Peace
Calls for U.S. military intervention to bring democracy to Iran rest on a dangerous illusion: that democracy is something foreign powers can install from the outside. History suggests the opposite. When democracy is imposed through force, it rarely produces freedom—and often strengthens authoritarianism.
Democracy is not just a set of institutions like elections or constitutions. At its core, it is about collective self-rule. A people is free only when it participates in shaping the laws and institutions that govern it. When political systems are imposed by foreign powers, even in the name of liberation, that basic principle is violated.
The recent demonstrations in Iran that may have killed more than 5,000 civilians and security officers changed from largely peaceful to violent when a number of “agitators” got involved and sought to turn the gatherings focused on the poor economy into a drive to bring about regime change. It has been suggested that the sometimes-armed outsiders who stirred the pot were organized and trained by foreign intelligence services, most specifically the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Israeli Mossad. In the event, the apparent plan to bring down the Iranian government failed when Tehran’s own intelligence and security services were able to intercept and decode the Starlink communications that the plotters were using after the phones and internet were turned off. Armed with information on who, what when and where the authorities were able to make mass arrests and shut down the planned insurgency.
This was a headline in the New York Times on Tuesday: “With Threats to Greenland, Trump Sets America on the Road to Conquest: After a century of defending other countries against foreign aggression, the United States is now positioned as an imperial power trying to seize another nation’s land.” Here is a sentence from the article that followed: “Never in the past century has America gone forth to seize other countries’ land and subjugate its citizens against their will.”
Setting aside Alaska and Hawaii where, respectively, the people were never asked, and the people had been violently taken over years earlier against the will of most of them, it’s true that straightforward conquest went out of fashion around the time of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which became law 98 years ago. But to state so simply the popular wisdom that the United States has supposedly not seized any land in 100 years, one has to pretend that military bases do not exist. Here’s a small sampling of the problems with believing that lie:
On this day, as we celebrate the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. federal agents are erasing his legacy, targeting people of color, going door-to-door, dragging people from their homes, disappearing them; randomly stopping brown and black people in cars and on the street, brandishing guns, demanding papers, arbitrarily arresting citizens, flagrantly violating long-established constitutional rights, attacking witnesses with pepper spray, toxic gas and, in the case of Renee Nicole Good, claiming impunity while murdering a US citizen witnessing ICE’s chaos and brutality.
We have gone from “I Have a Dream” to We Have a Nightmare.
On December 10, 2014, in recognition of my efforts to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace, I was invited to be a keynote speaker at the King Center in Atlanta, in celebration of Dr. King’s receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor he accepted with the belief that “…unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
Though geographically it lies near Qom, Jamkaran (the site associated with the hidden imam, Mahdi) exists far beyond any mosque, shrine, or well. It is a psychological architecture— a way of relating to power, history, and responsibility. Jamkaran names the belief that salvation arrives from outside human agency, that redemption descends from above rather than being constructed through collective action. It is not theology per se, but a political imagination shaped by waiting.
Karl Marx described this condition as inverted consciousness: a world turned upside down, where material relations are masked by metaphysical fantasies. Michel Foucault would recognize it as internalized power, domination reproduced within the subject rather than imposed solely from without. Antonio Gramsci named it hegemony: the absorption of ruling ideas so deeply that they appear natural, inevitable, even desirable.
This Administration, elected with a promise to end forever wars, has since taken America to war against Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Somalia and Nigeria, while funding genocide against Gazans.
It has invaded Venezuela, kidnapped its President, Nicholas Moduro, and his wife; pledged to “run” the county, and to appropriate (steal) Venezuela’s extensive oil reserves. Venezuela spent approximately $ ZERO for its defense in 2024.
This is not Pax Americana. It is Pox Americana from War-a-Iago.
As a Member of House of Representatives, I challenged in court and in Congress President Clinton over Serbia, President Bush over Iraq and President Obama over Libya, each time working with members of both political parties to take action to insist on Congress’ co-equality, and its constitutional responsibility to decide when America should offer the treasure of our youth and our precious financial resources to be taken from peace to war.
Even a remote possibility of U.S. ground troops being sent to invade and occupy Venezuela ought to shock America’s moribund peace movement into action.
As has been reported, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will yet again be in Washington on Monday December 29th. It is a visit that initial media reports claimed had been requested by Trump, which would underline the value of the relationship to the US president. Nevertheless, there have also been some suggestions that Netanyahu, working through his Embassy in Washington and employing the considerable resources of the domestic US Israel Lobby, might have been the real force behind the fifth such meeting in Washington this year plus an additional meeting on October 13th in Israel to celebrate the non-ceasefire with Gaza which was being promoted as some kind of victory.
US President Donald Trump's 'Board of Peace' is reportedly set to be announced before the year's end. This news coincides with increasing reports that the US administration is serious about pushing forward the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire.
However, many critical questions remain unanswered. How can a governing council be superimposed on Gaza when Palestinians are unified in their rejection of any new form of Western mandate over their lives?
If we truly had a free media in the US, rather than one serving the interest of the only shithole in the Middle East, the story of Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, who was kidnapped by the IDF one year ago and has been since held in Israeli concentration camp would have been a front-page story.
Daniel Pearl and Etan Alexander were taken captives in Afghanistan (2002) and Gaza (2023) respectively. Their names became household names. Their stories were televised by US media and their pictures were front page stories. Sadly, Pearl did not make it, but Alexander was freed and came back home. Reason? There were both Jewish.
Israeli occupation forces detained Dr. Abu Safia on December 27 after they forcibly vacated the Kamal Adwan Hospital during a military operation in northern Gaza.
Dr. Abu Safiya is currently held in Ofer Prison, which is located near Ramallah in Israel. He was previously detained in notorious Sde Teiman military detention camp before being transferred to Ofer Prison, as reported by the Middle East Monitor.
First, let’s dissect this puzzle.
On February 29, 2024, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent shockwaves when he informed lawmakers in the House Armed Services Committee that over 25,000 Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israel in Gaza up to that date. Austin, the military chief of the Biden Administration, delivered a fact that immediately subverted his own government’s rhetoric.