No Iran War

Written by Gerald L. Rudolph

Tuesday, 10 June 2008 08:37

Call Your Senators Today: 1-800-788-9372

You can help stop the talk about war with Iran. Call your senators today toll-free and urge them to support talking with Iran, as recommended by five former secretaries of state.Find out more about the call-in day.

When you call, ask for each of your senators by name. If you don't know your senators' names, you can use the FCNL website to find them.

Sample Telephone Script

Please feel free to improvise and add additional information.

My name is [NAME] and I live in [CITY, STATE]. Thanks for taking my call.
I'm calling to encourage Senator [SENATOR'S NAME] to cosponsor S. 2130, the Resolution for a Comprehensive Diplomatic Offensive in Iraq, offered by Senator Casey.
I urge the senator to send a strong signal to this and the next administration that the U.S. must engage in direct talks with all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, as recommended by the Iraq Study Group and five former secretaries of state.
Passage of this bill would tell this administration and the next that comprehensive diplomacy with Iran is essential for stabilizing Iraq and the Middle East.

Senators Robert Casey (PA), Dick Durbin (IL), John Kerry (MA), Susan Collins (ME), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Tim Johnson (SD), Jim Webb (VA), and Lisa Murkowski (AK) are already cosponsors. If you live in one of those states, please thank your senator for supporting the bill and urge her or him to work to bring the bill to a vote in the Senate.

FCNL is joining dozens of other groups in the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran for a national call-in day today, Tuesday, June 10.

Our message is very simple:

The best way to avoid war is to talk to Iran. Former Secretaries of State Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright are among the many people who have all called on the U.S. government to expand the diplomatic dialogue with the Iranian leadership.¹

A Gallup poll released last week found that nearly 60 percent of the public believes the U.S. president should meet with the president of Iran.² Yet press reports suggest the White House may be preparing for war, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that talking to Iran is pointless at this time.³ We at FCNL don't know if the United States would launch a pre-emptive military strike against Iran. But the dangerous climate created by war-like rhetoric in the United States and Iran could lead to an inadvertent war.

Notes

(1) Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2008.
(2) Gallup Poll released June 2.
(3) New York Times, June 4.