BPF / Iran Statement

For the sake of peace and life, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship calls for immediate, direct negotiations and dialogue between the United States and Iran, and we urge our leaders to sit down and talk with Iran in the spirit of sincerity and determination. As citizens investigating right and wrong, we cannot sanction a pre-emptive attack on Iran. Using the life-giving creativity of nonviolent direct action we vow to intervene with U.S. leaders to prevent war with Iran, and end the pointless U.S. war in Iraq. Trapped in their fears and beliefs, our political leaders on all sides appear to be eager to lead a dance of death, but life itself is dear to all. We yearn for a dance of life.

In the holy city of Mashad, on April 11, dancers whirled about, raising capsules of uranium hexaflouride in joy as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had successfully enriched a small amount of uranium. He declared, “Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries.” Later, responding to international concern about Iran’s nuclear program, President Ahmadinejad said, “Our answer to those who are angry about Iran achieving the full nuclear fuel cycle is just one phrase. We say: 'Be angry at us and die of this anger.'”

While we at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship are alarmed by President Ahmadinejad’s inflammatory rhetoric and views on various international matters, we are first responsible for and to our own government. For those of us who are citizens of the United States, that responsibility includes understanding our karmic ties and historical relationship to Iran. It is a history so entangled with national, corporate, and military self-interests that our present conflict with Iran comes as no surprise.

A little background: In 1953, the CIA and British MI6 orchestrated a coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh, the elected prime minister of Iran, who had moved to nationalize the oil resources of his country. In the wake of this coup, Shah Reza Pahlavi took the reins of power and led a brutal autocracy that lasted until 1979. He was widely feared and abhorred by his subjects, but the U.S. government found him a compliant and useful ally in the Middle East. Valuing the Shah’s friendship, the U.S. provided the first technology and materials for an Iranian nuclear program in the middle 1960s. This program was shut down after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but restarted in the 1980s when the U.S. supplied Iraq with massive amounts of military aid (including chemical and biological agents) supporting its eight-year war with Iran.

Jumping to the present day, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said, “There will have to be some consequence for (Iran’s) action and that defiance…and we will look at the full range of options available to the Security Council.” A week later, President Bush, when asked whether the U.S. would consider a nuclear strike to prevent Iran from developing atomic weapons, replied “all options are on the table.”

At the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, we are dismayed by this deadly pas de deux. The circumstances call to mind the Buddha’s words in a verse from the Dhammapada :

The Buddha’s words point directly to the practice of nonviolence. Not passivity, not avoidance, not denial, but adherence to the belief and practice that human conflicts can be resolved by means other than the threat and actuality of killing and wounding.

President Bush claims to be looking at a diplomatic solution to this crisis. But his notion of “diplomacy” means using the United Nations to pressure Iran into compliance with U.S. wishes. This stretches the meaning of diplomacy beyond recognition.

From a Buddhist perspective, we understand that all beings exist in relation to each other, that we co-create the world in which we live. This is the law of dependent origination: this is because that is; because that arises, this arises. In an interdependent world, diplomacy implies dialogue. We must take responsibility for our actions, and on that basis we talk with our opponents to arrive at a resolution of conflicts. The United States has had virtually no direct talks — nation to nation — with Iran since the fall of the Shah in 1979. Rather, there have been 26 years of threats, mutual vilification, and diplomatic isolation (with the single strange interlude of Iran-Contra, where the U.S. sold arms to Iran to raise funds for its illegal war against Nicaragua’s democratically elected government in the 1980s).

Investigating both right and wrong means looking at entangled strands of cause and effect. But the Buddhist understanding of karma is not determinism. Karma creates the opportunity for transformation. By engaging in a true dialogue, the United States has an opportunity to transform 50 years of manipulation, anger, and resentment in our relationship with Iran. The alternative—a pre-emptive attack and war with Iran, possibly involving nuclear weapons—is so wrong and potentially destructive that it must be taken off the table. Attacking Iran would invite a global war that would have no boundaries and no rules.

This statement and article was authored by BPF senior advisor Hozan Alan Senauke.

Dance of Fools: The Iran-U.S. Nuclear Crisis