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nuclear weapons
Veterans Reclaim Armistice Day for Peace
Armistice Day, November 11, is a day for solemn reflection, prayer, and the ringing of bells—a day to recommit ourselves to ending the wars at home and abroad.
Nov 11, 2026
Armistice Day, a national holiday on November 11, is now celebrated as Veterans Day. Understanding why requires us to recall World War I and its aftermath.
World War I was an international conflict, 1914-18, that embroiled most of the nations of Europe, along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the “Central Powers”—mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey—against the “Allies”—mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, and—from 1917—the United States. The war was unprecedented in its slaughter, carnage, and destruction. Over 15 million people were killed, both soldiers and civilians, and over 25 million were wounded.
The fighting between Germany and the “Allies” ended in November 1918 when an armistice was declared at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.” This was a moment of hope for world peace. There was also a sense of great tragedy. Many people prayed that Armistice Day would serve as an eternal warning never to repeat the past. Then came the even greater carnage of World War II (1939-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953).
“Veterans want an end to endless wars.”
In 1954, national veterans’ organizations American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) successfully pushed the Congress to change Armistice Day to Veterans Day, a day to honor those who fight in war, thus turning the holiday’s original meaning on its head. It is notable that that the American Legion and the VFW have a well-established records of cheerleading for US wars.
The national organization Veterans For Peace (VFP), in contrast, is dedicated to “exposing the true causes and costs of war,” and to “restraining our government from intervening, overtly or covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations” (from VFP Statement of Purpose).
For over a decade, the 41-year-old veterans’ organization has been working to Reclaim Armistice Day as a day dedicated to ending war once and for all. Veterans For Peace chapters lead Armistice Day activities all around the country, many incorporating the ringing of bells at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.”
Veterans For Peace Is Calling for an End to the War on Iran
“The US-Israeli war on Iran is illegal, immoral, and dangerous for the whole world. It must end immediately,” said Michael McPhearson, executive director of Veterans For Peace. “Veterans want an end to endless wars,” McPhearson continued. “Here in the US, we want ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the military out of our communities. We want peace at home and abroad.”
No More US Bombs for Genocide in Gaza
Veterans For Peace is calling for an end to US arms shipments to Israel. The Trump administration plans to deliver powerful 2,000-pound bombs to Israel as part of an upcoming arms deal, weapons that prompted such concerns about the possibility of mass casualties in Gaza that the Biden administration paused their delivery two years ago.
“When US bombs stop dropping on Palestinian children, the genocide will end” said VFP vice president Joshua Shurley.
Will the US or Israel Use Nuclear Weapons Against Iran?!
Two nuclear-armed states, the US and Israel, are waging war against a non-nuclear-armed state, claiming without evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. Now there is talk about whether the US or Israel may actually use nuclear weapons against Iran. The possibility of nuclear war is being normalized. What is wrong with this picture?
Veterans For Peace has developed a “toolkit” of useful Armistice Day resources and provides resources for military personnel and families who are looking for legal alternatives to participating in illegal wars or war crimes.
Armistice Day, November 11, is a day for solemn reflection, prayer, and the ringing of bells—a day to recommit ourselves to ending the wars at home and abroad. Let’s reclaim Armistice Day!
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Stay Alert! A Weakened Trump May Be the Most Dangerous Trump of All
When confronted with popular rebuke, an oligarchic ruler faces a stark binary choice: Either come down with an iron fist or back off and go back to running their businesses. In choosing Miller to be his alter-ego and essentially run the executive branch, Trump’s clearly chosen the iron fist strategy.
Nov 09, 2026
Then-Senator John F. Kennedy gave a speech in 1959 in which he said:
“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters—one represents danger and one represents opportunity.”
While Kennedy’s generalization about Chinese calligraphy was slightly off, his description of “crisis” perfectly represents where we are right now:
- Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who’s studied strongmen her entire career and wrote a brilliant book about them, calls this “late-stage radicalization,” the dangerous phase when a weakened autocrat purges wafflers from his regime, strengthens his loyalists, and lashes out at anybody who may oppose him.
- Obama adviser Robert Pape, who runs the University of Chicago’s project on political violence, just said that the next eight weeks until Democrats are sworn will be the most dangerous weeks of our entire lives.
- Dr. Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist who’s a regular guest on my program, made a similar warning based on President Donald Trump’s twisted psychology, telling The Independent newspaper about Trump’s affection for talking about using nuclear weapons:
[Trump] is extremely attracted to them without understanding their ramifications: for him, they are just bigger bombs. However, there is no scenario in which the use of nuclear weapons would not lead to a catastrophic end to life as we know it. Unless he is contained, he could be driven to use them now, rageful as he is about his defeat against Iran, and desperate as he will be to salvage his image from being a "loser".
She added:
We have a truly narrow window between his defenses being low and his "recovering" himself to attack even more vehemently.
She said that just before Trump had appointed Stephen Miller to be his chief of staff, the guy who essentially runs the presidency, indicating that Trump is now in the “recovery” mode of moving toward full-on tyranny.
I’m familiar with Dr. Lee’s “window”—when Louise and I started and ran a community and school for severely abused children in the late 1970s, we worked with numerous abusive families. The most deadly moment in the relationship is when the abused spouse (typically the wife) finally decides to leave; that’s when most spousal and even whole-family murders happen, and is why shelters go to such lengths to remain anonymous.
Perhaps most ominously, this weekend Trump posted on his Nazi-infested social media site that Democratic members of Congress “are extortionists and they should be imprisoned” and ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate them. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Attorney General Todd Blanche flat out if he’d go after members of Congress, he said, “It depends on what’s said, so yes, there could be [pursuit of criminal investigations].”
When Bash asked him about Trump and him throwing Democratic members of Congress in prison, he replied, “It depends on what the crime is and what they’ve done.”
The “crimes” they were discussing were Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) telling college students they might want to think twice before going to work for this regime, and Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) telling Trump’s people to “lawyer up.”
That’s it. Our acting attorney general is saying—like with former FBI Director James Comey’s picture of seashells spelling out 8647—that speech that offends the president is now a potential felony that can lead to years in brutal federal prisons or, at the least, “investigations” that can break an average person financially and destroy their retirement savings in legal fees.
I wrote about this moment at length in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy, noting that oligarchy—when the morbidly rich take control of government and turn its power toward enriching themselves and their buddies—is always a transitional form of governance that typically lasts less than a generation.
The reason why is simple, and we’re seeing it played out in this past election and the No Kings marches. When people realize that the government has been taken over by criminals and grifters, they rebel and demand a return to honesty and transparency.
At that point the ruler faces a stark binary choice: Either come down with an iron fist, as the Chinese did at Tienanmen Square and Russian President Vladimir Putin did in the early 2000s, or back off and go back to running their businesses and let the people have their government back, as happened here in the US after FDR came to power and called out the “economic royalists” who “hate me, and I welcome their hatred.”
Trump initially, Tuesday night, told Fox “News” that he’d work with Democrats, but since then he’s brought in Stephen Miller and started talking about imprisoning the Democrats who’ll be investigating his family’s criminal syndicate and his and Miller’s violent abuses of our Constitution and law.
In choosing Miller to be his alter-ego and essentially run the executive branch, Trump’s clearly chosen the iron fist strategy.
As The New York Times reported Saturday, Miller:
- Pushed the murderous war crimes of striking civilian boats in the Caribbean;
- Helped turn the prosecutorial power of the federal government against political opponents and universities;
- Oversaw the federal military occupation of Washington, DC;
- Circulated Trump’s draft executive order to restrict mail-in voting; and
- Openly discussed invoking the Insurrection Act when the people of Minneapolis came into the streets to protest the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) murder of two of their citizens.
Miller called Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the local VA hospital, a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin”: Pretti had been holding a phone.
If Trump decides to go full Putin, the machinery for such a crackdown was put into place late last year with his National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which directs the FBI, Treasury, and Internal Revenue Service to treat “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “extremism on migration, race, and gender” as “indicators of domestic terrorism.”
It’s already been used; in June eight people who supported a 4th of July demonstration outside the Prarieland ICE facility in Texas were sentenced to a combined 450 years in federal prison.
The one guy who shot and wounded a police officer got 100 years in prison, but under the terrorism conspiracy rubric the other seven got 30 to 70 years in prison each; Daniel Estrada, who wasn’t even at the protest, got 30 years in prison for moving a box of zines.
This is Putin’s “iron fist” now carved into American law and already executed at least once, probably as a test case; Trump and Miller appear ready to push it as far as they can, meaning anybody who opposes this regime is at risk. Miller was reportedly pushing this weekend for journalists to be thrown in jail, just like in Russia.
The New Republic recently reported that Trump is pressing for the still-Republican-controlled House and Senate to jam through an appropriation of $166.1 million for 328 new positions, including 130 special agents, to more fully implement NSPM-7 through a new Joint Mission Center drawing in 10 federal agencies.
And Attorney General and Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer Blanche said that Trump himself has a “right” and a “duty” to order federal investigations—including into politicians and writers who oppose him—and boasted on NewsNation that he’s installing “roadblocks” inside the DOJ so Trump himself can never be prosecuted after he leaves office.
That’s the “danger” aspect of Kennedy’s quote. The “opportunity” side is the power that House and Senate Democrats will have in another two months. A handful of Republicans may join them, as several called Miller’s appointment a “horrible decision” and one called him a “megalomaniac” on the record.
The margins in this election bring to mind the vote in April in Hungary, where Trump’s closest European ally and fellow Putin-suck-up Viktor Orbán lost so badly that he had no choice but to step down and allow a democratic transition in that nation. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes, the strongman’s playbook has no chapter on how to lose.
So, here we are, presented with both great danger—Trump could do just about anything, including provoking a world war and declaring a national emergency to prevent Democrats from being seated in January—and great opportunity for a cleansing and democratic renewal like we last saw in the 1932-1981 New Deal era.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is a probably apocryphal quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but it perfectly describes this moment and the next two years. And that vigilance is our job.
Stay updated, reach out to your elected officials (202-224-3121),and let them know you support accountability and the rule of law, and help keep friends and family awake. Share this message and others that promote the ideals of our democracy rather than Trump’s and Miller’s thuggish worldview.
Tag, we’re it.
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We Can Save Ourselves From Nuclear Annihilation
We need an outright rejection of nuclear weapons by all parties, including the US and Iranian regimes and a meeting of Trump, Putin, and Xi to build an off-ramp from the path of war and nuclear war.
Nov 07, 2026
The 1984 British movie Threads opens with ordinary scenes in Sheffield, England, where a young couple learns they are expecting a baby. Their personal story intertwines with news of a growing conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, centered on Iran. We next learn that a nuclear weapon is used in an attack, followed by another. Before long, Sheffield itself is the site of hydrogen bomb detonations, with our protagonists either perishing in the explosions or subsisting under devastating conditions of starvation, civil unrest, radiation-induced and infectious diseases, and freezing temperatures over the coming days, weeks, months, and years. The film ends with the 13-year-old daughter of the young couple from the start of the film giving birth to a deformed clump of flesh months after being raped in a lawless and collapsed society.
Forty-two years after this brilliant movie first gave people in the UK and beyond a glimpse of the unfathomable consequences of nuclear war, the opening scenes feel even grimmer than they did in the intervening decades, given how eerily similar they seem to our current moment. With the US and Israel continuing to wage war on Iran, and their respective leaders having been repudiated in public polls and elections, the prospect of nuclear weapon use and a wider nuclear war is seemingly more real than ever before. But unlike in the 1980s, when the general public was well aware of what was at stake, having been frightened by Ronald Reagan’s saber-rattling and educated about the dangers of nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War, including through cultural interventions like popular films, today, when President Donald Trump repeatedly threatens to annihilate Iran, the media and the general public seem to shrug and move on to other news of the day, checking perhaps on what Kim Kardashian had for breakfast.
The seriousness of Trump’s threats cannot be overstated. The two of us have been warning in Al Jazeera and other outlets that, sick and desperate as they may be, it behooves the world to take them seriously and make sure a nuclear attack on Iran, or anywhere else for that matter, never happens. Recently, popular media figure Tucker Carlson and other commentators have joined us. The internet is abuzz with such warnings.
Ask yourself what Russia and China will think if the US and Israel use a nuclear weapon in Iran. Will they think that they are next?
The logic is simple. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are both desperate to salvage what little credibility they may have with their publics by demonstrating that this war with Iran was not a total failure. If the purpose of the war had been to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon or weapons, then having Iran acquire a nuclear weapon or weapons would be the ultimate repudiation of their efforts and proof of their folly.
Both US and Israeli intelligence agencies report that Iran has shifted the locus of its nuclear enrichment from Fordow and Natanz to the Kuh-e Kolang underground complex widely known as Pickaxe Mountain. The complex is buried under 300 feet of granite, which makes it impenetrable for US or Israeli conventional weapons, including the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB), which Trump has threatened to use. Tucker Carlson shared that he had an “informed source” who told him, “Bibi calls Trump about it [a nuclear strike] every day.” Fortunately, Trump has not yet given the go-ahead.
The background to all this is that Iran has made clear that it will neither export its enriched uranium nor cease its enrichment activities, both of which it had done before Trump stupidly blew up former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal or JCPOA. With the deal in place, Iran had also mothballed most of its centrifuges and, according to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, was only enriching to 3.67%—well below weapons grade. Ayatollah Khamenei had issued a fatwa against building an Iranian nuclear weapon, which remained in effect until he and other Iranian leaders were killed in a joint US-Israeli strike back in February. Now numerous Iranian leaders have publicly insisted that Iran needs a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against another US or Israeli attack. Evidence suggests some Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders have also adopted this view, even as official Iranian government policy continues to reject such actions.
And then, there is Israel. Despite an official policy of “nuclear ambiguity” and refusal to acknowledge possessing a nuclear arsenal of between 90 and 250 nuclear weapons, Israel has long made known that there will be no constraints upon its actions if it faces what it considers an existential threat. Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have stated unambiguously that Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon would constitute such a threat. In an April exchange on Israeli television, Israeli journalist Shimon Rivkin declared, “Why aren’t we using what’s called a neutron bomb?” The host then turned to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir who smiled and said, “Let him speak.” While Netanyahu has denied contemplating such an action, in late October he posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear weapon exploding over Tel Aviv, which he called a “second Holocaust.” He quoted right-wing commentator Yuval Blumberg, who wrote: “The state of Israel is in real and tangible existential danger. If the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons, nothing will ever be the same again.” Other Israelis have also bandied this idea about.
Trump has made clear that he is contemplating striking Iran after today’s midterms. Before having a stroke, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut said he had been briefed on Pentagon attack plans, and they are “insane.” Carlson also said Vice President JD Vance was urging restraint because a negotiated deal is still possible, but Vance himself earlier claimed the US has “tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use.” We’ve also heard from others with strong White House connections that they're contemplating such steps. In recent months, Elbridge Colby, Pentagon policy chief, has been calling for the US to amend its nuclear policies to facilitate the use of tactical nuclear weapons should fighting break out in the Pacific.
No one can be certain how the use of a nuclear weapon or weapons against Iran would play out. A single strike on Pickaxe Mountain could in itself bring a huge humanitarian catastrophe to the city of Natanz and the broader region. Even if Tehran, some 220 kilometers away, did not fall in the path of the fallout, a large portion of Iran and the broader region could end up covered in radioactive particles that would remain in the environment for days, weeks, months, years, and even thousands of years. The details would depend on how powerful the weapon is and on wind and weather patterns immediately after the explosion.
But beyond the specifics of what one nuclear weapon could do to Iran and the region, it is important to remember that this is not 1945; the explosion of a single nuclear weapon is widely expected to lead to a wider nuclear war. It may not be a matter of if, but when. Regardless of whether there is initial restraint, as world leaders are sobered up by the breaking of the nuclear taboo, or not, we can expect bombs to start flying everywhere soon enough. There are 12,200 of them, after all, in possession of nine nuclear-armed states. Ask yourself what Russia and China will think if the US and Israel use a nuclear weapon in Iran. Will they think that they are next?
And just like in Threads, human civilization will collapse, not just in the Sheffields of the world, but everywhere. As the American scientist Carl Sagan once said: “Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”
We need an outright rejection of nuclear weapons by all parties, including the US and Iranian regimes; a meeting of Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping to build an off-ramp from the path of war and nuclear war; and engagement of figures like Pope Leo XIV in matters of peace and existential risks to humanity, as we called for in our recent appeal to the good pope. We can save ourselves from ourselves.
This piece was first published in Arabic in Al Jazeera.
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Beyond Climate Chaos and Militarized Security at COP31
COP31 must be more than another conference of promises. It should mark a political turning point where climate action, peace building, and disarmament, including nuclear disarmament, are recognized as mutually reinforcing priorities.
Nov 04, 2026
The climate crisis will not wait for geopolitics to improve. As leaders gather in Antalya, Türkiye from 9-20 November 2026 for the 31st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP31, the world enters a moment where extreme weather, energy insecurity, armed conflict, and rising militarization reinforce one another. Half measures are no longer enough. Governments must arrive with the courage to act and leave Türkiye with commitments equal to the crises already unfolding: record heat, devastating floods, mass displacement, and fragile energy systems.
COP31’s agenda is demanding: accelerating the just energy transition; closing the adaptation finance gap; strengthening early-warning systems; and improving transparency in emissions reporting, including sectors long exempted from scrutiny. A strong El Niño is developing against exceptionally warm oceans, increasing the likelihood of extreme heat, drought, floods, and disruptive rainfall. These risks translate into deaths, displacement, damaged infrastructure, food insecurity, and pressure on communities already affected by conflict and poverty. Climate inaction is increasingly a failure to protect human security.
Climate Risks as Human Risks
Human security is climate security. Climate impacts are not statistics; they are lived realities for families, elders, persons with disabilities, and communities already carrying the weight of conflict and poverty.
The climate crisis demands a redefinition of security: one that prioritizes human survival over military prestige.
Over decades of work in health, disability, humanitarian action, and human security, I have learned that crises rarely arrive one at a time. For people already living with illness, disability, displacement, poverty, or insecurity, one disruption can quickly become another: Electricity fails, essential services are interrupted, mobility becomes harder, and the margin between vulnerability and catastrophe narrows.
For peace and disarmament campaigners, the message is clear: The world cannot confront climate chaos while expanding military systems, fossil fuel dependence, and nuclear arsenals that deepen insecurity. Global military expenditure reached about $2.9 trillion in 2025, the highest level ever recorded. At the same time, developing countries face a severe shortfall in the finance required to adapt to climate change. The question is not whether governments have resources, but what they choose to define as security.
Military activities depend heavily on fossil fuels and generate substantial greenhouse gas emissions through aircraft, ships, vehicles, bases, procurement, and supply chains. One major assessment estimated that the global military carbon footprint could account for about 5.5% of global emissions, while noting serious gaps in reporting. National security exemptions must not become a blind spot in climate accountability.
Nuclear weapons add an even more severe dimension. Their production, testing, deployment, and potential use carry catastrophic environmental consequences. The use of even a fraction of the world’s nuclear weapons would trigger a nuclear winter scenario: global cooling, crop failure, and mass starvation. Such an event would undo decades of climate progress and plunge humanity into a combined climate-nuclear catastrophe.
Energy insecurity provides another warning. Disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has shown how dependence on concentrated fossil fuel supply routes exposes economies to geopolitical shocks and price volatility. True energy security must mean reducing dependence on vulnerable fossil fuel systems through renewable energy, efficiency, storage, and electrification.
There are encouraging signs. The Santa Marta process has brought governments together around cooperation for a fair transition away from coal, oil, and gas. The Electrify Now coalition seeks to accelerate electrification and expand renewable-powered energy systems. These initiatives show that cooperation remains possible even in a fractured geopolitical environment.
But solidarity must extend further. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that developing countries may need more than $300 billion annually for adaptation by 2035, several times current international public adaptation finance. Those who contributed least to historical emissions are often among those facing the greatest consequences. Delivering climate finance is not charity. It is responsibility and justice.
COP31 also exposes a political reality: Some governments continue to resist global consensus on climate ambition, transparency, and equitable finance. Their withdrawal from collective commitments weakens global action and directly harms communities whose security depends on adaptation, resilience, and stable public services. When governments step back from responsibility, the burden falls on the most vulnerable. This is not a policy gap; it is a human cost.
The Military Footprint in a Warming World
For the disarmament community, COP31 offers a critical opportunity to challenge the assumption that militarization, and especially nuclear deterrence, is the natural answer to climate insecurity. Border fortification, arms races, and competition over resources deepen vulnerability rather than resolve it. Climate stress can aggravate existing tensions, but it does not inevitably cause war. The appropriate response is cooperation, equitable adaptation, resilient public services, and peaceful management of shared resources.
Nuclear weapons offer no protection against climate extremes. They cannot stop heatwaves, floods, or droughts. They cannot rebuild destroyed infrastructure or feed displaced families. Yet they absorb enormous financial, scientific, and political resources that could instead strengthen climate resilience. Every dollar spent on modernizing nuclear arsenals is a dollar not spent on clean energy, adaptation, or public health. The climate crisis demands a redefinition of security: one that prioritizes human survival over military prestige.
Climate and disarmament campaigners should therefore ask governments to make the connections visible. Military emissions should be measured and reported transparently. Climate finance should not be crowded out by escalating military and nuclear expenditure. Investments should shift toward clean energy, public health, resilient infrastructure, adaptation, and human security. Security policy must protect people, not merely territory.
Throughout decades of humanitarian and public service, one truth has remained constant: Our common future can only be secured through collective action. As extreme weather intensifies and energy systems remain vulnerable to geopolitical shocks, the world will be watching Antalya.
My years in humanitarian and public service have shown that real security begins with protecting people, not power. That is the responsibility we owe to future generations.
A Turning Point for COP31
COP31 must be more than another conference of promises. It should mark a political turning point where climate action, peace building, and disarmament, including nuclear disarmament, are recognized as mutually reinforcing priorities.
The time for treating these crises separately has passed. The world is already beyond the breaking point. The task now is to build a safer way forward: for the climate, for peace, and for the generations who will inherit the consequences of today’s choices.
Call for Action at COP31
COP31 must deliver concrete steps that reflect the urgency of the climate and human security crisis. Governments should commit to:
- Transparent reporting of military emissions within global MRV systems;
- Redirecting part of military and nuclear budgets toward climate adaptation and clean energy;
- Launching an international pathway to reduce the military carbon footprint;
- Closing the adaptation finance gap in line with UNEP estimates; and
- Embedding human security in climate policy.
Climate security is human security. COP31 must be a turning point toward cooperation, responsibility, and shared survival.
The measure of COP31 should therefore not be what governments say about security, but whether their decisions leave people safer, healthier, and better able to survive the crises ahead.
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To Avoid 'Unconscionable Horror,' Trump Called to 'Unequivocally Rule Out' Nuclear Attack on Iran
"Congress must urgently intervene to prevent further escalation and bring an end to this devastating war before an already horrific conflict becomes an irreversible catastrophe."
Nov 02, 2026
US President Donald Trump, who has long sought the Nobel Peace Prize while bombing various countries, is under pressure to rule out launching a nuclear attack on Iran after former Fox News host Tucker Carlson reported Sunday night that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing for one.
"The target would be Pickaxe Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program," Carlson wrote on social media. "No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike."
The US midterm election is on Tuesday, and according to Carlson, "close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7... To his credit, he's hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made."
However, Netanyahu "is cornered and desperate," Carlson noted. "After last week's election results, he can't form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations, and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war."
Responding to Carlson's post, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said that "whether these allegations reflect serious military planning or reckless posturing, the very possibility of a US nuclear attack on Iran is an unconscionable horror. After eight months of devastating war, Iranian Americans are once again being forced to wait in terror as the Trump administration reportedly weighs another catastrophic escalation at the urging of Benjamin Netanyahu."
"NIAC demands that President Trump immediately and unequivocally rule out any use of nuclear weapons against Iran," the group asserted. "Congress must urgently intervene to prevent further escalation and bring an end to this devastating war before an already horrific conflict becomes an irreversible catastrophe."
The group's policy director, Ryan Costello, stressed that such an attack "would be an unimaginable catastrophe in its own right, and the radioactive plume of a blast could extend hundreds of miles and reach major population centers, depending on yield and wind direction. Isfahan province alone, where Pickaxe is, is home to more than 5 million Iranians."
"The Trump administration would also have to consider the ramifications of breaking the nuclear taboo in a war of aggression," he continued, suggesting that the US and Israel using such weapons could spur similar action by the other nuclear-armed nations: China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United Kingdom.
Would Russian President Vladimir "abstain from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine if Trump had dropped a nuclear weapon in Iran?" Costello wondered. "It would be a new, far more dangerous world."
While people across the ideological spectrum expressed alarm, some dismissed Carlson's lengthy post.
However, Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim highlighted that "Tucker is extremely well sourced in the Trump administration and shouldn't be ignored if this is what he's being told," and fellow journalist Pablo Manríquez agreed.
Pushing back against one skeptic, Andrew Day, senior editor at The American Conservative, pointed out that recently "Trump threatened to 'annihilate' Iranian civilization and unleash 'military terror' not seen since World War II. Those statements are plausibly implicit nuclear threats. Now Trump is finding that conventional weapons don't force Iran's capitulation. Concern is warranted."
Iran's government was already preparing its people for a possible US nuclear attack, and last Friday, more than 200 global civil society groups implored Congress to stop Trump from using such weapons in a bid to end the illegal war that he and Netanyahu launched at the end of February.
"In recent weeks, President Trump has threatened to ‘hit Iran hard’ after the US midterm elections next week," wrote members of the Back From the Brink Coalition. "On October 15, President Trump stated that he would not use nuclear weapons against Iran. But frequent, abrupt changes of policy have become a staple feature of his presidency, and the single statement that he will not use nuclear weapons stands against a string of threats to do just that."
Even if Trump opts not to use nuclear weapons, there are mounting global concerns about his next steps. After being briefed on the administration's military schemes behind closed doors, US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) declared last week that "their plan is insane."
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that "America's Gulf allies are steeling themselves for a heavy US bombardment of Iran that they expect to trigger a vicious cycle of retaliation against their own economic and civilian infrastructure as early as this week."
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Who Needs a Dystopian Novel When You Have the Daily News?
A world with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in power is not the world that anyone should want to be on at a time when humanity has discovered at least two ways of doing this planet in.
Oct 27, 2026
I’ve read The New York Times since I was a teenager. It was once a way to keep up on the news. It’s now a daily way to experience a living nightmare of a world.
I’m thinking, of course, of Donald Trump’s world—although it could be Vladimir Putin’s, too—and that’s just to start down an ever-lengthening grim list. This, in all honesty, is not the world that anyone should want to be on at a time when humanity has discovered at least two ways of doing this planet in, the slow-motion version known as climate change and the (more or less) instantaneous version of nuclear war. And in this strange world of ours, who honestly knows what Artificial Intelligence, or AI, might be able to do when it comes to creating a potential third pathway to ultimate destruction? (Not this old man, that’s for sure.)
Consider it strange, given that nuclear weapons are clearly also doomsday ones, that, in the 80-plus years since the US dropped two of them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with devastating effect, including the deaths of more than 200,000 people (almost 40,000 of them believed to have been children), nine countries have come to possess far more devastating versions of just such weaponry. It’s now estimated that there are more than 12,000 nuclear weapons on this planet, with the US and Russia each believed to possess more than 5,000. That’s enough, of course, to destroy any number of planets, with most of those weapons six to 50 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Worse yet, their cumulative numbers only continue to grow in this world of ours, and they are ever more devastatingly powerful.
Can you explain to me what kind of creatures would plan for, pour funding into, and work to create anything-but-obvious or easy-to-produce ways of bringing about their own extermination, not to speak of that of all life around them?
Given our history over all these centuries (and the global hellscapes we’ve already created), what could possibly go wrong? Count on this (if you’re still counting): In the near future, the number of countries in possession of such weaponry will undoubtedly only rise again.
Once upon a time, end-of-the-world scenarios were nightmarish fantasies of fiction, the sort of thing that novelists like George Orwell or Aldous Huxley came up with and that I read with fascination in my youth.
Now, who needs a dystopian novel when, just sitting down each morning (or evening) to read the Times, as I still do (one day late, of course, since I read the paper version, which says plenty about this old man), has a strangely end-of-world feeling to it? After all, we humans have come up with at least a second (slow-motion) way to do in ourselves and every other living thing on this planet that has gained the all too mild label “climate change.” Why it’s not “climate devastation,” “climate destruction,” “climate catastrophe,” or something even worse? Change, really? Gee, climate mutation doesn’t sound so bad either, does it?
In mid-October, as I was starting this piece, I went out on my daily early morning walk in New York City, wearing just khakis, a long-sleeved shirt, and a light jacket. By 8:30 am, I had already tied my jacket around my waist and rolled up my shirt sleeves—and I still felt slightly uncomfortable.
I know, I know, any passingly hot day or even a warm few weeks doesn’t truly prove a thing. Still, only recently, record highs were “forecast to stretch all across the central and eastern United States, with temperatures running about 20°F above average, according to Weather.com meteorologist Rob Shackelford.”
In addition, the British medical magazine The Lancet‘s Commission on 21st Century Global Threats recently offered this apocalyptic scenario (as reported by The Guardian): “’Malicious use of AI, including bioweapons, and nuclear conflict with nuclear famine carry risks of extinction in the next 75 years,’ the report said, adding that, while their likelihood remained low, they had the potential to end humanity in the case of nuclear conflict by injecting enough particles into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight and cause famine, or via AI-created biological weapons.”
And as Jeet Heer recently pointed out at The Nation magazine, “AI is clearly the most dangerous technology that humankind has developed since nuclear weapons, and our current lack of oversight for it is a travesty.”
Am I surprised? Not really... sigh...
Living in a Dystopian Novel of a World
In truth, I’m already too damn old to genuinely grasp that third possibility for ultimate destruction, involving AI—though anything AI-related makes me instantaneously anxious as hell. Though it’s not possible anymore to avoid AI if you’re simply looking for something online, I still do my damnedest (so to speak) to avoid it otherwise, since I prefer to be on a planet where the best and worst things in life aren’t caused by some almost unimaginable computer-created irreality—or do I mean surreality, since this world seems (thank you Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin!) ever more surreal in all too many ways?
Of course, here’s the truly strange thing: Can you explain to me what kind of creatures would plan for, pour funding into, and work to create anything-but-obvious or easy-to-produce ways of bringing about their own extermination, not to speak of that of all life around them?
I know, I know, that first way of doing us all in, atomic weaponry, still passes for war. But explain to me, what a country could possibly win with more than 5,000 nuclear weapons? Honestly, how mad can you be to purposely create ever more world-ending weaponry to—yes!—(theoretically) defend yourself?
In truth, if this heavily nuclear-armed world of ours and leaders like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin weren’t our reality, this piece would be the most unbelievable kind of dystopian fiction around.
And then, of course, we humans put in power characters like Donald Trump, who, at the United Nations this September, implicitly threatened to use such weaponry to “annihilate” Iran, or Vladimir Putin, who has actually threatened to use nuclear weapons in any future conflict with other European powers that might develop out of his war on Ukraine. Ask yourself, would you really choose to put either of their trigger fingers on the American or Russian nuclear arsenals?
And how much madder do you have to be, as president of the United States (no less), than to put so much of your extra energy into promoting anything that will burn down (or do I mean burn up) this planet of ours? That, of course, is what “our” president is now doing when it comes to the full-scale promotion of the ever greater use of oil, coal, and natural gas. And, of course, he not only continues to essentially deny that climate change is even happening, but at the UN last year called it “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” Consider him nothing short of a promoter (of course, who doesn’t know that he’s a promoter?) of a world-ending reality—or do I mean surreality?
Honestly, I’d like to bring George Orwell and Aldous Huxley back from the dead so many years later, because I’d love to read Orwell’s next novel: 2030 or Huxley’s Brave New Trump (or, for that matter, Brave New Putin). And give me some credit here, since I haven’t even bothered you with the possibility that India and Pakistan, both nuclear armed, could someday engage in a globally devastating “limited” nuclear war, creating what’s known as a “nuclear winter” on this planet that might kill not just Indians and Pakistanis but billions of the rest of us.
In truth, if this heavily nuclear-armed world of ours and leaders like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin weren’t our reality, this piece would be the most unbelievable kind of dystopian fiction around. And yet, keep in mind that, at this very moment, given climate change, we’re already experiencing a slow-motion version of nuclear-style disaster on this planet of ours. Hopefully, I’m (mis)reading the times (as well as the Times) when it comes to our future nuclear peril. Unfortunately, when it comes to the slow-motion version of nuclear war, which we call climate change and the overheating of this planet of ours, a distinctly dystopian future is already well underway.
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To End the Iran War, the US Must Understand Tehran's Perspective
Trump and US war planners misread Tehran’s perception of the war. Iran is not on the verge of collapse; on the contrary, its leaders are now committed to match escalation with escalation until securing a negotiated settlement based on mutual concessions.
Oct 24, 2026
The war between the United States and Iran persists in a dangerous strategic stalemate. As Washington maintains a punishing economic and maritime blockade, Tehran continues to restrict passage through the Strait of Hormuz, imposing mounting costs on the United States, its allies, and the global economy. Neither side appears prepared to concede.
The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft carrier strike group to the region, while the Trump administration is reportedly considering strikes against Iranian nuclear and energy infrastructure, potentially using the GBU-43/B bomb, known as the “mother of all bombs.” Both moves support the possibility of the United States attempting to break this stalemate through force. Iran, meanwhile, has in recent weeks intensified attacks on commercial vessels attempting to transit Hormuz outside its designated route, with strikes becoming more frequent and destructive.
Washington appears to be continuing to misread the Iran it is confronting. The wars of 2025 and 2026 accelerated a fundamental shift in Tehran’s strategic thinking, away from years of relative restraint and toward a determination to impose sustained costs on the United States and its allies. Iranian leaders increasingly believe that their earlier restraint invited further attacks rather than deterring them, and that absorbing more punishment without retaliating forcefully would only encourage additional aggression.
Tehran is still willing to negotiate, but it is far less prepared to give up its leverage based on American assurances that it has little reason to trust.
A failure to understand this changed posture makes another round of American or Israeli strikes particularly dangerous: Rather than compelling Iran to surrender, it would likely provoke an even more damaging Iranian response. Tehran’s growing willingness to escalate does not mean it has abandoned diplomacy. The challenge for President Donald Trump is that the Iran emerging from this war is one less willing to yield to coercion, which remains open to a settlement based on meaningful reciprocal concessions.
Washington’s Options—and Their Limits
The central question is whether Washington is preparing to break the stalemate militarily. But as Carl von Clausewitz famously argued, war is a continuation of politics by other means. Whether Trump chooses to escalate therefore depends on his assessment of the political objectives at stake and whether further military force can advance them. The buildup of American forces alone tells us little about that calculation, particularly after months of warfare and economic coercion have failed to compel Tehran to yield.
How Washington perceives the war will determine what it believes it can do to break the current stalemate. If Washington sees continued economic hardship as eventually forcing Tehran to accept its demands, it can maintain the blockade and continue the war of attrition. But if the United States and Israel launch another major attack, it would suggest at least one of them no longer believes the current balance of pressure is working in their favor, or that they can afford to wait for Iran to buckle. Such an escalation would presumably seek to shift that balance by inflicting enough additional damage to compel Iranian concessions, particularly on the nuclear issue, where Tehran has resisted demands to surrender its stockpile of highly enriched uranium upfront, and over the future of the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran is seeking a new arrangement that preserves its leverage over maritime traffic.
Further attacks are likely to backfire, particularly given Tehran’s growing conviction that restraint has only invited further aggression. Iran has considerable scope to intensify its own pressure through Hormuz and strikes on regional energy infrastructure, driving up oil prices more, further disrupting global markets, and making the war even more costly for Washington to sustain. Tehran may also escalate on its own if it concludes that the existing level of disruption is insufficient to force American concessions. In either case, a new round of escalation could shift the balance of pressure further against Washington, leaving Trump in an even more difficult position despite inflicting greater destruction on Iran.
For Tehran, the experience of the war has reinforced the belief that surrendering its leverage before securing concrete American concessions would leave it vulnerable to renewed pressure and attacks.
A failure to understand Tehran’s own political calculus is a persistent problem in Washington, and one often at the root of maximalist attempts to compel changed behavior by coercion or force. Should the Trump administration pursue force despite Tehran’s changed posture, it will be repeating the failure of many presidencies before it.
The remaining options are political. Trump could unilaterally ease or end the blockade and effectively abandon the effort to compel Iran’s surrender, though that appears unlikely under present circumstances. Another similar possibility, according to CNN, is a final, spectacular military strike, potentially involving the “mother of all bombs,” designed to give Trump a symbolic “victory” he can declare before withdrawing. Some military planners have reportedly discussed what amounts to a “fireworks show,” even if the strikes fail to achieve Washington’s stated objectives. But such an exit would depend on Iran’s response, and Tehran could instead retaliate with further attacks on shipping and regional energy infrastructure, making it harder for Trump to declare the war over.
More realistically, Washington could negotiate a compromise to end the confrontation, accepting that any durable settlement will require meaningful concessions from both sides, including reciprocal steps on sanctions, Hormuz, and the nuclear issue.
The two sides remain far apart, however, on what a negotiated settlement would entail. Tehran continues to insist on seven conditions for ending the war, including lifting the blockade and sanctions, and presented mediators with a proposal during the United Nations General Assembly in September. The proposal reportedly builds on the June Islamabad memorandum of understanding (MOU), but changes the sequencing of concessions: Washington would first have to fulfill Iran’s conditions, including lifting the blockade and releasing frozen Iranian assets, before Tehran eases its restrictions on Hormuz and enters substantive nuclear negotiations.
This reflects Tehran’s deep distrust of Washington, rooted in what Iran sees as the United States’ failure to honor its commitments under the June MOU and by the subsequent resumption of major hostilities for 13 days in July. Washington, by contrast, is pressing for immediate nuclear concessions, including renewed inspections and removal of enriched uranium, while offering more limited economic relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets.
The central impasse is therefore not simply over the terms of a possible agreement, but over who must deliver first. For Tehran, the experience of the war has reinforced the belief that surrendering its leverage before securing concrete American concessions would leave it vulnerable to renewed pressure and attacks.
Against this backdrop, the battle over Hormuz has become an increasingly costly contest of adaptation and counter-adaptation, illustrating Tehran’s determination to impose economic costs rather than simply absorb American pressure. The United States and its Persian Gulf partners have developed an elaborate ship-to-ship transfer system in which smaller shuttle tankers carry oil through the strait, hugging the Omani coast, often under US military protection and with their tracking systems switched off, before transferring their cargoes to larger vessels in the Gulf of Oman. Many of these crossings take place at night while still under Iranian fire. Nevertheless, alongside Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline to the Red Sea, this has helped restore substantial volume of oil exports despite Iran’s restrictions, and at a price premium. Tehran has responded by sharply escalating attacks on vessels using these routes, including tankers involved in ship-to-ship transfers. The conflict has also expanded to the Red Sea, where Iran-aligned Houthis have attacked Saudi shipping and energy infrastructure and curtailed the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, while a separate drone strike launched from Iraq temporarily shut down Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. These workarounds and countermeasures have kept both sides in the fight, but at mounting economic cost. The ship-to-ship transfer system is being pushed to its limits, freight and insurance costs have soared, Brent oil remains well above $100 a barrel, US gasoline and diesel prices have surged to record levels, and the resulting inflationary pressures are driving up borrowing costs across the American economy.
Realistic Paths to End the War
Iran’s increasingly aggressive campaign around Hormuz illustrates how profoundly the war changed Tehran’s approach to deterrence. As I argued in a recent Quincy Institute report, the wars of 2025 and 2026 have accelerated Tehran’s shift from strategic patience toward a doctrine of persistent counter-escalation. Tehran’s leaders now operate from an assumption that earlier restraint invited further attacks rather than deterring them, a changed posture revealed in a willingness to weaponize Hormuz and threaten the wider regional economy despite the enormous damage Iran itself has suffered. Another major American or Israeli attack is therefore unlikely to restore the old pattern of Iranian restraint. Instead, it could strengthen Tehran’s conviction that only sustained pressure on American and allied interests can deter further attacks and compel Washington to compromise.
Yet a more confrontational Iran is not necessarily an Iran unwilling to negotiate. As I argued in a separate Center for International Policy report, American policy has repeatedly underestimated Tehran’s capacity for pragmatism while overestimating the likelihood that mounting pressure will produce capitulation. Iran has a long history of pursuing diplomatic openings when its leaders perceive a credible opportunity to advance national interests, from the Rafsanjani and Khatami presidencies to the negotiations that produced the 2015 nuclear agreement. Even amid the present war, Tehran continues to put forward proposals for a negotiated settlement. What changed is its assessment of the risks of making concessions without reliable guarantees of American reciprocity. Tehran is still willing to negotiate, but it is far less prepared to give up its leverage based on American assurances that it has little reason to trust.
Washington retains overwhelming conventional military superiority, but months of warfare have shown the limits of pursuing maximalist objectives, whether Iran’s unconditional surrender or the collapse of its government.
Trump would be wise to recognize both realities. The June Islamabad MOU, together with Iran’s subsequent proposal at the UN General Assembly, offers a starting point for renewed diplomacy. The June understanding envisaged reciprocal steps, with Washington easing its blockade and economic restrictions and Tehran loosening its grip on Hormuz and eventually addressing its stockpile of highly enriched uranium through new nuclear negotiations. Reviving that framework would require the two sides to agree on a credible sequence of verifiable concessions, particularly given the latest collapse of trust following July’s renewed fighting.
Neither side would get everything it wants, but an agreement along these lines would offer Trump something that months of military escalation have failed to deliver: a way to end the war without inviting another round of potentially catastrophic Iranian retaliation in the region. Washington retains overwhelming conventional military superiority, but months of warfare have shown the limits of pursuing maximalist objectives, whether Iran’s unconditional surrender or the collapse of its government.
The question now is whether Trump will continue seeking capitulation through military pressure, or recognize that the war has made Tehran more determined to resist coercion while remaining open to a negotiated compromise.
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A Framework for Peace in Ukraine
This proposed settlement—designed to help end a conflict that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation—addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms.
Oct 20, 2026
The war in Ukraine can be ended permanently on terms that protect Ukraine's statehood, meet Russia's security concerns, and lay the foundation for a durable European security order. As another round of negotiations gears up in Norway, I propose a settlement concluded as a single package, signed by Ukraine and Russia, adopted by a vote of the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter, and guaranteed jointly by the five permanent members of the Council together with other states that choose to join. The proposal rests on the principle of indivisible security set out in the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris.
The package would have four core commitments.
The first is Ukraine's permanent neutrality, adopted in a constitutional law on the model of Austria's law of 1955, which would return Ukraine to the founding choice of its Declaration of State Sovereignty of 1990. Ukraine would join no military alliance and host no foreign bases or forces, whether of NATO, the European Union, their member states, or Russia. Neutrality would not mean disarmament, and Ukraine would retain armed forces for its own defense.
The second is that Ukraine would pursue its candidacy for membership in the European Union as a permanently neutral state, with a neutrality protocol in its accession treaty on the model of Ireland's, and Russia would affirm that Ukraine's membership in the EU is consistent with Russia's security.
The third is an armistice line drawn along the line of contact on the date of signature. Each side would exercise de facto jurisdiction on its side of the line, neither would recognize the other's territorial claims, and both would renounce force in any future adjustment. This formula is compatible with both countries' constitutions, which bar or severely restrict the cession of territory.
The fourth is the end of NATO enlargement eastward. At signature the North Atlantic Council would declare that NATO will not admit Ukraine or other new members in Eastern Europe or the South Caucasus, withdrawing the Bucharest pledge of 2008.
The settlement would take effect as a permanent end of hostilities on signature, not as a temporary ceasefire, and its provisions would be implemented in stages under international verification. No element would be negotiated in isolation, and no party would be asked to make a concession in advance of signature.
The territorial arrangements are designed to address the concerns and claims of both sides. Ukrainian forces would withdraw from the part of Donetsk region that Ukraine now controls, which would become a demilitarized special zone. Russian forces would not enter it, the existing local civil administration would continue to function, and its final status would be left to negotiation. Russia would withdraw from the areas it holds in Dnipropetrovsk region and from the Kinburn Spit. A Northern Security Zone would be demilitarized on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border, and Russian forces would leave the areas they hold in Kharkiv and Sumy regions as Ukrainian forces withdraw from their side. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant would remain under Russian control with IAEA safety oversight and would sell an agreed share of its electricity to Ukraine at cost.
A demilitarized belt would run along both sides of the armistice line, with heavy weapons and long-range strike systems withdrawn to agreed distances, and mutual ceilings on forces would apply in the border regions on both sides. In the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, commercial navigation would be free for all Ukrainian and Russian ports, and attacks on shipping and ports would be prohibited.
The settlement in Ukraine should also begin the repair of European security as a whole. NATO and Russia would agree on a moratorium on ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Europe, refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any additional state, and restore the NATO-Russia Council. Normal diplomatic relations would be restored on both sides. The parties would convene the first summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe since 2010 to entrust the OSCE with monitoring the settlement, verifying arms limits, and overseeing the provisions on rights.
Questions of language, education, culture, and religion would be resolved according to European standards, with the Russian language treated on the same basis as Ukraine's other minority languages, and Russia would accept the same obligations toward Ukrainian speakers and religious communities on its side of the line. All obligations concerning extremism and incitement would be mutual and monitored by the OSCE. Prisoners of war would be exchanged on an all-for-all basis, detained civilians released, and separated children reunited with their families.
Sanctions would be lifted during 2027. Russia's immobilized sovereign assets would also be released, and private property seized or immobilized on both sides would be restored. An international reconstruction fund administered by the European Investment Bank would finance reconstruction on both sides of the line, with contributions from all parties, Russia included, in a common effort rather than as reparations. Gas transit through Ukraine could resume wherever there are willing buyers, without any commitment by the European Union to purchase Russian gas.
A report of serious violation by an OSCE monitoring mission of unarmed observers from states outside NATO would trigger consultations among the guarantors and referral to the Security Council. Ukraine would lift martial law and hold elections under OSCE observation, and the newly elected Verkhovna Rada would ratify the settlement and adopt the constitutional law on neutrality, while the Russian Federal Assembly would ratify it at the same stage.
This proposed settlement addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms. Europe has been largely absent from the design of the peace. By putting forward such a framework, European governments can take the lead in building Europe’s indivisible security and help end a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation between nuclear powers.
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Take Action October 20 to End the Illegal US-Israeli War on Iran
The war is not just illegal, but massively unpopular with the US public, and Trump and his Republican enablers may take a deserved shellacking, in no small part because of the war, at the polls in November, but voting is not sufficient.
Oct 19, 2026
President Donald Trump has been less than coy about possibly ramping up his illegal war of aggression against Iran after the midterm elections, and now states the United States would not use a nuclear weapon, but possibly the “Mother of All Bombs,” MOAB for short—with apologies to that lovely town in Utah—officially the GBU-43-B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb. The target would supposedly be Iran’s energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities, which were supposedly obliterated by US and Israeli attacks over a year ago.
A few reminders are in order. The US-Israeli war on Iran is illegal under domestic and international law, lacking authorization from Congress and the United Nations Security Council. Combined with ongoing attacks on Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, the region is in flames, and putting out the fire with gasoline would be a stupendously bad move. There are indirect diplomatic talks underway, and those need to succeed, and quickly, to end this disaster harming the people of Iran, the region, and the US and global economy. Unfortunately, Trump, ever the statesmen, quipped, “I don’t know who the hell we are negotiating with.”
Iran does not have nuclear weapons, and was verifiably in compliance with its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), foolishly abrogated by Trump in his first term (and former President Joe Biden, who as vice president was part of the Obama Administration that negotiated that agreement, inexplicably failed to renew while in the White House). Yet Iran still does not have nuclear weapons, and the US (thousands) and Israel (hundreds) do.
Moreover, the US plans to send more conventional weapons to Israel (the latest proposed shipment being 40,000 one-ton bombs) and Saudi Arabia, and to conclude a nuclear technology deal with the latter, which cannot help but put Iran and other countries in the region even more on edge.
The war is not just illegal, but massively unpopular with the US public, and Trump and his Republican enablers may take a deserved shellacking, in no small part because of the war, at the polls in November.
Voting is crucial, but not sufficient. On Tuesday, October 20, just two weeks before the midterms, peace advocates will hold dozens of rallies across the country to demand Peace with Iran NOW! A coalition of nearly 100 national and local organizations, including the National Iranian American Council; Action Corps; Peace Action; and veterans, faith-based, peace, and human rights organizations, are holding rallies at congressional offices to demand the following of Congress:
- Cut off funding for the war;
- Enforce the Iran War Powers Resolutions passed by Congress (which make clear the illegality of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war of aggression);
- Demand accountability for the Minab elementary school bombing on the first day of the war, which reportedly killed 120 children as well as teachers and staff AND investigate the bombing of the civilian wedding party in Kuhestak. The public deserves a full accounting, and the victims’ families deserve truth and accountability; and
- Support diplomacy, sanctions, and a peace agreement to end the war.
Looking longer term, a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone was first proposed by Iran and Egypt over five decades ago, and establishing such a zone was included in the UN Resolution that ended the first US war on Iraq. It remains to be established, but still could be a useful part of the solution to the current mess started by the US and Israel.
We need lasting solutions, including the following:
- End this war now, via diplomacy, or Congress refusing to fund it;
- End the sole authority for any president to initiate a nuclear attack, especially when Congress has not declared war;
- Dramatically reduce the War Budget, especially for nuclear weapons and Golden Dome; invest in human needs and addressing climate catastrophe; and
- Support a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
For now, the immediate priority is to demand Congress do its job, and we have the opportunity to say so, loud and clear, at pro-peace rallies on Tuesday, October 20.
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We Can't Ignore the Insanity of Trump’s Threats to Annihilate Iran
It is not possible to excuse, justify, or condone this kind of rhetoric. The only question is what to do about it.
Oct 18, 2026
Of all of the things that President Donald Trump has said publicly since returning to the White House, his threats to annihilate Iran are arguably the worst. This is not only because the repeated statements are deeply immoral and illegal—deliberate killing of civilians is a war crime—but because they represent the kind of irresponsible rhetoric that will lead us into a global apocalypse and collapse of not just the Persian nation but human civilization as a whole. It is not possible to excuse, justify, or condone this kind of rhetoric. The only question is what to do about it.
As much as some well-meaning people might want to see nuclear weapons as instruments that ended World War II and have kept the peace ever since, the exact opposite has actually been true. Nuclear weapons brutally murdered a couple of hundred thousand civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and injured and sentenced to years and decades of illness and suffering many hundreds of thousands more. As we have written before, multiple alternatives existed to end the war in 1945. In many ways, the false narrative of the atomic bombings averting an invasion and saving lives has enabled the perpetuation of nuclear weapons, bringing the risks to humanity’s survival to levels previously unimaginable. Turning a brutally violent beginning of the nuclear age into something positive has managed to complicate and obfuscate an issue that should never have been complicated. Nuclear weapons are and have always been immoral. Their possession should be illegal.
Although the end of World War II coincided with the advent of nuclear weapons, and we have technically not fought another world war since, this is merely a correlation. Other significant changes in our world, including the founding of the United Nations, technological and scientific progress, and globalized trade, took place over that same time period. In addition, one has to wonder, whose peace we are talking about. Since 1945, over 20 million people have died in armed conflicts around the world, with up to 50 million more indirect deaths stemming from those conflicts. Today, there are nearly 100 armed conflicts across the planet according to the Geneva Academy, and 25 international armed conflicts involving more than one nation state.
It is not reassuring to have the US president talking about nuclear bombs exploding over American cities.
All along, in addition to the deaths and suffering in war zones across the planet and the horrific toll exacted by poverty and inequality, humanity has been waiting almost helplessly for another nuclear weapon to explode by accident, miscalculation, or intention, likely triggering a full-blown nuclear war in which tens or even thousands of nuclear weapons are used. The past eight decades have witnessed numerous incidents in which human wisdom and decency or just plain luck interrupted a course of events that seemed inexorably leading to nuclear war. Nuclear weapons have not brought the peace. Quite the opposite—they threaten what little of it we have each and every day.
And yet, for all of his threats on Truth Social and most recently in the halls of the United Nations, Trump has also stated that nuclear weapons “could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over,” calling for “denuclearization.” In fact, two days after his unacceptable statement to “drive [Iran] into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness” at the UN General Assembly in September, Trump suggested to President Xi Jinping in DC that there be a nuclear summit between China, Russia, and the United States.
Trump did so knowing full well that Xi’s government’s participation in arms control negotiations is contingent upon China achieving rough parity with the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia. This should be pursued not by China continuing to expand its arsenal to the gargantuan size of the US and Russian arsenals, but by the US and Russia reducing theirs to the size of China’s, and adopting China’s demand for an across-the-board no-first-use policy.
Since his latest threat, delivered in the world’s premier diplomatic space unlike his earlier Truth Social rants, including the one on April 7 that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump actually seemed to welcome Iranian destruction of Los Angeles and San Diego at an election rally. Even if he now unconvincingly claims that the original clips, which suggested that such destruction was a small price to pay, were taken out of context and the small price to pay was about the price of gas, it is not reassuring to have the US president talking about nuclear bombs exploding over American cities. Never mind that Iran neither has the nuclear weapons nor the ability to send missiles toward US soil. Nuclear Armageddon seems to be on Trump’s mind.
Is the real estate developer who seemed to understand that a lot of effort, capital, and human ingenuity, not to mention time, go into building modern cities gone? What happened to the businessman who in 1986 “summoned Dr. Bernard Lown of the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) to the Trump Tower for a meeting?” Trump sought advice from Dr. Lown on negotiating nuclear arms agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev just after IPPNW had won the Nobel Peace Prize a year earlier. Is that person no longer here or do his “denuclearization” comments offer some hope?
Among those refusing to be passive in all of this is Pope Leo XIV who has not only deplored war and called for nuclear disarmament but who recently decried leaders, presumably including Trump, who are “beginning to speak about nuclear weapons and wars that are becoming ever more destructive,” and urged leaders to “come together, sit down, engage in dialogue.” The Holy See was one of the original parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and remains a strong supporter of nuclear abolition. It is time for Pope Leo XIV, speaking for the planet, to use his unique moral authority to demand an emergency summit of, at a minimum, Trump, Xi, and Vladimir Putin to get us off this path of war and potential nuclear annihilation.
In addition to insisting on such actions from others, each of us needs to think long and hard about what we can do to address the insanity of Trump’s threats and the insanity of nuclear weapons.
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