U.S. Leaders Gave Up On Diplomacy With Iran. We Must Make Them Return To It.

Building an antiwar movement means preventing the systemic U.S. aggression that creates the conditions for war.

By Hanieh Jodat, Truthout

The recent 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which started in the early hours of June 13 with an unprovoked attack by Israel on Iran’s soil, has left more than just casualties and destruction. It has also delivered a devastating blow to the already vulnerable belief that diplomacy could substantively guide the region toward peace and nuclear nonproliferation. But if we are willing to listen and take the proper steps, this war most importantly reveals not the unraveling of diplomatic efforts, but the urgency of recommitting to them.

For decades, the U.S. has positioned itself as the broker of global peace while simultaneously funding wars, invading sovereign nations to enact regime change, imposing unilateral sanctions as silent weapons of war, and enabling cruel policies that undermine diplomacy. Since its inception in 1948, Israel has been the recipient of U.S. military aid — more than any other nation — to the tune of over $317.9 billion.

Meanwhile, Iran, a country of over 90 million people, has been subjected to a coup d’état in 1953, brutal sanctions, cyberattacks like the U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet operation, and assassinations of its scientists. More often than not, the attempt to destabilize Iran has been driven by the presumption that the U.S. can single-handedly change its regime and deliver “freedom” to its people while driving civil society into poverty at the same time.

Rather than stabilizing the Middle East, these disproportionate and often extrajudicial tactics have cornered Iran diplomatically, while emboldening Iran’s regime and Israeli hardliners. Dating back to the early 1990s, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has successfully run a propaganda campaign against any form of nuclear talks with Iran that could lead to easing tensions in the region. The collapse of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — ratified during the Obama presidency but then torpedoed by the Trump administration in 2018 and left for dead by the Biden administration — marked a tragic moment when diplomacy became a dream deferred, not by Iran alone but by the U.S.-Israel axis, which has come to view negotiation as weakness rather than wisdom.

In the midst of political chaos, what remains certain is that millions of Americans, particularly young people, the working class, and even some of Trump’s own “MAGA” base — who are quite often impacted by brutal domestic policies like cutting Medicaid and depleting resources to fund wars — are now disillusioned by endless wars and know that freedom and the end to the slaughter of people in Palestine, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and beyond are interconnected with peace and justice at home. No matter how much the corporate media twists the truth, many Americans have seen far too much to believe in this propaganda.

It is also important to highlight that the most recent unprovoked hostilities with Iran have also built a bridge between some congressional Republicans and progressive Democratic lawmakers. This is where war powers come in. For more than two decades, Congress has abdicated its constitutional authority over war, leaving decisions of life or death to an irresponsible and unaccountable executive branch. Much of this unchecked power stems from the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a post-9/11 measure passed by Congress. Over the years, this vague and open-ended authorization has successfully given U.S. presidents a blank check to carry out military operations in more than 20 countries, often without meaningful congressional oversight or public debate.

In April 2024, while committing an ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel nearly dragged the United States into a direct confrontation with Iran. There was no public debate in the Senate or the House. The silence was bipartisan and haunting.

In June, things began to shift. While there has long been bipartisan hostility toward Iran, some elected officials recognized how dangerous a war with Iran could be for the entire region’s stability. In a rare moment of cross-party agreement, Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) introduced the bipartisan Iran War Powers Resolution in the House, with Congressman Ro Khanna (D-California) instantly joining as the co-lead. On the Senate side, Senators Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) and Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) each introduced legislation to take away the Trump administration’s unaccountable authority to enter into another endless war. It is paramount to recognize that building an antiwar movement isn’t just about restricting executive overreach during military conflict, but it is also Building an antiwar movement means blocking systemic U.S. aggression that keepings creating the conditions for war.

The right-wing Netanyahu regime has mastered the art of refusing diplomacy while at the same time demanding that the world take its cries seriously, even as the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians continues with no end in sight. Israel’s refusal of diplomacy has had consequences not only for the people of the Middle East, but also for Jewish communities around the world. Across the United States, a large number of Jewish Americans have protested against Netanyahu and his far right brutal policies, and have aligned themselves with the broader antiwar movement partners demanding the end to the occupation, apartheid, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the militarization of the U.S. foreign policy. Their moral clarity and resistance highlights a deepening divide between the Israeli government’s actions and the principles of peace, dignity and justice that so many Jewish Americans hold sacred.

It is also true that the Iranian government has committed its own share of repression and regional antagonism since the country’s 1979 revolution. But as we have learned from history, from the U.S.-Soviet nuclear standoff to the JCPOA itself, adversaries can be brought to the same table for the greater good of the world.

It is also urgent that we restore congressional oversight over U.S. military engagement by supporting the War Powers Resolution and repealing the Authorizations for the Use of Military Force that presidents from both parties have used as a blank check to wage war. Lawmakers must push for a new standard: that no military action can or will be justified without diplomatic alternatives being fully exhausted. Even then, we must find other alternatives rather than bombs.

With a shaky ceasefire in place, only time will tell what the path to diplomacy looks like for Iran and the U.S. Iran has signaled that it would be open to returning to nuclear talks, but that is not a guarantee. One thing is also obvious: while we fight for a diplomatic solution, we must continue to highlight Israel’s own nuclear weapons program, which it does not publicly acknowledge, and its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The consequences of a war with Iran could be catastrophic, for people abroad and here in the United States.

The road back to diplomacy will not be an easy one. But it must be walked precisely because it is challenging. In the words of James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” This moment, with all the weight and all the sorrow, demands that we face what has long been buried under years of silence and U.S. propaganda: the cost of war, the lives lost and shattered in its wake, and the betrayal of diplomacy. By Baldwin’s words, we must be reminded that transformation begins with much courage — the kind that challenges imperialism, a system that benefits from endless wars; the hypocrisy that masks policy; and the fear that the path to a diplomatic solution is weakness.

The long road to diplomacy between Iran and the U.S., for the sake of the entire region, requires more than negotiations and contracts. It requires humility, responsibility, and transparency, and above all, empathy and love — the radical love that defies the grip of AIPAC, imperialism, colonialism, and the war industry’s hold on policy. It requires the form of radical love that centers the lives of those who pay the high price when negotiations and peace fail: the families in Tehran, the children in Gaza, and the working people across the U.S.

Hanieh Jodat is a political strategist and a key strategist with Defuse Nuclear War, an initiative of RootsAction. She also serves as the Chair of Progressive Democrats of America – Middle East Alliances, focusing on fostering dialogue and progressive policies on critical global issues.