On Saturday the Iranian opposition held a very organized and massive meeting in a huge auditorium north of Paris. Members of the Iranian community outside the country gathered from five continents to support the Iranian opposition’s effort to establish democracy and freedom in Iran under the banner of #FreeIran.
Hundreds of political, religious, legal and military dignitaries were joined by human rights and women’s rights advocates delivered speeches in support of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its President, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, a Muslim woman believing in a tolerant and democratic Islam.
As the international community rightfully focuses on Iran’s meddling in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen (in addition to its ballistic missile belligerence), one aspect that should remain under the spotlight is Tehran’s atrocious human rights violations.
Congress and the Trump administration are turning up the heat on Iran already. Concurrently, 265 members of the European Parliament issued a joint statement on Monday expressing their grave concerns about the mullahs’ “human rights violations, repression of women and minorities and the Iranian regime’s support of terrorism.”
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?”
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.
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.
It appears already fierce internal disputes among Iranian regime officials have risen to new levels during the first two 2017 presidential debates held on April 28th and May 6th. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani repeated his strong remarks against the camp loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. However, a close review of the debates sheds significant light on the truly disastrous conditions inside the mullahs’ regime.
On April 14, Senator John McCain visited Albania, lately becoming the permanent residence of the vast majority of the 3,000 Iranian dissidents evacuated from the former US military base of Camp Liberty in Iraq. McCain met with a number of that community’s former residents, many of whom lost loved ones in a series of attacks carried out by Iran-backed proxies in Iraq. There are 3,000 more pro-democratic activists working in stable conditions to bring about the end of the theocratic dictatorship and return self-determination to the Iranian people.
