By Jubin Katiraie
The
signing into law of the new sanctions on Russia, North Korea and Iran and the
impact of this legislation is already being felt, even before the commencement
of practical measures which are on the way.
The
officials of Iranian regime, in particular, are already afraid of the
consequences of the new sanctions. In addition to economic implications of the
sanctions, what worries them the most is the actions against the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
as a terrorist organization. Designating and imposing sanctions on the IRGC was
long overdue. Khamenei’s military arm serves as the guarantee to preserve the
entirety of the mullahs’ regime and is the main entity responsible for domestic
suppression, the export of terrorism and extremism, and obtaining weapons of
mass destruction, such as nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
The
new bill has added to the already shaky regime’s fears. Janati, the head of the
Guardian Council, announced on Thursday that the main issue preoccupying the
Supreme leader is his concern over regime change. The actions of the regime in
recent years is proof that change from within will not be successful, as the
regime is geared to its own preservation and not the best interests of its
people, including their international rights and freedoms.
Regime
change was the main topic of the July 1, 2017 annual
gathering of Iranian resistance (The Mujahedin-e-Khalq or MEK)
under the umbrella of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in
Paris. Many speakers talked about the regime change and their support for the
NCRI, as a viable democratic alternative to the current regime.
“I’m
happiest to be here because I can say, can probably say this with a good deal
of authority, that the government of the United States supports you,” said Rudy
Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, referring to MEK supporters in the
gathering.
“We’re
behind you, we agree with your values. The government of the United States
understands the danger of Iran. The government of the United States will not
allow Iran to become an empire in the Middle East,” added Giuliani.
“I
have come to bring you a simple message. Iran must be free. The only practical
goal is to support a movement that could free Iran, and that's you,” said
former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, when addressing MEK supporters in
the gathering. “The presence of 3000 MEK in Albania is a decisive defeat for
dictatorship in Tehran. The name of your president will stand the same as
George Washington and Lafayette in the United States.”
The
bipartisan effort in this legislation showed that the threat posed by the
current Iranian regime has created a united front from the United States.
“The
outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that the
Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday,”
said former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton during the recent “Free Iran”
gathering in early July.
It
has been over thirty years since the Iranian people and their just resistance
(MEK) began to seek a regime change. But the brutal internal suppression, along
with international and the U.S. policy of appeasement towards Iran, have been
the main obstacles to achieving this goal.
Now
the time has come for a regime change, and Iranian regime understands this more
than anyone else, Iranian lobbies and apologistsare
spreading fake news that regime change in
Iran means another war in the Middle East. They argue that it will mean a
repeat of the war in Iraq will be repeated in Iran and the U.S. will get stuck
in another war.
Iran
lobbies have started a widespread campaign against the MEK to demonize the group
and attempt to weaken its international support system. Their goal from
demonizing the MEK is to eliminate any alternative for regime change, forcing
the West to search for a solution within the regime and to try to find
“moderates” inside the regime.
Contrary
to many countries, including Iraq, a democratic and organized opposition exists
in Iran. The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)
has been fighting with this regime for over thirty-eight years. Since June 20,
1981, the Iranian regime has executed over 120,000 political prisoners,
mostly members and supporters of the MEK. In the summer of 1988 alone, over
30,000 political prisoners, a majority of them from the MEK, were massacred.
In
addition to the massacre of MEK members and supporters, the Iranian regime
created an atmosphere of fear and terror within the Iranian society. The terror
atmosphere was such that whoever had any connection of any kind with the MEK
would be arrested and tortured. Even using the name of MEK was prohibited. Any
call or communication with MEK members in Ashraf and Liberty camps in Iraq by
their family members was considered a crime. Many MEK family members were
arrested and tortured just because they called to talk to their loved ones.
Despite
all the carnage, pressures, suppression, and demonizing campaigns, the MEK
continued its fight against the regime. After the transfer of MEK members to
Albania, they focused on activities inside Iran. In the past nine months, the
MEK supporters have staged a campaign regarding the 1988 massacre in Iran,
revealing many atrocities of the regime. The campaign has been so wide spread
and extensive that the supreme leader of the regime, Ali Khamenei, was forced
to react by defending the massacre of MEK members and supporters in the
prisons.
The
new law which imposes new sanctions on the regime for violating human rights
and pursuing ballistic missiles, as well as designating the IRGC as a terrorist
entity, is an essential step in rectifying the damaging policy of appeasement.
Other measures need to be pursued in conjunction with this bill, include the
eviction of the IRGC and its affiliated militia, particularly from Syria and
Iraq. Finally, the international community needs to recognize the right of the
Iranian people to overthrow the clerical regime.
Some background on MEK:
A Long Conflict between the Clerical Regime and the MEK
A Long Conflict between the Clerical Regime and the MEK
The
origins of the MEK date back to before the 1979 Iranian Revolution., the MEK
helped to overthrow the dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi, but it quickly
became a bitter enemy of the emerging the religious fascism under the pretext
of Islamic Republic. To this day, the MEK and NCRI describe Ruhollah Khomenei
and his associates as having co-opted a popular revolution in order to empower
themselves while imposing a fundamentalist view of Islam onto the people of
Iran.
Under
the Islamic Republic, the MEK was quickly marginalized and affiliation with it
was criminalized. Much of the organization’s leadership went to neighboring
Iraq and built an exile community called Camp Ashraf, from which the MEK organized
activities aimed at ousting the clerical regime and bringing the Iranian
Revolution back in line with its pro-democratic origins. But the persistence of
these efforts also prompted the struggling regime to crack down with extreme
violence on the MEK and other opponents of theocratic rule.
The
crackdowns culminated in the massacre of political prisoners in the summer of
1988, as the Iran-Iraq War was coming to a close. Thousands of political
prisoners were held in Iranian jails at that time, many of them having already
served out their assigned prison sentences. And with the MEK already serving as
the main voice of opposition to the regime at that time, its members and
supporters naturally made up the vast majority of the population of such
prisoners.
As
the result of a fatwa handed down by Khomeini, the regime convened what came to
be known as the Death Commission, assigning three judges the task of briefly
interviewing prisoners to determine whether they retained any sympathy for the
MEK or harbored any resentment toward the existing government. Those who were
deemed to have shown any sign of continued opposition were sentenced to be
hanged. After a period of about three months, an estimated 30,000 people had
been put to death. Many other killings of MEK members preceded and followed
that incident, so that today the Free Iran rally includes an annual memorial
for approximately 120,000 martyrs from the People’s Mojahedin Organization of
Iran.
The
obvious motive behind the 1988 massacre and other such killings was the
destruction of the MEK. And yet it has not only survived but thrived, gaining
allies to form the NCRI and acquiring the widespread support that is put on
display at each year’s Free Iran rally. In the previous events, the keynote
speech was delivered by Maryam Rajavi, who has been known to receive several
minutes of applause from the massive crowd as she takes the stage. Her speeches
provide concrete examples of the vulnerability of the clerical regime and
emphasize the ever-improving prospects for the MEK to lead the way in bringing
about regime change.
The
recipients of that message are diverse and they include more than just the
assembled crowd of MEK members and supporters. The expectation is that the
international dignitaries at each year’s event will carry the message of the
MEK back to their own governments and help to encourage more policymakers to
recognize the role of the Iranian Resistance in the potential creation of a
free and democratic Iranian nation. It is also expected that the event will
inspire millions of Iranians to plan for the eventual removal of the clerical
regime. And indeed, the MEK broadcasts the event via its own satellite
television network, to millions of Iranian households with illegal hookups.
MEK’s Domestic Activism and Intelligence Network
What’s
more, the MEK retains a solid base of activists inside its Iranian homeland. In
the run-up to this year’s Free Iran rally the role of those activists was
particularly evident, since the event comes just a month and a half after the
latest Iranian presidential elections, in which heavily stage-managed elections
resulted in the supposedly moderate incumbent Hassan Rouhani securing
reelection. His initial election in 2013 was embraced by some Western
policymakers as a possible sign of progress inside the Islamic Republic, but
aside from the 2015 nuclear agreement with six world powers, none of his
progressive-sounding campaign promises have seen the light of day.
Rouhani’s
poor record has provided additional fertile ground for the message of the MEK
and Maryam Rajavi. The Iranian Resistance has long argued that change from
within the regime is impossible, and this was strongly reiterated against the
backdrop of the presidential elections, when MEK activists used graffiti, banners,
and other communications to describe the sitting president as an “imposter.”
Many of those same communications decried Rouhani’s leading challenger, Ebrahim
Raisi, as a “murderer,” owing to his leading role in the massacre of MEK
supporters in 1988.
That
fact helped to underscore the domestic support for the People’s Mojahedin
Organization of Iran, insofar as many people who participated in the election
said they recognized Raisi as the worst the regime had to offer, and that they
were eager to prevent him from taking office. But this is not to say that
voters saw Rouhani in a positive light, especially where the MEK is concerned.
Under the Rouhani administration, the Justice Minister is headed by Mostafa
Pourmohammadi, who also served on the Death Commission and declared as recently
as last year that he was proud of himself for having carried out what he
described as God’s command of death for MEK supporters.
With
this and other aspects of the Islamic Republic’s record, the MEK’s pre-election
activism was mainly focused on encouraging Iranians to boycott the polls. The
publicly displayed banners and posters urged a “vote for regime change,” and
many of them included the likeness of Maryam Rajavi, suggesting that her return
to Iran from France would signify a meaningful alternative to the hardline
servants of the clerical regime who are currently the only option in any
Iranian national election.
Naturally,
this direct impact on Iranian politics is the ultimate goal of MEK activism.
But it performs other recognizable roles from its position in exile, not just
limited to the motivational and organization role of the Free Iran rally and
other, smaller gatherings. In fact, the MEK rose to particular international
prominence in 2005 when it released information that had been kept secret by
the Iranian regime about its nuclear program. These revelations included the
locations of two secret nuclear sites: an uranium enrichment facility at Natanz
and a heavy water plant at Arak, capable of producing enriched plutonium.
As
well as having a substantial impact on the status of international policy
regarding the Iranian nuclear program, the revelations also highlighted the
MEK’s popular support and strong network inside Iran. Although Maryam Rajavi
and the rest of the leadership of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
reside outside of the country, MEK affiliates are scattered throughout Iranian
society with some even holding positions within hardline government and
military institutions, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Drawing
upon the resources of that intelligence network, the MEK has continued to share
crucial information with Western governments in recent years, some of it
related to the nuclear program and some of it related to other matters
including terrorist training, military development, and the misappropriation of
financial resources. The MEK has variously pointed out that the Revolutionary
Guard controls well over half of Iran’s gross domestic product, both directly
and through a series of front companies and close affiliates in all manner of
Iranian industries.
In
February of this year, the Washington, D.C. office of the National Council of
Resistance of Iran held press conferences to detail MEK intelligence regarding
the expansion of terrorist training programs being carried out across Iran by
the Revolutionary Guards. The growth of these programs reportedly followed upon
direct orders from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and coincided with
increased recruitment of foreign nationals to fight on Tehran’s behalf in
regional conflicts including the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars.
In
the weeks following that press conference, the MEK’s parent organization also
prepared documents and held other talks explaining the source of some of the
Revolutionary Guards’ power and wealth. Notably, this series of revelations
reflected upon trends in American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.
And other revelations continue to do so, even now.
MEK Intelligence Bolstering US Policy Shifts
Soon
after taking office, and around the time the MEK identified a series of
Revolutionary Guard training camps, US President Donald Trump directed the State
Department to review the possibility of designating Iran’s hardline
paramilitary as a foreign terrorist organization. Doing so would open the
Revolutionary Guards up to dramatically increased sanctions – a strategy that
the MEK prominently supports as a means of weakening the barriers to regime
change within Iran.
The
recent revelations of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran have gone a
long way toward illustrating both the reasons for giving this designation to
the Revolutionary Guards and the potential impact of doing so. Since then, the
MEK has also used its intelligence gathering to highlight the ways in which
further sanctioning the Guards could result in improved regional security,
regardless of the specific impact on terrorist financing.
For
example, in June the NCRI’s Washington, D.C. office held yet another press
conference wherein it explained that MEK operatives had become aware of another
order for escalation that had been given by Supreme Leader Khamenei, this one
related to the Iranian ballistic missile program. This had also been a
longstanding point of contention for the Trump administration and the rest of
the US government, in light of several ballistic missile launches that have
been carried out since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations, including an
actual strike on eastern Syria.
That
strike was widely viewed as a threatening gesture toward the US. And the MEK
has helped to clarify the extent of the threat by identifying 42 separate
missile sites scattered throughout Iran, including one that was working closely
with the Iranian institution that had previously been tasked with weaponizing
aspects of the Iranian nuclear program.
TheNational Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) led by Maryam Rajavi is thus
going to great lengths to encourage the current trend in US policy, which is
pointing to more assertiveness and possibly even to the ultimate goal of regime
change. The MEK is also striving to move Europe in a similar direction, and the
July 1 gathering is likely to show further progress toward that goal. This is
because hundreds of American and European politicians and scholars have already
declared support for the NCRI and MEK and the platform of Maryam Rajavi. The
number grows every year, while the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
continues to collect intelligence that promises to clarify the need for regime
change and the practicality of their strategy for achieving it.
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