[Peace] impt: urge Rep. Davis sign Price/Dent letter, Iran diplomacy opening on Iranian election

[Robert Naiman]

Dear fellow Champaign-Urbana area lovers of peace,

Once in a blue moon, there's a good opportunity to push Congress in a good
direction on diplomacy with Iran. Most of the time, it's like that scene
from the Matrix where Morpheus shows Neo what the world really looks like.
But every once in a while, there's an opening.

Right now, there's an opening, because of three things.

One, Iran just had a presidential election. To the surprise of many, the
candidate who won, Rouhani, was the candidate saying, hey, let's try to get
along better with the West.

Two: there's a bipartisan letter in Congress to President Obama saying,
hey! We noticed that Iran just had a presidential election. We noticed that
the guy who was saying, hey, let's try to get along better with the West,
was the guy who won. So, like, why don't we try to test things with the new
guy with diplomacy before jacking up the confrontation again?

Three: this letter is being supported by groups in DC that have been
pushing for diplomacy with Iran, including the Friends Committee on
National Legislation, the National Iranian American Council, and J Street.
And also CREDO.

Finally, as is often the case with these things, there is a special effort
to try to get Republicans to sign the letter, because only 15% of the
current signers are Republicans. And that means that Rep. Davis is special,
because in the set of Republicans, he's a plausible target. Voted for
McGovern's recent amendment on Afghanistan withdrawal, for example.

So here's my request:

1. Please call Rep. Davis' office in DC at (202) 225-2371, ask to talk
to Kaitlyn Hastings, who's the Foreign Policy LA. Probably you will get
transferred to voicemail. Fine. Leave a message with your name and address,
asking that Rep. Davis sign the Price/Dent letter calling for President
Obama "to pursue the potential opportunity presented by Iran's recent
presidential election by reinvigorating U.S. efforts to secure a negotiated
nuclear agreement."

2. Please send me a note letting me know that you've called. I'm trying to
get folks in DC to push on Davis, and I want to be able to say, X people in
the district have called.

3. Please forward this note to other folks you know who might call. If you
know folks in the district outside of Champaign-Urbana who might call,
(e.g. Decatur, Bloomington, Springfield) forwarding this note to them would
be especially helpful.

Thanks!

P.S. The text of the letter is here:
http://fcnl.org/issues/iran/diplomacy_with_iran_letter/

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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