John,

Last night the Iranian military fired missiles directly at two United States military bases in Iraq, publicly declaring that the attack was in retaliation for the U.S. drone strike last week that assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

So far, thankfully, reports are that the Iranian strikes did not result in any casualties. Other reporting indicates that they may have been intentionally limited in scope in order to allow for de-escalation of tensions.¹ All of this makes a restrained response on the part of the United States at least possible.

But we are still in an extremely volatile situation, with an extremely volatile commander-in-chief calling the shots from the White House, surrounded by war-hungry advisors who would like to see nothing more than catastrophic all-out war. That's why, in the next hours and days, it is critical that we make it clear where the vast majority of the American people stand: Democrats AND Republicans in Congress must loudly oppose this march to war and do all they can rein in Trump immediately.

Tonight, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will join Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Barbara Lee, and leading experts on foreign policy for an emergency call about how we can stop Trump's war with Iran. RSVP now to join the call, which will take place tonight, Wednesday, January 8 at 8pm ET/5 pm PT.

Join the call »

Then tomorrow, Thursday, January 9, at 5pm local time, Working Families Party members will be taking to the streets at events in our communities as part of a national day of action to oppose Trump's war and say #NoWarWithIran. Click here to find an action near you.

Find an event »

An all-out war with Iran would be morally reprehensible, a historic geopolitical disaster, and — as always with war — working families across regions and borders would suffer the worst of the death and destruction. So how did we get to this brink? Here's a quick recap of the recent spiral of escalation:

In May 2018, pushed by many of the same advisors who thought the Iraq War was a good idea, Donald Trump made the disastrous decision to pull out of the Iranian nuclear agreement that the Obama administration had negotiated in 2015, despite Iran being in complete compliance. Immediately, Trump imposed crushing economic sanctions and announced a campaign of "maximum pressure."²

Their stated goal was to get Iran to drop its nuclear program and to terminate its support for governments and militias in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. The Trump administration even hoped that the economic pain it was inflicting would cause the Iranian people to rise up and depose their rulers.

Predictably, the exact opposite ensued.

Iran began looking for ways to pressure the U.S. to drop the sanctions. It targeted oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. It attacked oil installations in Saudi Arabia. In December, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq fired missiles at an American military installation and killed an American contractor. Enraged, Trump unleashed a hugely disproportionate response, killing some 25 members of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq in two separate drone attacks.

In response to that attack, droves of Iraqis including members of Iranian-backed militias stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in late December. No one was hurt, much less killed. But the coverage on cable TV news that Donald Trump watches all day made him furious. Reportedly, Pentagon officials then gave Trump a range of options to respond, including the most extreme that previous presidents had rejected and which they thought he would not choose: the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani.³

Trump's decision to assassinate General Soleimani was a reckless, drastic, utterly unnecessary escalation of this conflict — and whatever happens next, Trump and the people around him bear full responsibility for this chaos. So, too, do any politicians or media figures who apologize for the administration, attempt to justify further escalation, or muddy the picture.

This is how incompetent leaders and a war-hungry national security establishment can get a war-weary country into a disastrous, uncontrollable conflict. The only thing that can stop Trump from escalating the conflict even further is if he thinks it will hurt his re-election. That's why, no matter what else happens in the coming days, we need the public outpouring to be vast and overwhelming.

Join Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on an emergency strategy call to stop war with Iran, tonight, Wednesday, January 8th at 8pm ET/5 pm PT.

Then join us in the streets tomorrow, Thursday, January 9th, to say loud and clear: #NoWarWithIran. Check out the growing map of hundreds of actions taking place across the nation here.

In solidarity,

Team WFP

Sources:

1. Iran leaves Trump an off-ramp, but will he take it?, NBC News, January 8, 2020
2. Trump, Iran, and Where ‘The Forever War’ Was Always Headed, The Daily Beast, January 6, 2020
3. As Tensions With Iran Escalated, Trump Opted for Most Extreme Measure, NY Times, January 4, 2020

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