foreign policy based on violence and force rather than negotiation and diplomacy? Why must we always beat the drums of war rather than practice peace? Why can’t we see others as fellow human beings and respect the differences rather than try to obliterate them? Only that will bring us real security.