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Townhall   |   Bruce McColm   |   Dec 27, 2018

In the days and months following massive protests across Iran that erupted in December 2017, the regime’s vulnerability became clear. The anniversary of that nationwide uprising is approaching, and one year later, the anti-regime uprising has grown, in visibility and viability, coalescing into a unified movement that now includes virtually all sectors of Iranian society. The days of the ruling theocracy are numbered. The people of Iran are demanding regime change.

The thousands who took to the streets in over 140 cities across Iran a year ago have evolved into a sustainable, anti-government movement designed to bring down the regime. Truck drivers, factory workers, farmers, teachers, and many others previously fearful of vocalizing their opposition, are now front and center.

Driven by disastrous economic policies, skyrocketing inflation, unemployment, political corruption, and the omnipresent repression, their political demands strike to the heart of the matter. The regime has no structure or plan to alleviate these gnawing maladies; only to repress dissent. The attempts to terrorize dissidents with mass arrests and killings, then to contain the protests by shutting down internet access to social media platforms like Instagram and Telegram, which spread word of protest actions, have failed. Supreme Leader Khamenei has no will to fix the problems, and no way to contain the unrest. Contrary to the views of some in the West, his regime is a fragile, failing state.

One familiar premise over the past four decades of theocratic rule has been for the authoritarian government, whenever threatened, to point a finger at dissidents and legitimate protesters and label them terrorists. In particular, top officials of the clerical regime, from Khamenei on down, berate the leading opposition, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK) for its organizational and leadership capabilities. In an effort to contain the mounting protests in Iran, Tehran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, phoned his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to demand action against MEK “terrorists” in France whom he accused of fomenting ongoing strife. Macron declined.

Simultaneous with its attempts to terrorize the resistance units that protesters have organized within the country, the regime in Tehran is sponsoring terrorist activity abroad. With the full knowledge and support of the Supreme Leader, the regime’s president, and the collaboration of the Foreign Ministry, Tehran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) uses diplomatic facilities as cover in targeting MEK activists in the West.

This year four terror plots were uncovered, including the bombing of an opposition rally outside Paris where tens of thousands were in attendance, American officials among them. An Iranian diplomat at the embassy in Vienna was arrested in Germany, charged with personal involvement in the foiled plot, and extradited to Belgium to face trial.

The regime has also attempted espionage within the U.S. that targets Americans linked to the parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and MEK. In August of this year, two men identified as agents of Iran were arrested and charged with spying for Tehran.

These foiled terror attacks abroad only focus the spotlight on Tehran’s own brand of terrorism at home. In small and large demonstrations throughout Iran, ordinary citizens are taking to the streets to demand change. The alternative to the Iranian regime is democracy, and the opposition National Council of Resistance coalition is the way forward toward a democratic Iran. Together with the People’s Mojahedin, its pivotal force, they form an organized movement inside Iran that also enjoys strong international support.

The NCRI already possesses the key characteristics necessary to form an alternative to the current government in Iran. Led by its President-elect, Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI has declared a 10-point Plan delineating its platform for future Iran. Iranians want a republic, not an Islamic republic led by the mullahs. With 37 years of experience and dedication, the NCRI has proven itself as the genuine alternative that can achieve democracy and create a free, modern society.

Iran’s people have reached the end of their rope, and will no longer tolerate a regime built on suppression, financial malfeasance, and terror. The anti-regime movement, guided by the MEK in Iran and represented by the NCRI abroad, is solidifying its strategies and gaining ground daily. The message resonating from Iran is that the regime, desperate and terrified of the mounting opposition, cannot forestall its inevitable overthrow.

This is the time for the U.S. Congress and administration to hold the Ayatollah and his regime responsible for their terrorist acts and human rights abuses, and to endorse the Iranian people’s efforts to achieve democracy and freedom.

Shirin Nariman     |    Jan 28, 2017

With the change of guard at the White House, it seems clear that the administration of President Donald Trump will be eager to execute major foreign policy shifts. A focal point of those changes will be the approach to Iran.

Years of “engagement” and “dialogue” with Tehran’s rulers have emboldened a bullying regime to extend its tentacles of terror outward, while continuing to trample on the human rights of Iranian citizens.

In his efforts to revise U.S. policy towards the Tehran regime to better align it with America’s values and strategic interests, Mr. Trump will not be alone. Such a policy must reject engagement with the turbaned tyrants in favor of embracing the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations.

That approach would win the resounding support not just of the Iranian-American community, but also of Congress, which overwhelmingly opposed the Iran nuclear deal.

Earlier this month, we were encouraged to hear that nearly two dozen former top American officials had urged Mr. Trump to work with Iran’s opposition in order to send a strong message to Tehran.

The letter signed by 23 former officeholders specifically calls on the president to consult with the main coalition of opposition groups, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The longest-standing political coalition in Iran’s history, the NCRI represents a broad grouping of democratic organizations and personalities. Founded in 1981 in Tehran and now based in Paris, it embodies a microcosm of Iranian society, with representatives from ethnic and religious minorities such as Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, and Kurds.

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The main component of the NCRI is the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a progressive Muslim movement that for the past 50 years has waged a valiant struggle against Islamic fundamentalism and extremism, calling for democracy and separation of church and state.

The NCRI’s platform calls for a secular, democratic, and non-nuclear Iran that respects international law, human rights, and gender equality. Women comprise 50 percent of the council’s members, and its president-elect is also a woman, Maryam Rajavi.

As Mrs. Rajavi has reiterated, “We want a non‐nuclear Iran, free of weapons of mass destruction.”

The letter by American experts and former policymakers states that given “the opportunity to engage directly with the NCRI, unfiltered by regime propaganda, U.S. officials will learn that in the 1980s, as a political strategy to challenge Iran’s harsh fundamentalism that denies all rights to women, the resistance adopted a policy of gender equality — rare in the Muslim world — and elevated women to leadership roles.”

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The letter was signed by a truly bipartisan group of American statesmen, including Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security secretary under President George W. Bush; Gen. Jim Jones, former national security advisor to President Obama; Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; former Sen. Joseph Lieberman; and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

This stellar list of Americans proves once again that when it comes to a more decisive policy on Iran, Washington is clear-eyed and united.

In their message to Mr. Trump, the group said, “We urge your Administration to adopt and pursue an Iran policy that recognizes the interests and inalienable rights of the Iranian people, and not just the clerical regime ruling over them.

“President Obama expressed the hope that nuclear negotiations would induce Iran’s leaders to act with greater consideration of American interests. It is now clear that Iran’s leaders have shown no interest in reciprocating. … Through their extremely high rate of executions at home, and destructive sectarian warfare in support of the Assad regime in Syria and proxy Shiite militias in Iraq, Iran’s rulers have directly targeted U.S. strategic interests, policies and principles, and those of our allies and friends in the Middle East.”

“To restore American influence and credibility in the world, the United States needs a revised policy,” the former top officials and experts added. We strongly agree and echo this call.

The Iranian regime must be held to account for committing egregious human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, including the horrific massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners, many of them supporters of the MEK, in 1988.

Iranian-Americans are optimistic that the new administration will open a historic chapter in its policies toward the world’s largest banker and supporter of international terrorism: Tehran. As the 23 former officials told Mr. Trump, there is an alternative to the ayatollahs: the true representatives of the tens of millions of Iranian citizens yearning for a free, democratic and non-nuclear Iran.

Shirin Nariman, a resident of Vienna, is the executive director of the Iranian American Community of Virginia, a member of the Organization of Iranian American Communities.

By Mitchell B. Reiss   |   March 28, 2018

In Iran today, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, are courageously taking to the streets in ever-greater numbers and frequency to protest a clerical regime that continues to deny them the basic human rights that are guaranteed to them. Those protests have spread across the country. Last week, the minister of interior admitted that protests were taking place in more than 100 cities.

Protests against the regime in Tehran are not new, but the latest protests — which first erupted last December — seem different. Why? Because they involve all sectors of Iranian society, especially the farmers and the poor, those elements of society that the regime has always counted on as its bedrock of support. In American political jargon, the “base” is in revolt, protesting the rising cost of food, the lack of clean drinking water and little economic opportunity, as well as a lack of freedom and human dignity.

The protests will continue because the regime is both unwilling and unable to address these legitimate grievances; it would mean putting an end to its corruption and economic mismanagement. Tehran has squandered billions of dollars on foreign adventures that could be used to help the Iranian people, sending its young men off to fight and die overseas for causes that the Iranian people do not support. And the protests will continue because the youth of Iran are leading them. Media reports tell us that 85 percent of all those protesters arrested by the regime are under the age of 35. The young people are not going to go away; they are the future of Iran.

These events are connected to us in the United States not only because we wish the Iranian people to one day enjoy the benefits of democracy that we enjoy every day. They’re also connected to us because it’s our responsibility as Americans to help the Iranian people who want a better future for their country.

What can we do? Well, we have a president in the White House who is willing to try many policies that his predecessors had been unwilling to pursue. I doubt that he will be intimidated by the ayatollahs.

As a matter of policy, we need to continue to draw the world’s attention to the regime’s brutality and its illegal crackdown on its citizens. We need to add senior Iranian officials to the list of international human rights violators so we can impose sanctions on them. We need to help create secure internet and social media channels so the Iranian people can communicate with one another without the regime’s interference.

We also need to counter the spread of the Iranian regime’s influence in the region, working closely with our friends and allies to defeat and deter Iranian forces and their proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. And we need to send a strong signal to the Iranian people that we support their democratic aspirations and, like them, want a representative government in Iran that respects the rule of law and honors its own people.

There is bipartisan support in Congress for this effort. There is a leader in exile, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, who has developed and endorsed a declaration of human rights, a 10-point plan that mirrors our own Bill of Rights. And most importantly, there are the hundreds of thousands of Iranian people who are bravely demanding a better life.

Iran’s brutal behavior inside the country and aggressive actions across the region erode our security and demean our values. The good news is that forces of progress toward a secular, democratic, non-nuclear republic Iran are more organized, more mobilized, and more energized than they were a year ago. The world is watching. And it is siding with the Iranian people.

Mitchell B. Reiss was the director of policy planning at the State Department from 2003-2005. He may be contacted at mitchellreiss@yahoo.com.

http://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-opinion/guest-columnists/mitchell-b-reiss-column-the-coming-storm-in-iran/article_d987d981-8112-559e-beb6-1a465bf964df.html