Why We Oppose The War In Iran
/FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Leaders Network of Chicago
“Why We Oppose The War In Iran: April 7, 2026”
Today we invoke the language of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On April 3, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City, Dr. King preached a message opposing the war in Viet Nam. In April of 2026, we declare our opposition to our nation’s war in Iran for the same moral reasons.
First, we are convinced that peacemaking and understanding is always a better option than weapons of war. Peacemaking by definition deescalates, while warfare escalates and puts all of us in greater danger. Total war injures and murders populations indiscriminately and is always immoral. It crosses the line of war against a regime and military combatants to war against the innocent and vulnerable. In Iran, we have crossed that line. The Iranian government and military, with less conventional military power, fights asymmetrically and ends up crossing the line too. We now understand more fully why all of the recent previous American administrations wisely chose options of negotiation and diplomacy over the unpredictably of military conflict.
Secondly, we earnestly admit that the people of Iran have historically been exploited by foreign powers and have had their national resources unjustly plundered by American and Western economic interest. In short, they have reason to mistrust our goodwill. Our Central Intelligence Service helped overthrow the democratically elected Iranian government in 1957. We have worked to install leaders who work in our interest and not theirs. In this climate, a clerical led Islamic state emerged. For decades we used crushing economic sanctions to hinder development and choke off their budding middle class, impeding the kinds of liberal sociopolitical reforms that probably would have occurred naturally with material prosperity. True peacemaking on our part requires truthfulness and maturity. We are not always right and we were not altogether right when it comes to the history of U.S.-Iranian relations.
Thirdly, our national prosperity and power carries responsibilities for maturity and leadership. Our national narrative includes aspirations to lead the world in peacemaking and global human rights. We are the last nation on earth that should cavalierly violate international law and engage in war crimes. We must admit and address the fact that our nation’s government has become the world’s greatest purveyor of violence, arms dealing, and lawlessness. Our national aspiration and profile has devolved from ‘city on a hill’ to gangster in an alley. We have become a superpower rogue state and an international pariah. In good conscience we can no longer sing “God Bless America”. Theologically, only peacemakers can rightfully claim to be “God’s children”.
Our social justice organization comes out of the African American “black church” tradition of prophetic speech. We are intimately aware of America’s flaws and inherent contradictions. Just days ago, our own nation voted against the United Nation’s general assembly recognition of the shameful history and ongoing effects of the grave inhumanities of four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. As African Americans, our moral authority comes from being intergenerational Americans who have also been victims of the worst crimes of America. Our problematic relationship with this soil is older than the Republic. With our odyssey, we embrace the call to speak truth to power and demand that we live out the true meaning of our national aspirations and our creeds. We declare that this war against the Iranian people is immoral, unjustifiable, and unconstitutional. It also imperils the survival of the entire human race.
Either the President’s Cabinet or the Congress of the United States must immediately step up to their responsibilities and remove a Presidential administration that has brought us to the abyss of global catastrophe. We call upon all Americans to use all of your power and influence today to correct our course. We will support all legal and legitimate and moral citizen efforts to bring the reckless Trump regime to an end. We must all act now. The mid-terms may be too far away. God help us before it is too late.
Rev. Dr. Marshall Hatch, Board Chair, The Leader Network, Senior Pastor-New Mount Pilgrim Church
Rev. Ira Acree, Board Co-Chair, The Leaders Network, Senior Pastor-Greater St. John Church
Rev. Cy Fields, Co-Chair, The Leaders Network, Senior Pastor-New Landmark Church
Mr. David Cherry, President, The Leaders Network