Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the
support of "elements inside of Iran that would lead
to a peaceful transition of" power. He made the comments in
a hearing on State Department budget for next year before the House Foreign
Affairs Committee. Secretary Tillerson’s testimony on Iran, coupled with
that of near unanimous Senate vote on “Countering Iran's Destabilizing
Activities Act of 2017” bill condemning
mullahs’ missile proliferation program,human rights record and destabilizing
role in the Middle East, was received in Tehran as a recipe for disaster.
It
is for the first time in nearly four decades of mullahs’ rule that a U.S.
Secretary of State clearly calls for regime change. It might be a coincidence
that at the same time the strongest Senate vote to date against Iran’s
religious dictatorship is passed with 98 votes out of 100.
The bill is
also unique because while it targets the most important issues involving the
Iranian regime’s provocative actions, it has not violated the nuclear deal or
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) struck by the Obama administration.
It is an important reminder since the deal is often used as an excuse to give
the regime in Tehran a free pass.
Some
in the West were falsely led to believe that Hassan Rouhani’s second term would
reign in Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps(IRGC) ambiguous missile proliferation program. In the weeks after the sham
election and before his official inauguration it became abundantly clear that
no such change is in Iranian political horizons.
“They
are taken by mistake if the new U.S. rulers think they can pressurize Iran with
bills … in the Senate and Congress,” Rouhani said in reference to a new Senate
move, IRNA news agency reported. Earlier in his second term victory speech
Rouhani vowed to continue with mullahs’ missile program.
On
June 21, the Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI), the whistle-blower of the mullahs’ nuclear and missile programs,
held a press conference in its Washington office to give newly obtained
information on the regime missile program from sources inside Iran. Its largest
affiliate, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (POMI/MEK), first
obtained the information that IRGC with the help of North Korean engineers are
developing and testing a variety of medium and long range missiles.
It
is no secret that since the 2015 nuclear deal the Iranian regime has stepped up
production and testing of ballistic missiles. It has been playing permanent
host to scientists from North Korea, which has the know-how to build and
launch atomic weapons. The mullahs’ regime sees North Korean’s help and
knowledge so crucial to its missile program that it has housed their scientists
and technicians in Tehran.
NCRI
says that IRGC is working in 42 missile sites. The regime is busy in
"development, manufacture, and testing of missiles by the IRGC. It also
determined that at least one such center, located in Semnan Province, 52
miles southeast of Tehran, was actively collaborating with the
Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (Persian abbreviation: SPND),
which had previously been identified as the institution in charge of nuclear
weapons-related work in the Islamic Republic."
“On
the basis of specific intelligence, the IRGC’s missile sites have been created
based on North Korean models and blueprints,” the NCRI said. “North Korean
experts have helped the Iranian regime to build them. Underground facilities
and tunnels to produce, store, and maintain missiles have also been modeled
after North Korean sites and were created with the collaboration of the North
Korean experts.”
NCRI also
exposed in April secret facilities IRGC uses to enrich uranium. Some things
will never change with this regime. It is constantly looking for back doors
when it comes to transparency and coming clean on its nuclear and missile
programs. The two are indivisible components of keeping the mullahs’ regime
afloat in the turbulent times.
A
close examination of the Iranian regime’s ever growing harassment of its
neighbors, not to mention its direct involvement in soon to be 7-year-old
Syrian war, harassment of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and
especially that of the U.S. Navy vessels, demonstrate that it is not going to
back off. General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in
an interview recently that Iran is “harassing U.S. and international maritime
activities” in the Persian Gulf. There have been reports of vessels originated
from Iran carrying weapons for Houthis in Yemen. Australian navy patrolling the
area near Bab-el-Mandeb intercepted a few of them last year.
Not
taking into account the mullahs’ brutality at home, which is unprecedented in
Iran’s modern history, the destabilizing role it has played in the region since
day one is more than enough for the international community to draw the line.
The
new sanctions bill is an effective first step to push back. Since its
introduction the Iranian regime’s officials are terrified of consequences and
some have called it the "mother of all sanctions" or the "black
hole." It is obvious that a regime change policy, which does not involve
U.S. military intervention, requires putting some teeth into it in another way.
The bill and similar measures such as outright black listing of IRGC as the
main actor in all the regime’s devious activities in Iran, in the region, and
beyond, requires such drastic measures. Recognizing the legitimate resistance
of Iranian people against the regime is another undeniable component of a
regime change.
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