Time to double down on Iranian resistance against Khamenei

NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi told the crowd showed up to hear her speak on Saturday “(Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei’s representatives were saying the resistance has resurfaced in the country

4 July 2017 -- I had the opportunity to sit down with the National Council for Resistance in Iran ( NCRI ) this week during its annual conference in Paris, which attracts many participants every year. Diplomats and dignitaries from all over the world attended, including US politicians such as Sen. Joe Lieberman and American military notables such as retired Gen. Jack Keane, who are major supporters of regime-change in Tehran.
It was my first time directly interacting with senior NCRI leaders, despite the many years I have spent following and writing about their activities. The council is by far the largest network of anti-regime activists, and is widely feared by Tehran.
There have been numerous documented instances in which Tehran has insisted that any Western diplomatic effort to normalize relations with it would necessitate declaring the NCRI a terrorist entity.

The fact that the NCRI has consistently publicized detailed intelligence on Iran’s nefarious weapons-smuggling and inside information on its covert nuclear weaponization program has made the council the most potent and active threat to the regime’s ambitions.
NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi told the crowd showed up to hear her speak on Saturday: “(Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei’s representatives were saying the resistance has resurfaced in the country.

Intelligence and security officials repeatedly boast of the arrest of resistance members… The conclusion is what the Iranian resistance has emphasized since the outset and what many in the world have reached today: The only solution is regime-change.”
The conclusion is simple: If Tehran remains committed to destabilizing the region by funding, arming and indoctrinating terror groups, the only real inoculation to its radical designs is regime-change.

What made the gathering of Iranian resistance so unique was its ethnic and ideological diversity. Persians and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, secular and religious people were all present, united on behalf of a common goal.

If Tehran remains committed to destabilizing the region by funding, arming and indoctrinating terror groups, the only real inoculation to its radical designs is regime-change.

Oubai Shahbandar

Shahin Gobadi, a member of the NCRI foreign affairs committee, told me: “The issue is not Arabs versus Persians or Sunnis against Shiites; this is what the mullahs in Tehran want to depict. The Iranian resistance meeting showed that there’s a growing understanding that the regime and its proxies are on one side, and the Iranian people and the nations of the region are on the other.”

Much like the Syrian regime, Khamenei tries to normalize his regime to the international community by attempting to convince it that there is no credible alternative, so his regime and its radical Islamist ideology must be accepted by all.

No international effort to date has had any meaningful impact in moderating Tehran’s external aggressions and horrific domestic repression. If anything, the more Iran has sought recognition by the EU and US as a legitimate power, the further its terror proxies have spread throughout the Middle East.

Neither “elections,” nor the millions of dollars that have resulted from the nuclear deal, have had any tangible moderating influence on Tehran. Dialogue with it has come to its inevitable conclusion: A stubborn impasse.

So perhaps now is the time to invest real resources, time and diplomatic capital to helping the Iranian resistance grow and push back against Khamenei’s maximalist designs.
What better way to respond to Tehran’s malign meddling than with a dose of its own medicine?

• Oubai Shahbandar is a former Department of Defense senior adviser, and currently a strategic communications consultant specializing in Middle Eastern and Gulf affairs.

Iranian officials must be ‘brought to justice’

Prince Turki Al-Faisal

Paris - Arab Today, July 2, 2017 - Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered in the giant auditorium in Villepente Exhibition Center, near Paris, on Saturday in a massive expression of support urging the world to adopt a firm approach toward the theocratic regime in Iran.

The gathering featured a large and varied selection of speakers from all over the world and across the political spectrum, including Saudi Prince Turki Al-Faisal and a large delegation from the Syrian opposition.

Addressing the conference, Prince Turki Al-Faisal called for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian officials to be brought to justice for their “crimes against the Iranian people,” who he described as the “first victims” of the Iranian regime.

He said he was “honored” to be at the event, which was attended by thousands of people who fled “their country because of the dictatorship of the Mullahs’ regime.”
Prince Turki explained that what made Arabs and Iranians brothers, was “not only geography, but the humanitarian relationships.”

He added: “There are Arab tribes that lived in Iran and became families, and there are a lot of Persian families who came (to Saudi Arabia) to perform their pilgrimage and also became our families.”

He said all at the conference “stood together” as they shared a “mutual history” that helped the development of human civilization.
“All the (Gulf Cooperation Council) GCC countries and their neighbor Iran have always been living in harmony until the Khomeini revolution came into being in 1979,” Prince Turki added.

He said there was an “external strategy… to replace the concept of stability with the concept of coup and conflict.”

The rally focused on the prospects for democratic change in Iran and condemned the regime’s repression of human rights and record for regional intervention.
Speakers also voiced their support for change and solidarity with the Iranian opposition with the rallying cry of “free Iran.”

The gathering, held annually near Paris, typically draws hundreds of prominent figures from all over the world, and was an impressive display of the political muscle of Iran’s principle opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ).

The rally captured the growing momentum for change regarding Iran, including changes in policies and attitudes in the Middle East and Washington, and the prospect for a new approach toward the regime in the Islamic Republic.

The array of speakers, which included several prominent Americans, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, as well as Congressmen Ted Poe, expressed hope that the changes taking place in the international community would culminate in a new approach toward Iran and a strategic partnership with the Iranian opposition.

Giuliani said he hoped the new US administration would take steps to “not only implement a new approach toward the regime in Iran, but to embrace the Iranian opposition in tackling a common problem.”

Maryam Rajavi , the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), struck a hopeful note for democratic change, stating: “The ruling regime is in disarray and paralyzed as never before. Iranian society is simmering with discontent and the international community is finally getting closer to the reality that appeasing the ruling theocracy is misguided.”

Rajavi highlighted the plight of Iran’s population under the current regime, and commended Iran’s political prisoners for supporting the gathering “from the depths of the regime’s torture chambers.”

“The sun of change is shining on Iran,” she added, to an enthusiastic crowd of thousands cheering “We are ready.”

Rajavi added that the international community must “recognize the resistance of the Iranian people to overthrow the mullahs’ religious dictatorship and designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization and evict it from the entire region.”

Gingrich praised the Iranian opposition as not only a just and pure movement, praising the leadership of Maryam Rajavi adding: “She is persistent in difficult times. She is a great leader. I thank each of you on her behalf to help her make her a truly historic figure. Our people want a constitution based on freedom, democracy, and equality.”

The rally offered a clear vision of what change in Iran could look like, and the broad base from all over the world to make this vision come true. Given the current political climate and the potential for change within the region, the prospect for a new Iran, and free Iran may be closer than ever.

Tom Cotton wants 'regime change' in Iran to be official US policy

US Sen. Tom Cotton

by Sean Higgins
WashingtonExaminer, Jun 25, 2017 - Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton wants official U.S. foreign policy in Iran to back the downfall of the Islamic Republic in Iran, a change being mulled by the White House.

'The policy of the United States should be regime change in Iran. I don't see how anyone can say America can be safe as long as you have in power a theocratic despotism,' Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, told Politico in a story published Sunday.

Previously, the U.S. has backed reform of the existing Iranian regime, but some officials in President Trump's administration have indicated that may not longer be sufficient while administration allies are urging a more confrontational stance.

The comments come during a time of increasingly fraught relations between Iran and the United States.

On Wednesday, Iran filed a formal protest to comments Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made earlier this month in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. Tillerson said the administration would support 'a philosophy of regime change' for Iran.

Iran's United Nations ambassador called the comments 'a brazen interventionist plan that runs counter to every norm and principle of international law.'

Officially, the new administration is still re-evaluating national foreign policy objectives and has not settled on an approach to Iran.

National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton told Politico, 'An explicit affirmation of regime change in Iran as a policy is not really on the table.'

However, prominent officials inside the administration have backed that approach previously.

Last year, then-Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., said in an op-ed for Fox News, 'Congress must act to change Iranian behavior, and, ultimately, the Iranian regime.'

Such change needn't involve military intervention, Pompeo and others have argued. Economic sanctions and support of internal Iranian dissidents can weaken the regime.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that favors regime change, gave the White House a memo outlining the argument earlier this year.

'Iran is susceptible to a strategy of coerced democratization because it lacks popular support and relies on fear to sustain its power. The very structure of the regime invites instability, crisis and possibly collapse,' said the memo, which was circulated among White House officials and obtained recently by Politico.