Two Steps Towards Ending Two, Three, Many Wars
My 6/15/25 op-ed submission - apparently not accepted and now withdrawn
Two Steps Towards Ending Two, Three, Many Wars
Note: See as well my Iran and Nuclear Disarmament “Beat” here.
By Michael A. Dover
The original signatories of the Iran Deal, The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) —except the US—are still aboard. After the US withdrew in 2018, Iran began gradually increasing uranium enrichment.
Five years after my 2015 From the Community piece in favor the JCPOA, I felt Biden should have re-entered and insisted upon JCPOA enforcement mechanisms. Recently, the Washington Post reported the director of the IAEA criticized Iran for higher enrichment levels. What should we do? Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street has argued that diplomacy is the only way out of the Israel-Iran war.
Is there a military solution? A new piece in Foreign Policy is uncertain. The Wall Street Journal reported the IDF admits that 75% of the tunnels in Gaza are still intact. This suggests Israel cannot destroy deeply underground nuclear facilities. Trying might risk another Chernobyl. Barbara Slavin of the Stimson Institute has repeated earlier warnings about a full-scale Israel/Iran war.
The New York Times reported negotiations are still possible and reported as allegations that Israel’s motive was to scuttle US-Iran negotiations. An AP report cited Netanyahu’s comment about regime change.
In January 1991, Iraq attacked Israel with missiles. US war hawks then—and US and Israeli war hawks today—disregard not only the danger to Israel but also the danger of a wider war.
Since then, a willingness to risk or even to commit mass destruction has been more commonplace. The Red Cross said Russia's destruction of Mariupol was apocalyptic. What single adjective can portray the 10/07/23 attack and Israel's destruction of Gaza, without engaging in what is known as traumatic invalidation? Horrific? Hezbollah severely damaged Israel’s north, although after Israel had evacuated most civilians. There is now danger now of massive damage to civilian infrastructure in Iran and Israel.
US media have often reported Israeli claims that the IDF significantly degraded Iran's and Hezbollah's military ability. That is now unclear, along with whether missile defenses can repel barrages of advanced guided missiles and drones, which Iran and Hezbollah may have held in reserve. Advocates of peace with security and justice in the Middle East should start by demanding an Israeli/Iran ceasefire now.
This might avoid diplomatic casualties, such as the UN Security Council Resolutions on Gaza and Lebanon or the JCPOA itself. Following a ceasefire, we need to do two things.
First, demand that the US and Europe collaborate with China and other nations—including Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia—on cleaner energy solutions based on thorium, solar power, and hydrogen. The promise of such a long-range plan might defuse the present crisis and save face for the warring parties.
But the Trump administration and global actors will not act without mass pressure from the same organized citizenry we saw in the streets during the thousands of recent No Kings protests.
Second, therefore, we need to build a mass campaign for peace, human needs and ecological sustainability that insists upon starting with an enforced end to the Russia/Ukraine war, the Israel/Iran war, the Sudan Civil War, and the Israel/Gaza war. The various solidarity campaigns addressing these conflicts have helped to bring suffering and death to public attention but have coopted the rise of such a united mass campaign.
We need a campaign that can unite disparate movements, like the Nuclear Freeze campaign that brought a million anti-nuclear energy and anti-nuclear power activists to Central Park in 1983. We must unite all pro-peace and justice forces, across political and ethnic divides. Why not start in Cleveland?
Michael A. Dover, PhD, LISW-S, a social worker, and sociologist, attended his first pro-peace demonstration in Central Park in Spring 1967. He lives in Bratenahl.