by Ali Safavi
July marks the second anniversary of the nuclear agreement
between the Iranian regime and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security
Council plus Germany. Former U.S. President Barack Obama envisioned the agreement —
known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)— as a potential
starting point for a broader rapprochement between the ruling theocracy and the
West.
Obama had
insisted that with Hassan Rouhani as the regime’s “moderate” president, Tehran
would begin to exhibit a more positive behavior. Now, in his second term in
office, the promise of moderation under Rouhani’s leadership has proven empty.
That is because Rouhani neither wants nor is capable of reform. After all, it
is not the president but the supreme leader who defines the contours of
the regime’s short-term and long-term strategic direction.
That the
possibility of moderation in the Iranian theocracy is a total delusion was
reflected in Secretary of Defense James Mattis's recent interview with
Washington state’s Mercer Island High School newspaper.
Secretary Mattis
dismissed the May 19 Iranian presidential election as “not really an
election” and highlighted the stark differences between the ideology of the
Iranian regime and the character of the Iranian people.
Still more
significant, Mattis endorsed the message that had been presented to the House
Foreign Affairs Committee last month by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. At a
hearing, Tillerson suggested that American foreign policy should be focused
first upon confronting the regime over its regional destabilization and then
ultimately upon facilitating transition to a democratic system of government,
driven by existing voices of opposition. The Defense secretary, too, reiterated
that the Iranian regime is the most destabilizing force in the entire
region.
After 38 years of
the clerical rule in Iran, the world is beginning to understand that stability
in the Middle East requires the removal of the Iranian regime, known for being
the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism and the only full-fledged
theocracy in the modern world.
While the U.S.
administration has imposed new sanctions on individuals and organizations with
ties to the Iranian ballistic missile program, it is now mulling the
designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign
terrorist organization.
By highlighting
elections in Iran as a sham and also the fundamental divide between the regime
and the Iranian people, Secretary Mattis did undercut much of the previous
administration’s rationale for futile rapprochement with the Iranian regime.
Since the regime
is both unwilling and incapable of reforming itself, democratic change at the
hands of the Iranian people and their organized opposition should be recognized
as the only viable option to deal with Tehran’s multi-faceted nefarious
conduct. Until this situation changes, nothing else about Iran will change, not
even its commitment to developing a nuclear weapon as part of its bid for
regional hegemony and global influence.
This is the
message that was delivered to a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of Iranians
at the “Free Iran” rally in Paris on July 1 by
the Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi and by other international
supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Rajavi used
the opportunity to urge the U.S. and its allies to formally recognize the right
of the Iranian people and their organized opposition to oust the dictatorship.
A democratic Iran, she added, is an imperative and is within reach. An
alternative that can affect change exists.
The Free Iran
rally went a long way toward showcasing the depth of Iranian people’s animosity
toward the regime. Media outlets reported that the event was attended by some
100,000 people, mostly Iranian expatriates, and it featured messages from
domestic dissidents and accounts of the more than 10,000 known acts of protest
against the regime over the past year.
It also
highlighted a flurry of activities by supporters of the NCRI and its key component, theMujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), inside Iran who are campaigning for democracy.
Two years after
the nuclear deal, it is time for a serious and comprehensive Iran policy
makeover based on realities on the ground. This means designating the IRGC as a
terrorist entity, expelling the Iranian regime and its proxies from the region,
taking effective initiatives to permanently block the Iranian regime’s path to
a nuclear bomb, and recognizing the Iranian people’s right to topple the regime
and establish a democratic and peace-seeking representative government that
would be the source of stability and peace in the region.
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