A coalition of activists led by the pacifist organisation CODEPINK demonstrated in front of the White House in Washington, DC on Sunday in an ‘Emergency Protest’ calling for peace with Iran and for the removal of US sanctions on the country.
“Trump is surrounding himself with advisers who for years and years have called for war,” said Lily Tajaddani of CODEPINK. “Trump may not want, he says he might not want war, but he is surrounding himself with people who do.”
The group praised Donald Trump for calling off an airstrike that could have left 150 Iranians dead, but said he is responsible for escalating tensions between the United States and Iran.
The called off airstrike was reportedly a retaliatory measure that was under consideration by the president on Thursday, after the Iranian military shot down a US surveillance drone.
“Trump is 100 per cent responsible for having left the nuclear deal and imposed these sanctions and created a crisis,” said CODEPINK’s founder Medea Benjamin. “Yes, we cheer him for not sending the bombs yesterday, as he was talking about doing, but let’s recognise that his sanctions are killing people in Iran every day that he has created this crisis and he holds the key to ending the crisis.”
The situation between Iran and the United States has been escalating since Iran announced in May that it would partially withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal which the Obama administration, Iran and the European Union signed in 2015 – the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in May 2018, re-imposing sanctions on Iran.