As Trump escalates tension with Iran, 2020 candidates need clear vision for peace

By Arnie Alpert and Jon Krieg, American Friends Service Committee; reprinted with permission, first printed in the Des Moines Register and Concord Monitor

Just (less than a week) before votes are cast in Iowa and New Hampshire, the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani and Iraqi militia members has at last put matters of foreign and military policy at the center of the presidential campaign agenda.

The president’s reckless actions place southwest Asia and the world in great peril, a condition which will pose tremendous challenges to whomever wins in November. We need all the presidential candidates to clarify how they intend to provide leadership in a world poised on the brink of inter-connected crises and war.

Let’s start with Iran and Iraq.

The downward spiral in U.S.-Iran relations began with the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, in which Iran agreed to verifiable limits on its nuclear program. Following almost two years of crippling sanctions and now the assassination of one of its top leaders, Iran has said it will no longer follow some of the provisions in the nuclear agreement.

Restoration of an Iranian nuclear program is likely to raise nuclear ambitions in Saudi Arabia and Turkey and intensify the danger of conflict between Iran and the region’s one existing nuclear power, Israel.  The Trump administration, for its part, is escalating the threat of nuclear war and won Congressional approval for new nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use.  

Our question: What will the candidates do to restore nuclear diplomacy, including the promise of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that commits nuclear powers to pursuing nuclear weapons abolition in exchange for others refraining from acquiring their own nuclear arsenals?

Last month Congress gave the president a $738 billion military budget, an amount which constitutes more than half of all discretionary spending. As President Eisenhower said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Our question: Will you call for deep cuts in Pentagon spending so that funds can be used for climate mitigation, housing, education, health care, infrastructure, and renewable energy?

Supporters of the president’s drone strike say it was authorized under the nearly 20-year old Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) resolutions approved by Congress in 2001 and 2002. Provisions to repeal the AUMFs were stripped from the final versions of the National Defense Authorization Act and the national security funding package, which were approved by Congress last month. CNN and Air Force Times have reported the repositioning of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to make them available for attacking Iran.

Our question: As president, will you continue the trend of presidential unilateralism when it comes to military attacks, or will you abide by the Constitution, which vests the power to make war in the authority of Congress? 

Shortly after the recent drone strike, U.S. border officials began detaining Iranian-Americans for questioning at the border. Such mistreatment based on national origin is a reminder of the racism which underlies U.S. immigration policy.   

Our question: Will you shift the priority of immigration officials from detention, deportation, and denial to one which allows immigrants to normalize their status and enables migrants fleeing oppression to apply for and receive asylum?

And a final question: At a time when it is too easy to imagine how local conflicts can spiral into global conflagration and the risk of nuclear conflict, how would you exercise leadership so that our country is a peacemaker and justice builder rather than a flame thrower on a world stage littered with combustible conditions?

Arnie Alpert is Co-Director of the American Friends Service Committee’s New Hampshire Program. Jon Krieg is a Communications Specialist with the American Friends Service Committee's office in Des Moines, Iowa.