Washington
- It might be useful to recall the teachings of Jesus Christ regarding
humility, charity, tolerance, and peacemaking. The Christian message is particularly appropriate
now, because it appears that many so-called Christian leaders are urging the United States government to take steps that will inevitably lead to a new war, this time against
Iran .
On December 10th a group calling itself the Christian Leaders for a Nuclear-Free Iran sent a letter to both political parties’ leaders in Congress as well as to the chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Relations committee. The
letter preceded a December 15th vote in the House of Representatives in which 412 house members approved the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009, with only twelve votes opposed. The sanctions proposed by the House of Representatives and endorsed by the Christian leadership have correctly been seen by many as amounting to an act of war.
The name 'Nuclear-Free Iran' is particularly ironic as Iran is in fact nuclear-free. But Tehran is directly confronted by 200 Israeli nukes and an undisclosed number of American bombs on board ships and planes in the Persian
Gulf. The letter started with the flat assertion that Iran, guided by
'extremist leaders' has a nuclear weapons program. It then went on to state that Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, is destabilizing
democratic and Western leaning regimes throughout the Middle
East, and it will sell or give nuclear weapons to extremist groups." The letter claimed that Iran has
vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and concluded by calling for sanctions on refined petroleum products being sold to
Tehran. It concluded: "We speak out today on behalf of millions of Christians who believe that the interests of peace and security would best be served by our elected representatives sending a powerful signal that this tyrannical Iranian regime shall never threaten the world with nuclear
weapons."
ABCD
The so-called Christian Leaders want to put pressure on Iran to make it behave as if punishing innocent people by denying them fuel to heat their homes is a Christian
value. Forty percent of Iran’s fuel requirements are imported, mostly from the United Arab Emirates, as the country has only limited refining
capacity. The so-called Christian Leaders support US interventionism,
oppose elections when the wrong guys win, and using force to impoverish a civilian population in a country that does not threaten the United States in any way.
