Follow us on social

Code-pink-2

'Angry' protesters show up at Sen. Bob Menendez's house

Code Pink says the chair of the foreign relations committee is hindering, not helping get the U.S. back into Iran nuclear deal.

Analysis | Middle East

Antiwar protesters demonstrated Saturday outside the suburban New Jersey home of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez (D–N.J.) over his opposition to diplomacy with Iran.

The protest was led by Codepink and Peace Action NJ. About two dozen people marched to the house in the upscale suburb of Englewood Cliffs where Menendez’s third wife lives and the senator spends much of the year.

The demonstrators also set up a haft sin — a table spread Iranians traditionally put out for the beginning of spring — outside the house and left a letter at the front door.

“We’re actually hopeful right now that there can be a deal made, because of the meeting that’s happening on Tuesday in Vienna,” Codepink co-founder Medea Benjamin told Responsible Statecraft. “But so much of it depends on Menendez and his cadre to not muck it up. And he’s done so much already to stop the United States from rejoining the deal, and it’s made us very angry.” 

Iran and the United States have agreed to begin indirect talks in Austria over rejoining the 2015 nuclear deal, a stated goal of the Biden administration. The deal, which the Trump administration had broken from in 2018, placed strict restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for six world powers ending their economic embargo on Iran.

Menendez had opposed the deal when it was first negotiated, and recently led a petition alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) pushing the Biden administration to take a tough line on Iran. The petition, backed by the hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was seen by pro-diplomacy advocates as an effort to derail a return to the deal.

Menendez and Graham’s letter stated that its signatories have “differing views on the [2015 deal] and the overall approach of the Trump Administration’s maximum pressure campaign,” and calls on the administration to “use the full force of our diplomatic and economic tools” to pressure Iran on its regional policies and conventional missile program.

“They pretend that they’re in line with the Biden administration, but they’re not in line with the Biden administration,” said Benjamin, who called on Menendez to publicly commit to supporting the talks with Iran.

Iranian-American human rights activist Manijeh Saba said she joined the protest because Menendez “has supported every war” and “the Iranian people are suffering so much” under U.S. economic sanctions.

“I’m not doing this because I support the Iranian government,” she added. “I’ve never supported the Iranian government. They actually threw me in jail, took my passport away for six years.”

Twenty-year Air Force veteran Ed Dugan, who has had numerous members of his family serve in the U.S. military, also spoke about the American people’s interest in diplomacy with Iran. 

“My biggest reason — I brought with me — is my eleven year old son,” he said in a speech. “I don’t want to still be at war when he gets old enough for military service.”


Code Pink outside the home of Senator Bob Menendez in suburban New Jersey Saturday April 2. (Matthew Petti)
Analysis | Middle East
Nuclear missile
Top image credit: Zack Frank

Put this nuclear missile on the back of a truck — but we still don't need it

Military Industrial Complex

Last week, analysts from three think tanks penned a joint op-ed for Breaking Defense to make the case for mobilizing the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program, a pivot from one exceedingly costly approach to nuclear modernization to another.

After Sentinel faced a 37 percent cost overrun in early 2024, the Pentagon was forced to inform Congress of the cost spike, assess the root causes, and either cancel the program or certify it to move forward under a restructured approach. The Pentagon chose to certify it, but not before noting that the restructured program would actually come in 81 percent over budget.

keep readingShow less
Maduro, Trump
Top photo credit: Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro (Shutterstock/stringerAL) ; President Donald Trump (Shutterstock/a katz)

Why we need to take Trump's Drug War very seriously

Latin America

Donald Trump has long been a fan of using the U.S. military to wage a more vigorous war against drug cartels in Latin America. He also shows signs of using that justification as a pretext to oust regimes considered hostile to other U.S. interests.

The most recent incident in the administration’s escalating antidrug campaign took place on October 3 when “Secretary of War” Mike Hegseth announced that U.S. naval forces had sunk yet another small boat off of the coast of Venezuela. It was one of four destroyed vessels and a total of 21 people killed since late September. The administration claims they were all trying to ship illegal drugs to the United States.

keep readingShow less
Israel Gaza deal
Top photo credit: United States and Israel flags are projected on the walls of the Old city of Jerusalem in celebration after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza, October 9, 2025. REUTERS/Sinan Abu Mayzer

Will this deal work? Netanyahu has gamed everything his way so far.

Middle East

Two years into the Gaza conflict and perhaps on the cusp of a successful phased ceasefire, what can we say?

On the basis of media reporting about Yahya Sinwar’s strategic rationale for attacking Israel on October 7, 2023, it seems that he believed Israel was on the brink of civil war and that the impact of a large-scale assault would severely erode its political stability. He believed that Hamas’s erstwhile allies, especially Hizballah and Iran, would open offensives against Israel, which, in combination with Hamas’s invasion, would stretch the nation’s military capabilities to the breaking point.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.