Responding to Congressman Ben Cline’s Salem Times “Opinion” Column
Responding to Congressman Ben Cline’s Salem Times “Opinion” column (May 22, 2025), remember that Trump campaigned on bringing peace in Ukraine and stopping wars. This was favored by MAGA Trump supporters who also want Trump focusing on domestic needs. Regardless, Republican neocons like Cline reject peace-seeking diplomacy by calling for uncompromising restrictions on Iran’s peaceful nuclear enrichment programs. Retired U.S. Army general/SACE commander (1997-2000), Wesley Clark learned post-9/11 in 2003 from a Pentagon source that the White House was implementing a five-year plan to take out seven majority-Muslim countries to help Israel–a Western settler-colonialist creation that has never declared its borders. By helping Israel annex territories, the U.S. imposes its own rule on the Middle East. To date, this nefarious and dangerous imperialist plot has resulted in regime changes in six of the seven countries, leaving only heavily-sanctioned Iran now threatened by Trump with Cline’s help, at the behest of Israel’s warmongering Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. Trump’s unofficial global negotiator, Steve Witcoff, recently came to a successful understanding with Iran that allowed nuclear enrichment of uranium for Iran’s sacrosanct lifesaving products–advancements in radiotherapy, the production of anti-cancer drugs, sterilization of medical devices and protection of agriculture. Iran’s leadership is committed to continuing these projects despite threat of assassination, sabotage and all-out war, but neocon warmongers like Cline pushed Witcoff to renege on the original agreement. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a 2003 religious ruling (fatwa) that the development, production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islamic law. But Iran has every right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty it has ratified. Also, Iran has willingly subjected itself to UN inspections of its nuclear facilities. Representative Cline’s demand that Iran be prohibited from any enrichment capability is nothing but a specious attempt to lead the U.S. to endorse and assist Israel in attacking Iran. Considering that the U.S. has lost all its wars since WWII and even against Iran’s proxy, Yemen, it would be folly for the U.S. to war against hypersonic-missile-armed Iran who can destroy vulnerable U.S. Mid-East bases just to fight Israel’s enemy, Iran, which does not threaten the U.S. It behooves Congressman Cline to cease his warmongering and explain why Israel is allowed to have undeclared and uninspected nuclear weapons that threaten to ignite a terrible war in the Mideast. Incessant U.S. wars and unabated military support for Israel are turning the world against America and raising the U.S. debt to unsustainable levels, threatening the U.S. dollar as reserve currency—a privileged status that sustains America’s standard of living. Will Cline ignore that both Wall Street and U.S. treasury bonds are now dangerously volatile? With loss of political and financial stability, higher interest rates may threaten default on U.S. debt. Cline also voted to increase the deficit in Trump’s “Big, beautiful bill” — the greatest transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich. That doesn’t benefit working Americans, does it Mr. Cline?
-Cynthia Munley
Salem