 started. Yeah. Terrific. Welcome. We have 115 people on the call. Expect more to join us. I'm Marcy Winograd, coordinator of Code Pink Congress. I am so thrilled to be with you tonight and to be with our co sponsors and co hosts tonight's program, the US and Iran, the nuclear deal and beyond is co sponsored by Code Pink Congress, Code Pink, also Massachusetts peace action MAPA and roots action roots action.org. And on the screen, you see, you see Brian Garvey, Cole Harrison, honey, as your dad Barnes and media Benjamin. So here's the program for tonight. And then we're going to take a pause and check in with our hosts and receive some updates before we move on to our speakers. Our speakers tonight include a sol rod. She's a researcher with the with NIAC. And also, we have a Nicar more to Zabi, she has the Iran podcast. She's a journalist. And we're very interested in hearing the updates on what's going on with the Iran nuclear deal. This is the first in a series. We're so excited about this foreign policy series that we are doing jointly tonight with roots action and Massachusetts peace action and going forward with Massachusetts peace action. And we're going to be looking next, the first and third Tuesdays of the month, we're going to our next one will be on the crackdown of Palestinian rights. We have some terrific speakers from NGOs from Palestine Legal the Center for Constitutional Rights against Canary Mission. After that, we'll be taking a look in the beginning of March. Yes, the beginning of March, we're going to look at an update on Ukraine, which is so much in the news. And we'll be talking about that tonight as well in a minute. And we're going to hear from Larry Wilkerson, who used to be an advisor to Colin Powell and is now active in the peace movement, as well as Reiner Braun, who's a journalist in Europe. Finally, we'll wrap up the series with what is the United States doing in Africa. And we'll hear from Dr. Gerald Horn, a professor of African American history, and Maurice Carney, who is with Friends of the Congo, the executive director. So it should be an incredibly exciting series. With that, let's check in with some of our other hosts. Cole Harrison, what's happening? Hey, Marcy, thank you. I want to thank Code Pink for Coast and Roots Action for cosponsoring the event with us tonight. We're very happy to do so. Last piece of action has been working on reconciliation with Iran for at least 14 years that I can trace back. I have only been with the Organization 11 years myself. But this is one of our deepest issues. And, you know, we certainly hope the Iran deal will be restored and that the United States and Iran will actually reconcile their differences. Mass peace action is a state peace organization, we're an affiliate of peace action, which is a national peace membership organization. We are member governed and volunteer led. We have 1800 members in our state. And we have 10 different volunteer led working groups, each of which have a different issue where they pursue to work for peace. And I'll briefly run down nuclear disarmament, Middle East and forever wars, Palestine, Israel, Latin America and the Caribbean, peace economy, no new Cold War, climate and peace, fund healthcare, not warfare, racial justice and decolonization and the Raytheon anti war campaign. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Medea to give an update of what code pink is up to. Well, wonderful. I'm just going to talk about my the things that I've been working on. One is the Ukraine. And I think we all know that this is a time where we've got to mobilize people. And it's been actually pretty good to see the response to the call for getting people out on the street this Saturday. You can go to the code pink dot org website and see what's planned in your community. And there's nothing planned. Then you are the one to plan it. Only need a couple of people and some good signs make your letters thick. It took me 20 years to learn that one. And we have been encouraging people to continually call the White House, contact their members of Congress. And I think we've had a lot of people doing that, which is good. We've also been in touch with our counterparts in Europe. And they are really mobilizing. I think they're better at it than we are in the UK, Germany and France. And so there is now a growing response. We saw that there was a kind of a milk toast letter that the head of the Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal and Barbara Lee put out. And it wasn't signed by the members of the caucus and there's almost a hundred members of that caucus. So we want that caucus to to be vocal. And we're saying if you're a progressive, show it. You can't be a progressive and be pro-war at this time in history. So there are a number of progressives in that caucus that are actually signed on to a horrific legislation that's calling for $500 million of new money to be going to Ukraine for lethal aid, i.e. weapons. And we are glad that folks in San Francisco, including our code pink sisters and brothers and any of you on the on the on this call, hope you'll join them. They're going to go to Nancy Pelosi's house because Nancy Pelosi is trying to fast track this horrible legislation, which is not only calling for more money for Ukraine, but for weapons for Ukraine, but it's also calling for draconian sanctions that would hurt the ordinary people of Russia, just like these sanctions hurt so many other people around the world. So that's important stuff for you to do. And we're really glad that many of you who are part of our liaisons have been making those calls and hope you'll continue to do that and get out on the streets on Saturday. And thank you, Shea, for all the organizing that you've been doing on this. And then just a side as a positive note, I just got back from Honduras, where the that nation's first woman ever was elected as a president. And she also considers herself a democratic socialist. And she's got quite an agenda in front of her. But it's really exciting to see a fired up woman who wants to totally turn around the mess that is Honduras. And it's so interesting to see how she has leverage over the United States right now, because the Biden administration is probably you know, one of its number one concerns is about immigration and how that's going to affect the upcoming elections. And so they need this democratic socialist to succeed in Honduras. So it's a very interesting play of forces. And we hope that she will be successful in making some real changes in that small but very important Central American nation. So thank you. That's my update. Thank you, Medea. You are busy. We really appreciate it. And Medea was on democracy now this morning. And if you didn't catch her, go to the website and watch you were terrific. And we appreciate you calling for disbanding of NATO. With that, Brian Garvey, let's hear what's happening on your end. Thanks, Marcy. And I'm glad you just brought up on Duris and the new possibilities that a new government being in charge brings to that nation. One of the things that our Latin America and Caribbean working group has been focusing on is opposing the construction of a new hydroelectric project that could endanger the waterways in Honduras. And we are hearing that as a result of this election, that that that program to build that dam on the Holy River is now being paused. So a little ray of sunshine there. It's not done. We have to keep up the opposition and keep working with with Honduran land defenders. But the election of Castro is a very good sign and gives us new possibilities. Another thing that I'm very excited about is a new network of groups all across the country, local and regional groups that are protesting their local weapons manufacturers. These are the people who have won from endless wars over the last 20 years. These are the people who stand to gain from $500 million in legal aid to Ukraine that's going to inflame that situation and that we all need to fight against. So Cole mentioned the Raytheon anti war campaign. That is our local coalition that fights the military industrial complex in our backyard here in the Boston area. But we've joined with groups from all across the country and we're going to we've all committed to a week of action around tax day that focuses on how much of your federal tax dollars go to these companies and why the military budget gets bigger year after year after year, even though the American people don't want that and why our needs are not reflected in the policies of Washington DC. We're also working on Yemen, working with Danico of red coat pink on this as well as folks from Action Corps, the Yemeni Alliance Committee on a day of action on March 1st to oppose the Yemen war. And we're also going to be making a lot of noise this Friday, because this Friday is the one year anniversary of President Biden's speech at the state department where he promised to end the war in Yemen. But as I'm sure all of you know, the war in Yemen continues and in some ways has intensified. So our fight is not done to stop our complicity in that war and our support for Saudi Arabia. And I'll just mention one last thing. And that is on Valentine's Day, we're planning a day of action in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan. We supported the withdrawal of Afghanistan, but the sanctions and the freezing of assets that belong to the Afghan people are hurting your average Afghanis, mostly poor and working people. And you know, there's a threat of famine and starvation. So we're going to be standing in solidarity all across the country, peace action affiliates on Valentine's Day, sending our love to Afghans and making a demand that we unfreeze those assets and give that money back where it belongs. Thank you, Brian Garvey with Massachusetts Peace Action. We are going to go to our next co-host in just a minute, but I do want to emphasize that Code Pink is involved in organizing for February 5th. That's this Saturday, demonstrations across the country to protest the shipping of hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine, as well as these planned blanket sanctions that will hurt the the most vulnerable members of Russian society. So please do join a protest. You can find it at CodePink.org. And there's another link that Shay will post in a minute and sign up, either show up or do do attend an event at another time and definitely call Congress. I'll put the switchboard in the chat, but we need no votes on these two bills to send all of these weapons to Ukraine. It's S 3488 in the Senate. It's H.R 6470 in the House. Bad, terrible bills. 41 Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate. Shame on them. 13 in the House. All right. With that, I would like to introduce, proudly introduce a wonderful woman, a dear friend, Hania Jodad Barnes. She will be carrying a lot of the weight tonight as she co-hosts. Hania is the partnerships coordinator for Roots Action, one of the co-sponsors of tonight's event. She's a founding member of the Women's March LA. She was a 2020 DNC delegate for Bernie Sanders. That's when I first met Hania, and we have been very close ever since. And she is the interim vice chair of Progressive Democrats of America in California. She also has a young child, if you can believe it. She does all of that. Okay. Hania, you're on. Thank you so much, Marcy. I cannot put in words how honored I feel to be among such a steam group of humanitarians. And when I found the opportunity to join this coalition with Roots Action, I was just, I felt so blessed. And us at Roots Action, we have been working to urge the Biden administration, obviously, to join the JCPOA, rejoin the JCPOA. And we recently launched a campaign urging that the sanctions also be lifted in collaboration with Dr. Sema Shah-Sari and Dr. Niki Ahavan of No Sanctions on Iran Campaign, and as well as under the mentorship of Dr. Rod, Roots Action has put out a statement which, Shae, if you could share that with our audience tonight, as a call to defend human rights in Iran, which is a joint statement by Iranian American women and gender non-binary addressing the impacts of sanctions on women, particularly, and Iran's economy, and those women who have dedicated so much of their life to fighting for a just society and in human rights in Iran, who can no longer organize because they simply need to feed their children. And so I think what's so important about this call, and what I'm so delighted to see is we have two women who've been not only reporting the news, but I, Dr. Rod has been at the forefront of making sure that she is highlighting the injustices against the Iranian people. And so it is with my honor to introduce our very first speaker, Negar Mortazavi, who is an Iranian American journalist and a political analyst and the host of Iran Podcast, which I encourage for everyone to listen to and become a member. And she's based in Washington. She has been covering Iran's affairs and U.S.-Iran relations for over a decade and a regular media analyst and commentator who has appeared on CNN, NBC, NPR, VBC, France 24, and Al Jazeera. In 2021, she was featured in Forbes among 30 inspirational women who are breaking boundaries. She's also been named a young leader under 40 by New America Foundation in New York by the Middle East Policy Center in Washington and by friends of Europe in Belgium. And Negar, if hi, OK, so great. We have you here and please take it away. Tell us exactly what's being reported on JCPOA and take us through what we really need to look out for. Please. Thank you so much. Thank you, Hania, for that kind introduction and thanks to Code Pink and Roots Action and, I believe, Nayak, who have hosted this very important timely event. I was, in fact, just listening to Senator Menendez on the Senate floor, who was, who still is, I believe, talking about nuclear negotiations with Iran. He was giving a history of the JCPOA. And interestingly, even though Senator Menendez himself used to be a critic of the JCPOA, I believe he still is. But he criticized President Trump's withdrawal from the JCPOA on the Senate floor just a few minutes ago, which was interesting. I'm going to go back and listen to that speech now. So I think your members have been probably following the nuclear negotiations that are happening in Vienna. We are sort of in the middle of the eighth round. There's a break of the eighth round of negotiations between the Biden administration and the Iranian side. The first six rounds of negotiations in Vienna happened with the previous Iranian administration, the more moderate administration of Hassan Rouhani. And after the June presidential elections in Iran, there was a change of administration. And now the hardliners are in power in Iran with the ultra-conservative president, Ibrahim Raisi. The Iranians withdrew from negotiations for, or paused their participation for a few months and then returned to what was the seventh round of negotiations with the Biden team. And this round that we're sort of in the middle now is the eighth round of negotiations. We're hearing from various officials in the Iranian government. We've heard from American officials. We've seen reporting without the names of officials, but we've heard reporting from American officials. And we also hear from Europeans and especially the European Union. I see the European Union, who is the facilitator, who has been the facilitator of these negotiations and diplomacy since the times of the JCPOA. They had a very key role in helping the agreement happen and bringing sort of the multiple sides together. And I still sort of see them as more of a neutral party when it comes to the U.S. and Iran side. And we're hearing some urgent, but I think also more optimistic messages from these officials. There was also reporting just this week again from both sides. That seems like a potential deal is now in sight because for a few months, I would say now for up to a year, it wasn't even sure at some point we were optimistic when the Biden administration first started, President Biden had promised to reenter the JCPOA. He had criticized President Trump for withdrawing from the JCPOA. And myself and some other Iran watchers had been warning that there was a short window of opportunity with the previous administration, the more moderate team in Tehran. But unfortunately, the deal didn't happen before June and it sort of spilled over into the next administration. There was a five month delay and there was more of a pessimistic vibe to the negotiations, especially the first time the new hardline team came to negotiations with Iran, as we expected, with more maximalist demands. But now it seems like the two sides have been able to sort of bring themselves closer to each other, bridge the gaps, not entirely, but it seems like a potential outcome is in sight now. So I'm just hoping that well, it didn't really happen in the first year of the administration, but I'm just hoping that this is something that the president himself, because this is a very important political decision that President Biden himself has to invest in, he has to be behind this decision, this political decision, just as President Obama was, and I think it's also a priority, it should be a priority, a foreign policy priority of the administration, because the alternative to diplomacy with Iran and to an agreement, as we know, is going to be more conflict and military tension that can potentially affect the entire region. It's not just going to be bound to US and Iran. So I think there has been a serious diplomacy happening, especially in the past few months and surprisingly, the Iranian side, even though they're the hardliners, but I call them hardliners 2.0, they seem to be sort of different from what we've had the memories of the previous conservative or hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And the overall decision making in Tehran seems to be to stay within the JCPOA. Iran hasn't left the JCPOA yet, even though the US is outside the JCPOA, since President Trump left in 2018. Iran hasn't left the deal. They have reduced their compliance and expanded their nuclear program. But I think the ultimate decision in Tehran so far is to stay within the JCPOA and also reading Tehran I think the nuclear program, still the decision is that the nuclear program remain a civilian program because we hear alarmist calls from the various anti-diplomacy circles that Iran is going for a bomb as a Russian for a nuclear weapon. I don't see any indication that that's the political decision that Iran has made. And I think they still want to continue to remain a civilian to keep their nuclear program a civilian program. And this is something the CIA chief has also recently repeated that their the US intelligence observation also is that Iran's nuclear program remains civilian and there's no intent for rushing for a bomb. With all said, I want to make my remarks. I wanted to make them short and I'm happy to answer any questions from you or the audience. But again, the JCPOA was a very, I think, rare and exceptional farm policy achievement, really the one of the biggest legacies of the Obama administration. And it was very unlikely just a few years before, if you had asked Iran watchers for the US and Iran to come together to negotiate directly to for officials to appear in public together and all of that. And it's just that diplomacy is is a very sensitive and very delicate matter. And I think the Biden administration has approached it with caution. But one criticism that I've had of the administration's approach is of time. I think there has been a long delay in a return to the JCPOA. This would have happened in the first few months of the administration is something that's completely within the powers of the president. The withdrawal from the JCPOA happened with a presidential executive order and the return to the JCPOA can also happen with an executive order. And I think it's something that President Biden should really prioritize and put his political force behind to make it happen. Well, I'm most certainly glad to hear that there is an opportunity for both sides to come to an agreement. But we also has been reported that there is a bit of a turmoil in Robert Malley's team with Richard Nephew stepping down as the deputy special envoy for Iran, which I'd like to get into that. And have you give us an update on why this is happening? If there is, in fact, optimism, you know, on both sides, then why are people leaving the team? But before we go into Q&A, I'd like to introduce our next guest. And thank you so much, Nagar, for that wonderful your words, wonderful remarks. Always good to hear you speak on this issue. Our next speaker, who I am just a huge fan of and I bother her quite often with questions and we're constantly chatting. And she has been a great mentor to me and someone I'd like to call my sister. Dr. Asal Rod, who has her PhD in Middle Eastern history from the University of California, Irvine, her doctorate focused on modern Iran with an emphasis on national identity formation and popular culture in post-revolutionary Iran. Dr. Rod joined the National Iranian-American Council in 2019 as a senior research fellow. And she works on research and writing related to Iran policy issues and U.S.-Iran relations. Her writing can be seen in Newsweek, The Independent, Foreign Policy, Manda Wise, and more. She has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, BBC, Persian, and Al Jazeera. And I would really highly recommend for everyone I'll share, both Dr. Rod and Nagar's Twitter handle. So you can all follow them and get the day-to-day updates. Dr. Rod, please take it away. Thank you, Hania, for the very, very kind and generous introduction, as always. And of course, to everybody who's here tonight, spending your evening, listening to us and having what obviously those of us who are involved in this area think is a very important conversation to have. I think Nagar presented sort of how we got to where we are now and exactly where we're at in the negotiations very well. So I don't wanna sort of repeat Nagar's points. I will add a couple of things. So one of the differences between the negotiations right now versus 2015 is in 2015, the US and Iran had direct negotiations. Right now, the negotiations are indirect. And the reason for that is that the United States has not returned to the deal. So it's upon Iran's insistence that the US not be allowed to participate directly. But that insistence is because the Biden administration has not actually returned to the deal. And the reason I point that out is because it was a very easy thing for the Biden admin to do. Just like on day one, last year when they came in and said, you know, we're rescinding the Muslim man we're returning to the Paris Accord very easily. It was up to this administration to do so. And so Nagar pointed to the idea that there was, you know slow moving in delays and of this administration in addressing this issue. But one of the early missteps was simply not returning to the deal. That didn't mean in fact that the US had to lift sanctions. The US could have left sanctions in place but at least been a party to the deal which it is currently not. So when we talk about restoration we're not talking about two equal sides returning to a deal. Iran is in the deal. Iran doesn't have to return to it. The only party that has to return to it is the US. The issue of compliance applies to both the United States and Iran. So Iran has reduced its compliance with the deal has to go back to the limitations set within the deal. Obviously on the US side they have to lift sanctions. The other thing about lifting sanctions though which I thought was important to mention as well is that the Biden as a candidate not only did he criticize the Trump administration for its Iran policy whether it was quitting the deal whether it was the assassination of General Soleimani but in April of 2020, Biden wrote a statement or at least there's a statement released in his name that calls on the Trump administration specifically to address sanctions that are impeding the flow of essential and humanitarian goods into Iran. And in the statement Biden says that though there are humanitarian exemptions on paper in reality, it's not happening. In reality within a pandemic, the flow of essential goods is being slowed and actually just completely stopped because of US sanctions. So it's interesting to me that now, nearly two years ago, the President Biden called for the Trump administration to take immediate steps and now a year into office more than a year into office he's yet to do the same thing. So there's two separate issues that I think especially for the audience that we have here is important to realize is that not only did we never return to the deal and have we taken a sort of and by we I mean obviously the US government have we taken a sort of hard line position ourselves but also we're not addressing secondary issues which are sanctions that hurt the humanitarian flow in a pandemic that should never be something that is conflated with the issue of a conflict with the issue of nuclear proliferation and that is something that Biden himself said. So there are frustrations dealing with the fact that this admin has not come in and dealt with the situation in a terribly different way than their predecessors. And on that note, I'll say one more thing. It is the way that the issue is being framed and parroted often in US media on the US side is that the onus is on Iran. Iran has to return to compliance. At the beginning it was flat out Iran has to return to compliance and then we'll lift sanctions. Now, the Biden admin sort of left that posture but still is engaged in this political posturing that consistently makes it sound like the choice is with Iran. It's the ball is in Iran's court. And there's something that is not totally honest about that which is we don't lack agency. The US government has a lot of agency the Biden administration without Congress without anything else has the agency to change the course of events. And thus far it has chosen not to and even though we're engaged in negotiations the nature of negotiations, the nature of diplomacy is how you talk to people. It's how you communicate with people. And we are communicating an obstinate refusal to lift sanctions. And we're doing so as if the Trump admin never happened as if Iran is not in a position rightfully so to say we don't trust the US because the US is the one who reneged on the deal. And while it may not have been President Biden while it may not have been the Biden administration it was the United States of America and it doesn't matter who was in power. This occurred, this happened. By the way, in three years Trump can become president of the US again. So we have to be able to understand within the frame of negotiations how the other side whether the other side is our friend or our adversary is thinking about how to approach a negotiation. So one of the impediments on the Iranian side is obviously this notion of guarantees. Now while the Biden admin can't guarantee what a next administration will do and it certainly can't legally do so there can be at least some verifying mechanism in place just the way that there is for Iran, right? The original deal was built in a way where the clear idea was the mistrust is on Iran. So there has to be mechanisms in place that verifies Iran's compliance and punishes Iran if they don't comply. Of course, no other party to the deal had the same verifications or the same mechanisms. And so the idea that Iran wants guarantees to make sure that there is actual tangible sanctions relief should also be something that we consider fairly reasonable in terms of negotiations that are within the control of the Biden admin whether or not they control what happens after is a different question. So those are things that I wanted to add to Nicar's comments. And the only other thing that I wanted to add before we sort of pass it over for discussions and questions and whatnot is why not just how but why we end up in these situations with Iran. And because part of the topic that we're talking about today is broader US-Iran relations I'll refer to a report that I actually just recently wrote and was released two weeks ago called Othering Iran How Dehumanization of Iranians Underminds Rights at Home. And the crux of the argument, the crux of the research is to say it is extraordinarily easy in the US for an American politician to simply dismiss Iran or talk about Iran in a way that is politically loaded that is different than maybe other topics. And the reason why that's important is it impacts the way that we approach policy. Iran has been systematically demonized for decades in the US and there's a historical precedent for all of that and obviously we don't have time for me to get into every detail, but that's what the report's for. So the report gets into the details of that history into how US popular culture, media and politicians have consistently sort of dehumanized Iranians and by extension Americans like me who are of Iranian heritage, right? We undermine the rights of Americans at home. I'm an American, Hania's an American. The fact that we're of Iranian heritage does not mean that we are deserving of less rights. It does not mean that we should be questioned at the border because of our Iranian heritage. It doesn't mean that our families should be banned from visiting us because of our country of heritage. And yet these are the ways that our community is impacted. Beyond that, our foreign policy is impacted by this sort of blind spot. So what was the issue with Biden? Why didn't he just return to the deal and lift the sanctions and have Iran return to comply? This was actually not a difficult task. What made it difficult was a political atmosphere in which even before he has not lifted sanctions but you have Republicans straight out lying that Biden has lifted all sanctions on Iran. Look at all those concessions on Iran. None of these things have happened. And yet you have opponents of the deal spreading misinformation intentionally all because it is so easy to use Iran as this caricature of a villain. And this has been that process of dehumanization. When you dehumanize people, and this is not unique to Iran, this exists in our domestic politics, certainly when you look at the issues of race and systemic racism in the United States, it works through dehumanization. And it is an issue well beyond policies that we have with Iran. It is part of our foreign policy, whether it's Islamophobia, whether it's anti-Arab, anti-Iranian, all of these sentiments play into the way that we go about our foreign policy. Dare I say, white supremacy has something to do with it. So it's not just a domestic issue. The foreign and domestic are connected in that way. And so the intention of the report was simply to say that until we recognize this, until we at least acknowledge it, until we understand that the way that we are implementing policy has much less to do with like rational reasoning, with actual US objectives. I mean, this is the clear point. It is within the interests of the United States as well as the global community, as well as Iran to return to the steel. There's no question about that. Every, almost everyone, almost the entire global community has agreed upon this. And yet we're having such a difficult time doing it. Biden could have done it and yet he didn't because it takes political will. It takes political courage to stand up to an atmosphere where one country and one group of people has been vilified to such an extent that you can starve them with sanctions in the middle of a pandemic and no one bats an eye because it is okay to be anti-Iran. It is okay to make wildly racist comments about Iranians. Like when you have someone like Wendy Sherman say that deception is in their DNA or you have Lindsey Graham say things like jokingly say, it would be terrible if my DNA turned out to have any Iranian heritage in it. These are comments that imply that Iranian heritage and Iranian blood is somehow tainted. That is nothing but racist. And the fact that we can make those comments, the fact that politicians can make these comments with almost no backlash is because of that system and that process of dehumanization and the atmosphere that is created. So in order to actually have rational policies when it comes to Iran, first we have to recognize that rather than just pointing the finger at the fanaticism that we see from their government which certainly exists, we have to recognize our own. And our own is the fact that we undermine our own objectives and policies we watch as other states such as Israel undermine our objectives and we do nothing about it. And instead of say criticizing Israel when it assassinates an Iranian scientist illegally or attacks a Iranian nuclear site illegally. Who do we show our anger towards Iran for reacting to those incidents? For saying, okay, now we're going to enrich more because we've been attacked. What is the reaction of the United States government? It is to condemn Iran and to say nothing about Israel. Those are outside of a sort of fanatic way of looking at how we create alliances. There's no logic behind it. It's not based on international law. It's not based on rules or order. It is based on saying one person, one group, one country is bad and another one is good no matter their actions. And that's simply not a way to create rational foreign policy which is why we often don't. So that's my contribution to this conversation. Thank you. I could listen to you both for hours. So thank you so much Asad before I hand it to Brian to go to our first call to action. I just wanted to add to something that you said about the sanction, the longer these JCPOA talks go on the more Iranians are being impacted under sanctions. And what we've seen time and time and time again is that the U.S. government and its allies they continue to kind of manipulate the value of women's rights, right? To justify the sanctions in countries that they want to either occupy or controlled in some way, shape or form. Brian, I will hand it off to you before we go to Q&A and we'll go to first call to action. Sure. And this is a really easy action that all of you can take and Assal, you said it very well what's missing right now from this situation is the political courage and the political will. So what we're gonna do right now is we're gonna get out and push because that's what's gonna make the Biden administration take action. The reason why we didn't get back into the deal is because of domestic considerations because the Biden administration despite the fact that on the campaign trail they said that they would return to the JCPOA as negotiated and without preconditions. Biden said that himself while he campaigned for president. I know it's one of the reasons why a lot of people voted for. So what we need to do right now is tell our members of Congress as well and the president and his administration, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense that we want a return to this deal. We simply want what was promised on the campaign trail and it's going to be better for US security. It's gonna be better for the security of the region. Nagar was saying what a rare and important achievement. This isn't, she's absolutely right. Just to reinforce what she said, this is a deal that the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, Iran and the United States agreed on. How rare is that? And we pulled out of it. The Biden administration is always talking about international norms and a rules-based order. We're the ones who are breaking the rules here. We are the ones that have departed from the norm. When we abandoned a deal like this, that was indeed one of the finest achievements of the Obama administration. So please, Shay, if you could put that link in the chat again, this is really, really easy to do. You just click it and you just fill out your address and it automatically sets up a letter to the Biden administration, his secretary of state, his secretary of defense and your members of Congress saying that you support this deal. And for you, it's a voting issue. So take an action. Nagar and Assal, I'm gonna turn it back to you for questions, but they have armed us with a lot of knowledge and they're gonna continue to do so. But if we don't take action, we're wasting that. So honor what they've done for us, what they're doing for us tonight. Use that knowledge and make a demand. And with that, I wanna get to your great questions. I think I'm gonna hand it back over to Marcy. Okay, so Brian, so is there a link that you want people to click on? Yep, it's right there in the chat. And Shay, if you can put it there again, I think you made a nice bitly link as well. It's bit.ly slash save the deal email. It's right there in the chat. You can click that, it takes a minute, maybe even less. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, I see it right there. That's terrific. Yeah, usually we put it on the screen, but then you can't click on the link and people get a little frustrated. So please just visit the chat, click on the link. There's a form to fill out and that's our action. That's our first action. Okay, thanks so much, Brian. Anya. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Marcy. Thank you, Brian. So let's dig in and let's ask some questions. I see so many wonderful questions in the chat, which Medea and I will go back and forth and ask. But Asal and Negard, we talked about how this is such a celebratory moment if both countries in fact do end up coming to an agreement on JCPOA, but Robert Malley is finding himself a bit alone here, right? And can we, Negard, talk about why this is happening? Sure, Anya, thank you, Brian, to those excellent comments. I just want sort of a disclaimer to some of my previous comments that Iran does have problematic foreign policy and certain regional policies, certain presences across the region, that it's not only the US, but US allies, the Europeans also take issue with. But when it comes, and we don't disagree with that, also domestic repression, the use of human rights in various areas, the crushing of the civil society, of peaceful protest and all of that. But on this nuclear deal, on this very historic agreement, as Brian also mentioned, and against what was expected, despite what was expected right after the JCPOA, there was all this talk from, again, critics of diplomacy that Iran is going to cheat, Iran is not going to abide by this deal, they're gonna sign and go turn around and do something again. They stuck to their commitments under the deal. And again, as Brian very well explained, it was the United States who pulled out of the deal for no reason, for no violation from the other side. And in fact, Iranian state in the deal, in full commitment to the deal, even after President Trump pulled out for a long while, and then they started reducing compliance. But going to your important question, Hania, there's been some public reporting and also some behind the scenes talks. It seems like a few members of the negotiating team sort of went back to the State Department, to other positions and are no longer part of the team. There was some reporting in the Wall Street Journal and some other outlets. And there was this sort of this intonation that it was coming out of personal disagreements. But my understanding is that it's more of a big picture and policy disagreement. So basically, Robert Malley, yes, he's the special envoy on Iran, he's the chief negotiator on the US side, but he's not implementing his own personal decisions. He's implementing the decisions of the president, his decisions are made in the White House, and he's basically the diplomat that relaying back and forth. And that's why all the diplomats have left Vienna. There's a break in the eighth rounder going back to their capitals to sort of consult and take direction. So whatever the disagreements were, and we don't have exact details, but it was with the policy that's being implemented from the White House and with the support of the president himself. And that's why, again, going back to my initial remarks, it's important that President Biden puts his political support behind this because it's an issue that's very sensitive in Washington, in the US. It has many critics, it has many powerful critics just as we were talking, Senator Menendez was criticizing a return to the JCPOA as it exists. So it needs the full support of the president some spending of political capital. But on this issue of personnel changes, first of all, it's not unusual, but I think the disagreement has been with policy. And again, this goes back to sort of a cautious optimism that I have that a potential outcome may be in sight. Thank you, Negar. And Asal, did you also want to add to this or should we move on to Medea's question? I think Negar answered it very well. So I think we should move on to the next question. Great. And Medea, please take it away. Yes, there are so many wonderful questions. One series of questions seems to be about the sanctions themselves. Well, first, is it the same deal or have there been changes to the original deal? The sanctions are understanding is that there are sanctions that are separate from the JCPOA. Will they continue to be in place and how biting are those sanctions? Will the Iranian people start to feel relief from some of these sanctions in relatively short term when, and then there have been questions related to that. Does this mean that Iran will be able to be back in the international banking system? And how much during this time of the sanctions have they circumvented that? And will that continue as well for Iran to have an economy that is less dependent on the West? So maybe we could start with Asal for that. Sure. I mean, that had a lot of parts. But I'll say this about how the sanctions are being approached, at least when you listen to the Biden team and how they talk about it. So one of the things that the Trump administration did and they did so intentionally at the behest of think tankers who thought who didn't want the deal, opponents of the deal, wasn't just that the Trump admin put a series of sanctions or reimposed a series of sanctions, but they intentionally tried to make it difficult for the Biden admin to reverse those sanctions. How do they do this? They double and triple sanctioned the same entities. So what happens is with the JCPOA, there are nuclear sanctions. And so the nuclear sanctions must be lifted. And that's why the Biden administration has talked about it as sanctions that are inconsistent with the deal. That phrase has been used by different members of the admin. Sanctions that are inconsistent with the deal will have to be lifted, clearly, because that would be the US holding up its end of the deal. But for instance, say something like the central bank of Iran. If it got sanctioned under the Trump administration under nuclear sanctions, it also got sanctioned under, say, terrorist sanctions. And so what does that do? The reason it makes it difficult for the Biden admin is because now the backlash will be, oh, but you're lifting terrorist sanctions. But of course, this was an intentional path taken what was called the sanctions wall. And the reason why was to make it impossible for an ex-administration to return to the deal. So it really had nothing to do with the implementing of the sanctions had nothing to do with why those entities were under pressure besides to make it impossible to return to the deal. Now, the phrasing, I think, is actually quite important by saying sanctions that are inconsistent with the deal would have to be lifted. That's not all US sanctions. First of all, the US never lifted all sanctions. But sanctions that went after, because the Obama admin made it, created tougher sanctions on Iran, which they both said about at the time as well, using phrases like crippling sanctions or how much inflation it has caused, how much it's actually, it was hurting Iranian people even then. But that compared to maximum pressure under Trump is quite a different ballgame. Trump's maximum pressure decimated the Iranian middle class. And you have millions of people who were forced into poverty. And no less so because a lot of that time was spent in a pandemic, which we don't have to look far, we're the richest, most powerful country in the world. And yet we have felt, at least ordinary Americans, not billionaires, have felt the impact of the pandemic in our own lives. So imagine now adding to that being the most sanctioned country in the world by far, which is Iran. So in order for the Biden admin to lift sanctions that are inconsistent, it would have to lift the sanctions that are suffocating Iran's basically entire financial sector. It would have to allow for oil sales. It would have to do something where it didn't have to lift every single American sanction. For instance, targeted sanctions on human rights abusers, individuals in the Iranian government who are human rights abusers who have committed human rights violations. If they are individually sanctioned, there's no reason why those sanctions can't stay in place. But that is not the same thing as blanket sanctions that make it impossible for any business, any investment, any just a basic transaction. That's the problem right now. The problem is no bank will administer a transaction for fear of violating US sanctions. That means even medicine. That means nothing. They just won't do it. So there's a whole debate about how sanctions can be used as a tool. But this is not targeted. This is very intentionally and knowingly. Remember that statement I mentioned about Biden, knowing that it goes as far as essential goods, we have maintained all of them in place. And so there's definitely a lot of space that if those sanctions were in fact lifted and there were certain guarantees made to businesses that if they invested in Iran, they would not be punished for doing so. Then that would be a huge breath of oxygen to the Iranian economy and could help Iranian people certainly. Nega, is there anything in all those questions that you wanted to add? Sure. As Assal mentioned, basically the Trump administration has created a mind field for the Biden administration to specifically prevent them from returning in the reimposed sanctions. And the web of sanctions pretty much are designed in a way that make it very difficult. Because the Iranian side, their experience with the JCPO in 2015 was that despite the lifting of whatever sanctions that were lifted back then, they didn't see so much of the economic return that they wanted. Even European companies and banks were afraid, continued to be afraid. Even after the JCPOA and the lifting of sanctions, they were afraid of doing business with Iran for the fear of using the bigger market, which is the United States. And then after the withdrawal from the JCPOA was just complete lack of economic return under the deal. And now the Iranian side is asking for meaningful and verifiable sanctions relief. So I know there are some questions about the details of what kind of sanctions will be lifted and what this will look like. We don't have those details. We won't know the diplomats are holding their cards very close to their chest. And nothing basically is agreed until everything is agreed, as the diplomats always say. But we know that the Iranian side is serious about getting this kind of sanctions relief. And maybe in the form of comfort letters from the United States from OFAC, the Office of Foreign Asset Control, the Treasury Department to certain banks, certain companies in Europe and Asia to assure them of being able to do business with Iran. We don't know the exact details, but the Iranian side is very serious about this verifiable relief and also the economic returns. And there was another question about Iran media. I believe you wrote that about Iran-Saudi relations. I think that's a sort of interesting point about this administration, this conservative administration of Ebrahim Raisi, the new foreign minister, who also is a conservative himself, Hossein Amir-Abdollahiyan, and has been in the foreign ministry for a long time. He is actually an expert on Iran's relations with the Arab world that had been his role as a deputy in the foreign ministry. And it seems like that's the one area that there may be surprisingly some development in Iran, the outreach to Saudi Arabia, and the willingness on the other side, on the Saudi Emirati, the countries of the Persian Gulf, to sort of engage with Iran and reduce tensions. So I wouldn't be surprised if we see some positive developments there as far as the region itself trying to reduce tension in a form of dialogue, which obviously didn't happen under President Trump because Saudi Arabia and Emirates had the full support of the US and were more emboldened when it came to their opposition to Iran. But with the Biden administration, I think that sort of carte blanche of the Trump administration no longer exists. And there's also the feeling on the other side, not just on Iran's side, that maybe there needs to be more engagement in outreach. So I think there has been multiple rounds of engagements with Saudi Arabia and there might be some positive news there within this administration. And in general, I think we're going to see more of a shift to the region and towards the East with this new administration in Iran, as opposed to the previous moderate administration that had more of an outlook at least to the West, especially they were really looking forward to doing business and trade with Europe, which didn't happen even after the JCPOA. So just to wrap up on that regional thing, Nicar, could you say a word about Israel? Is this considered a loss for Israel or did Israel get something out of the US getting back into the deal? Well, the general consensus of the Israeli intelligence apparatus even back then during the Obama time, even though there was very public and political pushback to the negotiations and the deal by former prime minister Netanyahu, the intelligence community and the security community concluded that the JCPOA was actually a benefit in within the national security benefits of Israel because it was the best way to put a limit and monitoring and verification on a relatively a program. And now we're hearing more criticism from Israeli officials, some former officials of the Netanyahu government criticizing his support and push for President Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA. And we also heard that criticism on the Senate floor from Senator Menendez. So those who pushed President Trump to pull out of the JCPOA, hoping for a better, stronger, longer deal or the sort of 12 demands that Secretary Pompeo had put on for Iran and achieve none are, I think we're hearing more criticism and a lot of them are coming from different circles in Israel and surprisingly, some former officials of the Netanyahu government. So I think a return to the JCPOA would be not politically speaking, but from a security and nuclear perspective, it would be to Israel's benefit as far as security because it's essentially, what is the JCPOA? The JCPOA is an agreement to convince Iran to put monitoring, the most rigorous monitoring structure on its nuclear program and ensure that it remains civilian. So I think it's good for everyone in the region, but obviously also for Israel. Can I add something? I just wanted to add because we're talking about Israel and Nagar said that a deal would be in terms of like the security of the region, stability of the region, it would be best because what do we think? We think nonproliferation is the best way to deal with sort of the weapons world that we exist in. Now, something interesting when we talk about Israel and you always have to remind everybody, Israel is a nuclear power, but nobody will acknowledge it, including the United States. And the reason why that's important is because Iran entertains the idea, would support the idea of, if you actually believe in nonproliferation, then the Middle East should be a nuclear free zone, which Iran supports, as do basically most of the countries in the region. Guess who doesn't support that? The United States and Israel. So the problem becomes this double speak where we state an objective, but none of our policies actually fulfill that objective. So it's not a question of nuclear weapons are bad and we don't want anybody to have them. So we wanna make sure that Israel has an advantage and that no one else has them. And again, we cannot, as long as we, the United States as the most powerful country in the world continues to not act as an even-handed broker in any of these issues, it means we have no credibility in dealing with them. But Iran is willing, has clearly shown that it is willing to have oversight of its nuclear program. It's a signatory to the NPT, to the nonproliferation treaty. And that should not be missed what, and I think the reason why I wanted to say it is what Negar said is so important. What is the JCPOA? The JCPOA is a nonproliferation agreement and it is according to experts in that field the strongest one historically. So that should be something that we not only celebrated but that we built on and expanded into other areas of the region. Instead, we've done nothing but undermine it over and over again. That's extremely important. And we'll wrap it up with this next question here which will be for both of you to respond. We've been sharing a ton of links in the chat and one would be Dr. Rod's article, recent article that just came out, Roots Action Through Progressive Hub has also published an article on JCPOA. It's written by myself and my colleague Charles Lankner as well as, I do urge for our Iranian-American woman here on this call to sign the statement urging the Biden administration to join the JCPOA, as well as if you know anyone in your network, please do share the statement because we would love to have your support and we'll share that in the chat shortly. But just to kind of wrap it up and sum it up, this has come up a couple of times in the chat. House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding an expert briefing on the Iran nuclear deal on or Iran's nuclear threat on Friday. How should we try and influence a lot of questioning? What are the important questions for pro-JCPOA members to ask? Any of you if you could. Asad, do you want to go first? Can you repeat the question actually? Absolutely. So for people who are attending this call who we've taken action obviously, how can we influence Congress? How do we take action? How do we say enough is enough, right? And also that there's that hearing that you mentioned. Correct. Yeah, I mean, in general, I think the idea is to pressure our politicians. Obviously there's what the individuals can do and then there's what organizations can do. And we right now on this call represent multiple organizations, right? So I think a coalition of organizations, peace activists, pro-diplomacy voices, anti-sanctions voices. I mean, this goes across different sort of elements of advocacy work that people do is really we need pressure on the administration to act. And that pressure is as simple as the action that Brian shared, calling your representative, having meetings with your representatives with your senators and say, because one of the issues that exists, remember we said it's just political will. The Biden admin has to know that they at least have the support of their own government, right? Their own Congress. And so that's where we need to put pressure. As well as on the administration itself, I think one of the issues in my view has been that a lot of people who are supporters of Biden sometimes have a difficult time criticizing him, which is odd because I always think that that's the nature of a democracy, right? If you voted for Biden, if you helped fundraise for him, if you told other people to vote for him, if you did anything where you actually supported this administration, that's precisely who this administration should be answering to, right? I actually think that we should be, if you are the supporters of one admin, then that is the one that you should put more pressure on because they are more likely or at least should be more likely to respond to it because for instance, why would a Trump admin, probably many of the people on this call were not necessarily Trump supporters? Why would they listen to a group of people who don't vote or support them? This admin has to. That is how they're going to get reelected. If that's the intention, sometimes I question at times for this first year what the intention of this admin is, but we need to put pressure on them. And I think it's about not sort of being nervous to criticize them as if that's going to hurt the chances of them being elected in three years. What will help them get elected is if we actually put the pressure on to carry out the policies that the people who, the 80 plus million people who voted for him wanted to see happen. And I will point this specific statistic out, poll after poll has shown that the majority of Americans, a bipartisan majority of Americans agree with the deal and want the issue with Iran resolved in a diplomatic fashion through negotiations. So it is odd to me that this government, if it is indeed a democratic government would even entertain any other option when that is the will of the people by partisan. I have to say this, I have to emphasize this. The majority of Republicans think the same thing. It's a much larger majority on the Democrat side, but nonetheless, there has to be that pressure from those voters in order for that to happen. Thank you so much, Saul Rod of the National Iranian American Council, NIAC, and also, excuse, yes, in Nagar Mortazavi, host of the Iran podcast journalist author. It's our great pleasure to host you tonight. And at this point, before we go into the second action that Brian's gonna do this in, please unmute and thank our guests. Everybody can unmute and thank. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Oh, brilliant. This is very useful. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you all very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. All right, at this point, we're gonna now, we're now gonna go to Brian Garvey, back to Brian, because we have a second action. We wanna make sure that we take action after hearing these very motivating speakers. Tell us what the land of the land is. So, Brian, yes, what's next? Thanks. And, you know, like Marcy just said, I think everybody recognizes Asal and Ligar, that I was absolutely brilliant. And what you've done is you've armed us with the knowledge that we need and the motivation to take action, right? You can see it in the news today. The Iran nuclear deal is on the front pages. It's being considered right now. The political calculus is happening. And we can change that map. So, 136 of us have taken action. So, if you can put that link in the chat once more, I'm just gonna go through it really quick, because it's so easy. And so, there's about 70 of us left who can take that action. I'm just gonna share my screen. You can see, you just click the link and it goes here and you just fill out your information. And this link will allow you to make a public statement for those who are using Twitter. If you're signed into Twitter, you can make a statement to all of these folks, to the president, to your senators. You got my senators here in Massachusetts, my representative who's in a leadership role and also the secretary of state and secretary of defense. And you can tweet these people directly. It's so easy, right? Two clicks. I just sent a message to the president of the United States. And we know how vain politicians are. They care about their mentions on Twitter, on social media. And it's that easy. All it takes is three clicks. Click in the chat, what Shay is putting in right now to the social media portion of this. And I'm just gonna send a message to Ed Markey, right? Just gonna click him. And Brian, if somebody's not on Twitter, they can do the first action. Yeah, sure. So let's take another look at that one, right? Because not everybody's taken that action yet. I can understand. I mean, Asal and Ngar and Hanya and your questions were very compelling. So maybe you were just really focused on that. I couldn't blame you. But if you click that first link, it's incredibly similar, right? You just put your information in here, click next. Oh, sorry, I got the wrong link myself. But it's that first one. It's save the deal and let me just share again. The second one. So the second one was for those who are on Twitter, yeah, we're going back to the first one because not everybody's on Twitter, right? The Twitter is good because it's public. It's a public ask. So it's mounting pressure that's not just behind the scenes that's out there in the open. But the first action, it just generates a message, right? That talks about the importance of the deal and the promise to rejoin it. And where are you at a year into this? We expect you to do what you campaigned on. This is not a difficult task that we're making. And also it was mentioned before, this is one of the crowning achievements of the Obama administration. One of the biggest achievements of the president's former boss. So there are people in that administration like John Kerry, right? This was a great achievement of his who I'm sure wants the JCPOA restored because that's a feather in his cap, right? So what we need right now is just to a push, right? Because there are people in the administration that have been dragging their feet and there are people in the administration that want us to get back in this deal. And we need to be on the right side. Nagar was right. And you'll hear this criticism as a peace activist. I'm sure many of you have heard it before, you know, support for the JCPOA does not mean we're making the government of Iran a paragon of virtue. That is not what we're doing here. What we're doing is promoting diplomacy, trying to make US-Iran relations normal again. And that's gonna improve the situation for the people all across the region for Iranian citizens. It's gonna improve life for US citizens, especially those of Iranian descent who do face a lot of awful and disgusting racism because of our horrible foreign policy against Iran. So let that motivate you, take these actions. And, you know, I think that we can get over 200, over 200 messages sent by the end of this. I don't think that's unreasonable. And, you know, you have this knowledge, you've heard how important this is. So do something about it, you know? Thank you, Ryan. Yes, thank you so much. And as long as we're making some pitches, I would just like to encourage people to join the Code Pink Congress Google Group because that's where we issue a lot of our action alerts. You know, the kind of urgent ones, last minute action alerts. And to do that, Shay will post the link in the chat and also want to make a pitch for Code Pink Congress liaisons. We have about 75, there are 435 congressional districts. So we have a ways to go, but we're off to a great start and we want more of you to join us because as us all said, it's supposed to be the people's house, right? The Biden administration, they need your votes. It's incredibly important that we weigh in. All right, with that, let's go to Cole to introduce our next speaker on video. Yes, just briefly, Senator Markey, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts has made a video with his thoughts. You know, he has been a consistent supporter of returning to the Iran deal. You know, and he would be the first to say that he has criticism of Iran and so on, but he has, you know, throughout this process been a strong supporter of the deal. So he's just made us a video to give us his current assessment. I think Shay, are you gonna show that? There we go. Hello, I'm Senator Ed Markey. It's Massachusetts Peace Action and Code Pink to support diplomacy with Iran. In the first weeks of the Biden administration, I reintroduced my Iran Diplomacy Act. It backs the Biden administration's efforts to return the United States to the Iran nuclear deal, provided Iran also comes back into full compliance with its non-proliferation commitments. Diplomacy works. The proof is that by the time that President Obama left office, the Iran nuclear deal had lengthened the time required for Iran to acquire enough nuclear material for a bomb from weeks to a full year. The deal eliminated 98% of Iran's stock of enriched uranium and cut off its plutonium pathway to a nuclear weapon and it put into place the most intrusive verification measures ever negotiated in a non-proliferation agreement. So sorry, all videos stalling, let me put it a moment. Well, we're stalling. I just want to give a little promo for the Iran podcast. Nagari is the host of that and you heard her tonight, she's terrific. So the Iran podcast. Thank you so much. I'm so sorry, everyone. I'll say this will come later tonight. Maybe we have some people signing up for Code Pink Congress, to be a Code Pink Congress liaison and to join our Google group. That would be fantastic. So we can better communicate with you and until he starts talking. It is the gold standard. In short, the Iran nuclear deal was working. It prevented war and a bomb. But that did not stop President Trump and John Bolton from blowing up the deal in 2018 and reimposing nuclear-related sanctions. Trump's unilateral decision lifted the lid that the world placed on Iran's nuclear program and raised US tensions with Tehran, bringing us perilously close to a war on two occasions. Since the US exit from the nuclear deal, Iran has taken several concerning steps to increase its stock of nuclear material and it has denied IAEA inspectors full access to declared and non-declared facilities. The best and the only durable way to prevent a nuclear Iran and a catastrophic war is through diplomacy. However, time is of the essence. All sides should return to their commitments under the Iran nuclear deal and then we can work to address other areas of concern. Let me be clear. Military action will not prevent Iran from entering the Nuclear Weapons Club. It is likely to spur it on. Only a negotiated agreement can move us beyond the dangerous status quo and aggressive Iran regionally that is also not abiding by the limits on its nuclear activities. Thank you again for your steadfast support for diplomacy. Together, we can shape a future that is defined by peace and not pranksmanship. You have always been leaders. Thank you for everything that you are doing. Let us continue to advocate for a peaceful resolution of all of these issues. Senator Ed Markey, certainly one of the best in the Senate. Thank you, Cole and Brian, for having him record that video. Cole, any final thoughts or maybe you can share how people can learn more about Massachusetts peace action? Yeah, I just wanna thank everyone for coming. We had a thorough discussion tonight but there's probably even more questions. Obviously even when the Iran deal, if and when the Iran deal gets restored that is not gonna be the end of tension in the Middle East that the United States still has many foreign policy mistakes to correct as it looks at the Middle East. And I could just start with Yemen and Syria. So, this is just one step in a journey but it's a really important step and we really need to get over this hump. So please share the action page, have friends and neighbors, family members take the action as well. Mass peace action has a couple of events coming up. Should have brought these right on my screen. We too, along with CodePink are organizing actions on the Ukraine crisis this weekend. We already have actions in Northampton, Greenfield and Boston plan and I think Providence. That was not directly mapped with another group. We also have a webinar Thursday on the brink understanding the Ukraine crisis and past towards a just peace with two scholars. Richard Sakwa from the University of Kent and Nina Khrushcheva who is the granddaughter of the former premier at the new school. And they're gonna be interviewed by Joseph Khrushchev on Thursday at 2 p.m. And then we have next week we have a webinar on nuclear power on Monday night. We have one on the Afghanistan financial crisis also Monday night with a professor who is a board member of the Afghan Central Bank. We have a webinar on missile defense with Subrata Ghoshroy on Wednesday the 9th. And then on February 12th, we are doing a, the veterans for peace are doing a presentation on their nuclear posture review. They've written a detailed report on what the United States nuclear weapons policy should be Saturday, February 12th in the afternoon. So thank you all for coming. We appreciate it. The next in our series is gonna be on the harassment of Palestinian activists in the United States on February 15th. That's the next in our four parts series by mass peace action code pink on foreign policy. And we will see you then. Thank you so much, Cole. And Hania, perhaps you can share with us what's happening with Roots Action. Roots Action is also co-sponsored in this tonight. And you have a statement that you're circulating we wanna hear about that as well. Absolutely, thank you so much, Marcy. Thank you, Cole. Thank you, Brian. As always, thank you, Marcy Winograt and Nadia Benjamin and our beautiful speakers and as always an honor. So in addition to the statement that we have issued by Iranian-American women on behalf of the suffering of the Iranian-American population in Iran under sanctions, we are also leading a few other campaigns. One is to combat vaccine apartheid. And we as Roots Action stand obviously in solidarity with the People's Vaccine Alliance and their 80 members, including public citizen Oxfam, the Joan United Nations program on HIV AIDS, the African Alliance and the Global Justice Now and calling pharmaceutical corporations and the world leaders to immediately share technical know-how with qualified manufacturers throughout the world to facilitate a scale of production of billions more COVID-19 vaccine doses and to urgently boost supplies. Also, I know that Norman Solomon has been leading on the abolishing of the ICBM campaign co-chaired by our beloved Dan Ellsberg. And so we will be, I'll share this information with everyone now, please visit RootsAction.org. I'll put the websites in the chat as well as progressivehub.net to keep up with our post recent events. And if you haven't signed up to get our latest news and our events that we have coming up, we can share that with you through the website. Yeah, passing it back to Marcy. All right, terrific. I thank all of you for your participation. Our guests, Esal Rod and Agar Mordazavi. I thank our co-sponsors, Code Pink, Massachusetts Peace Action, RootsAction, and our co-host tonight, Brian Garby Cole Harrison of MAPPA and Hania Jodad Barnes of RootsAction, Medea Benjamin, my wonderful colleague at Code Pink, and also Shay Labau, who does our tech, a big shout out and applause for Shay. She works so hard and she organizes the Code Pink Congress liaisons. And we want our liaisons to be active on a number of fronts. One, to push our house reps to tell Biden rejoin the deal, as we've been talking about, to say, unfreeze the assets for Afghanistan. We don't want starvation there, not occupation to starvation. We want somebody in the house. Is there someone in the house with the courage to introduce a Yemen War Powers Resolution? Come on. We are asking our reps, please ask your rep to do that. Do show up Saturday, if you can, this Saturday during those protests, Pelosi fast-tracking the weapons to Ukraine. No, we don't want a war with Russia. No, we don't want to throw gasoline on the fire. CodePink.org, you'll find out more about those protests. And we have one in LA planned in front of the federal building and I'll be there. I hope to see you if you're in LA. I hope you'll join us. Okay, with that, I'm going to say good night. I also want to thank John Douglas. I don't know if John's still with us, but he often plays music at the end of our show and he's a very talented musician. Check him out on YouTube. Thank you all. And we're going to give you a little time to save the chat. And then we'll say good night. It's three dots at the bottom of the screen. See you soon.