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Proposal Details

Proposal ID756
Proposal2014 Platform amendment proposal: Middle East - Virginia
PresenterPlatform Committee - sponsored by GPVA
Floor ManagerJesse Townley
PhaseClosed - Adopted
Discussion06-30-2014 - 07-13-2014
Voting07-14-2014 - 07-20-2014
Presens QuorumTwo Thirds of Active Accredited States/Caucuses
Consens QuorumTwo Thirds of Yes and No Votes

Background

The June, 2013 election of Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran has opened new opportunities for a relaxation of the decades-old stand-off between Iran and the US.  Rouhani is a moderate in the mold of Iran’s moderate president Mohammad Khatami, who served from 1997 to 2005. When 9/11 occurred, Khatami made it clear that Iran was ready to assist the US in any way possible to counter Taliban terrorism.  In response, President Bush in his January 2002 State of the Union address lumped Iran with Iraq and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil,” thus ignoring the historic opportunity for rapprochement. Bush’s hostility is judged by many to be a serious blunder which undoubtedly contributed to some degree to the election of Iranian hard liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served from 2005 to 2013. 
  The Obama administration seems intent on avoiding Bush’s mistake, responding to overtures from Rouhani which has resulted in negotiations with Iran to curtail any weapons-related operations in its nuclear program. It is generally agreed that Iran has made the greatest concessions by far in the resulting interim agreement (the “Joint Plan of Action”) hammered out last October-November that went into effect in January and is to last 6 months.  Unfortunately, a majority of senators have followed Israel’s prompting  and co-sponsored the Menendez-Kirk bill that threatens new sanctions on Iran and promises US support of an Israeli attack on Iran.  Passage of the bill would almost certainly destroy the current negotiations.

Proposal

Amend I.D.2. A Real Road to Peace in the Middle East.

Add a new paragraph preceding paragraphs. 2. a-k, "The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict", under the heading, "Iran":

“We support negotiation with Iran for a peaceful resolution that reduces or eliminates sanctions, while continuing or strengthening inspections to ensure Iran's adherence to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. We oppose any bill threatening increased sanctions as long as Iranian policy is to pursue dialogue on this topic. We call on the President and Congress to oppose any attack by Israeli military or intelligence services on Iran’s nuclear research facilities, and for American military and intelligence services to refrain from such attacks as well.”

Resources

IMPLEMENTATION / TIMELINE
Approval of this proposal will amend the 2014 Platform, which will be published on the GPUS website in or before September, 2014.

CONTACT
Platform Committee
Jan Martell, co-chair, 919-682-2472, ninth.st@frontier.com
Bruce Hinkforth, co-chair, 262-569-1370, bhinkforth@milwpc.com
B. Sidney Smith, state contact, procor@bsidneysmith.com

References

2012 Platform: http://gp.org/green-party-platform-table-of-contents
Proposition 740: http://gp.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=740


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