United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson responded to a variety of very serious questions raised by House of Representatives members in a recent hearing focusing on U.S. policy vis-à-vis Iran. Representative Ted Poe (R) from Texas touched on what many believe is the ultimate issue when he said:
“I’d like to know what the policy is of the U.S. toward Iran. Do we support the current regime? Do we support a philosophy of regime change, peaceful regime change? There are Iranians in exile all over the world. Some are here. And then there’s Iranians in Iran who don’t support the totalitarian state. So is the U.S. position to leave things as they are or set up a peaceful, long-term regime change?”
On June 20, 2017, Alireza Jafarzadeh, the deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran held a press conference in NCRI US office and revealed the acceleration of the missile program of Iran, presented a list of 42 locations of missile sites of Iran involved in the design, production, testing, launching and command of the missile program of the Iranian regime.
The current plan for sanctions against Iran leaves the regime between a proverbial rock and hard place since its choices are complied or die.
The adoption of “Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017” by the United States Senate has rendered a variety of reactions from Iran resembling the terrified status of the regime’s senior ranks. Iranian media have widely referred to this new bill and the resulting authorizations as the “mother of all sanctions” and the “sanctions black hole.”
Iran’s leaders are criticizing Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East and the resulting agreements. But sanctions and public pressure are having an effect.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lashed out strongly at the Arab coalition and the United States in strong remarks recently.
“The U.S. president stands alongside the leaders of a tribal and backward system and does the sword dance, but criticizes an Iranian election with 40 million votes… Even with a multi-billion dollar bribe to America, the Saudis cannot achieve their goals in the region,” he said.
My article was originally posted on American Thinker
The end result of Iran’s presidential election has created further rifts and launched a more intense power struggle amongst the regime’s senior ranks. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, fearing a repeat of the 2009 scenario of nationwide uprisings, failed to “engineer” the election results with the aim of unifying his regime apparatus. Khamenei sought to prepare conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi as his heir by first placing him in the presidency, similar to the process he himself went through.
Today Hassan Rouhani was announced as the winner of Iran’s presidential election. Of course, these ballot boxes do not represent the voice of the Iranian people but portray the result of a failed engineering campaign and a final decision made by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This is also a show of his utter fear of a nationwide uprising against the mullahs’ apparatus.
Iranians will be taking advantage of the May 19 presidential election to voice their apathy and respond to calls being made to boycott the so-called polls. They may also use the sham elections to spark an uprising against the regime.
The Iranian people have lost all hope in any form of real elections in Iran, knowing the theocratic regime vets all candidates based on their loyalty to the ruling establishment. This leaves no room for free and fair elections, and thus any expectation of changes inside Iran or in the regime’s foreign policy through elected officials is utterly naïve.
