Iranian military trucks carry surface-to-air missiles during a parade on the occasion of the country's Army Day, on April 18, 2017, in Tehran. / AFP PHOTO / ATTA KENARE (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)
We are at a critical juncture in our time in history. The Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has entered now its third year.
As the Trump White House is pending its Iran policy there is increasing support for regime change. All the while the Iran appeasement camp are boosting their efforts of claiming any firm policy on Tehran will lead to war. The question is do the measures professed by this party truly prevent war?
When Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) recently held its annual convention in Paris, with Trump “emissaries” such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaking powerfully of regime change in Iran. Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton went as far as declaring the Iranian regime will not witness its 40th anniversary in February 2019.
In response, Iran and its lobbies in the West, terrified of such a surge behind the NCRI as the sole alternative able to bring about true change in Iran, have not remained silent. Iran apologists are yet again seen resorting to the old tactic of warning about a new war in the Middle East.
For decades now pro-Iranian regime writers have cautioned against adopting a firm policy on Tehran, allowing the mullahs’ regime to plunge the entire Middle East into havoc.
As we speak Iraq, Syria and Yemen are in ruins thanks to Iran’s support of proxy elements fueling sectarian conflicts and deadly civil wars.
The war in Afghanistan has yet to finalize after 16 years, and reports continue of Iran supporting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in this country.
Irans missile program stepped up after nuclear deal
By Shahriar Kia
American Thinker, June 22, 2017 - Less than a week after the U.S. Senate adopted sweeping new sanctions targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and two days after Tehran launched a series of missiles at territories inside Syria while claiming to target ISIS, the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ) held a press conference in Washington on Tuesday, June 20, unveiling new information about dozens of IRGC missile sites.
On the orders of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the IRGC has accelerated its ballistic missile activities and tests following the Iran nuclear deal, representatives of the NCRI U.S. Office said.
Sources associated with the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main NCRI coalition member, and inside Iran's Defense Ministry and IRGC confirmed that Khamenei has specifically tasked the IRGC Aerospace Force with carrying out this initiative.
The locations of 42 sites were verified by the Iranian opposition, all being affiliated with the IRGC's production, testing, and launching of missiles.
'A dozen of these sites were revealed for the very first time. Among the 42 sites, 15 are part of the regime's missile manufacturing network,' said NCRI U.S. Office deputy director Alireza Jafarzadeh in the press conference. 'These 15 centers include several factories related to a missile industry group and together form a web of dozens of missile production facilities,' he added.
Alireza Jafarzadeh press conference on Iran missile program 20June2017- part1
The PMOI/MEK sources were able to provide intelligence on four very important missile sites located in the cities of Semnan in the east of Tehran, Lar in south-central Iran, and Khorramabad in western Iran, as well as near the city of Karaj, west of Tehran. Iran has recognized only two of these sites as ballistic missile facilities.
Alireza Jafarzadeh press conference on Iran missile program 20June2017- part2
These IRGC missile sites have been constructed based on blueprints provided by North Korea, and experts from Pyongyang have been on the scene throughout the process, according to PMOI/MEK sources.
During the past two decades, the Iranian opposition has provided the international community with accurate reports of Iran's clandestine nuclear and ballistic missile activities. The recent revelations made in Washington make the sanctions proposed by the Senate all the more necessary to adopt a firm policy against Tehran.
Alireza Jafarzadeh press conference on Iran missile program 20June2017- part3
Iranian officials are in consensus on the need for nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload, all in order to maintain their grip on power. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani underscored in late May how the regime's missile activities will go forward unabated.
Tehran is known as the central banker of international terrorism. Iran's meddling in neighboring countries and support for terrorist proxy groups in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have already plunged the region into an inferno.
Alireza Jafarzadeh press conference on Iran missile program 20June2017- part4
On that note, Iran's state-run Mashreq daily wrote on Iran launching missiles into Syria on Sunday:
Although Iran had many different options to respond to ISIS' terrorist attack, it chose to launch missiles from its soil[.] ... [T]his may have messages for Washington.
'The primary reason for launching these missiles was in no way ISIS,' Jafarzadeh said.
U.S. officials, alongside their Arab counterparts in the recent Riyadh conference, underscored strong positions against Tehran and its meddling across the region. Targeting ISIS and claiming that these attacks were in response to the June 7 terrorist attacks in Tehran are only pretexts for the mullahs' hollow threats.
Prior to Iran's measures having any military weight, these actions are aimed at elevating morale among the rank and file, especially the IRGC. These elements are currently terrified, as the U.S. has become active in Syria and intensified its sanctions against Tehran, and America's top diplomat is emphasizing a policy of supporting regime change during the evaluation of a comprehensive Iran policy.
It has become a known fact that Tehran lacks the capacity and will to halt is ballistic missile policy.
'There is no difference between a change in behavior and regime change,' Khamenei stressed on May 10.
In contrast to the ruling mullahs in Tehran, the Iranian people welcome change and deplore the regime's nuclear and missile programs and abhor the mullahs' meddling across the region.
It is high time that the international community adopted a united and firm policy on Iran based on the following pillars: imposing sweeping sanctions targeting Iran's missile program and blacklisting the IRGC for its role in directing Iran's support of terrorism
Activists in Berlin hold banners reading ‘The people responsible for 1988 massacres need to be brought to court’, on September 3, 2016. (Reuters)
By Heshmat Alavi
Ali Fallahian, Iran’s intelligence minister during the tenure of Rafsanjani’s presidency back in the early 90s, is a name most notoriously known for his role in a series of chain murders across the country that saw the elimination of many dissidents.
Fallahian has recently been heard making shocking revelations in reference to mass executions, especially targeting members and supporter of the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
A German court raised charges against Fallahian for his direct involvement in the September 1992 assassination of Iranian Kurdish dissidents in Berlin. In 2007, Interpol placed Fallahian on its most wanted list for his role in the 1994 bombing the AMIA in Buenos Aires Jewish center that left 85 killed.
The 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners, mostly MEK members and supporters, has in the past year inside Iran become a major issue for the general public, especially the younger generation who are beginning to demand answers.
Fallhian’s remarks, aired in a recent interview, have caused quite a stir in social media inside Iran and amongst Iranian communities living abroad. In this interview, Fallahian sheds light on his role in the Iranian regime’s die-hard enmity against the MEK as the only opposition truly threatening their rule.
Q: “Can we blame only the MEK for taking up arms, or did we also make mistakes… for example, attack their gatherings, pressure their members and supporters...?” Fallahian: “They had such an analysis. [Iranian opposition leader Massoud] Rajavi had maybe written 36 articles against armed conflicts.” (Khazar website – July 18) This is Fallahian acknowledging the fact that the MEK had sought to continue their peaceful political activities. The mullahs’ regime, however, dispatched their forces to attack, arrest, torture and kill MEK members. Fallahian moves on to discuss the 1988 mass executions across Iran.
Q: “Did the Intelligence Ministry suggest the 1988 executions to [Iranian regime founder Ruhollah] Khomeini?” Fallahian: “Khomeini himself ordered it… saying the ruling for all moharebs [term used for MEK members, meaning enemies of God] is execution. There were discussions in this regard back then. Mr. Mousavi Tabrizi believed there was no need for prosecution, arguing prosecuting those who are at war with us has no meaning. Others believed those arrested should be prosecuted… however, [Khomeini] constantly emphasized to beware they don’t slip out of your hands… [Khomeini] would always say be careful in this regard… how? For example, if there was a confusion about someone being a murderer or not, execution would not be the first option of punishment. However, about the MEK [Khomeini] would say an opposite approach is needed. I know them, he would say, they must not slip away and their rulings are execution. This was his constant ruling, before and after the 1988 issue…
“… there are discussions and some are asking why were those sentenced to prison terms again condemned to death? First of all, keep in mind their rulings are execution, even if a judge hadn’t ruled for an execution, he had violated the law… If an armed mohareb was arrested, his/her ruling would be execution, even if he/she hadn’t killed anyone… the ruling for a hypocrite (another term used for MEK members) and mohareb is execution. This was [Khomeini’s] fatwa. There was no discussion in this regard. In 1988… the discussion reached the point that all of them must be executed, even those not sentenced to death. [Khomeini] would ask why have you still kept them alive.”
It is worth noting that the Iranian opposition has for the past year launched a justice movement shedding light on the 1988 massacre both inside Iran and across the globe. These efforts went into full gear weeks prior to Iran’s May 19th presidential election, forcing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to sack his plans of engineering election results as he desired.
Conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi, known to be Khamenei’s preferred candidate to replace the incumbent Hassan Rouhani as president, suffered a major defeat due to revelations of his role in the 1988 massacre. Raisi was a member of the notorious four-man “Death Commission” appointed by Khomeini himself to facilitate and hasten the execution process.
Q: “Raisi was in the commission. Who were the other members?” Fallahian, however, refrains from naming other Death Commission members and begins discussing the process which political prisoners were executed and the summer 1988 massacre. He placed all the blame on Khomeini, emphasizing he had issued the execution and massacre ruling long before.”
Fallhian: “Yes, the poor guy [referring to Raisi] insisted he hadn’t issued the ruling, the ruling was issued in advance… but no one would listen, and they would also think the executed were innocent… if we hadn’t killed them there would be no country today. These are not my words, they are the words of [Khomeini]…”
The reporter seeks to make a reference to a groundbreaking sound file unveiled last September of Khomeini’s then successor, the late Hossein Ali Montazeri, in which he sheds light on unknown aspects of the 1988 massacre.
Q: “What was Mr. Montazeri’s mistake?” Fallahian: “He came in disagreement with [Khomeini]… [He] believed history would judge these executions against us and Islam. He would say it would be better to refrain, as when the enemy begins to write, they won’t cite us harshly. However, [Khomeini] ordered to carry out your religious duty and don’t wait for history’s judgement.”
Q: “Were all those executed arrested while armed?” Fallahian: “No, not all of them were involved in the armed revolt. However, many of them were living in team houses. We would go there and find only one or two weapons, or arrest them on the street without any arms.”
Q: “So how were they linked to the armed revolt?” Fallahian: “Well, they were part of the organization.”
Q: “Wasn’t it necessary for each individual to have taken up arms to be convicted of being a mohareb?” Fallahian: “No, when someone is a member of an armed current, the individual being armed or not, their ruling is mohareb.”
Q: “Even if they are arrested with a newspaper?” Here the interviewer is referring to the fact that many MEK members and supporters were arrested, and eventually executed, for the mere fact of having a pro-MEK newspaper at their possession. Fallahian: “Yes. They were part of that organization and were operational. Now, its possible someone would merely buy bread for those living in ‘team houses’, another would, for example, procure other necessary items. They were all involved.” On a side note, Fallahian referred to the extensive MOIS role in dispatching its spies abroad under various pretexts.
“… we do not dispatch an intelligence officer, let’s say to Germany, the US or Russia, and there he would say, ‘well, I am from the Ministry of Intelligence, please provide me your information.’ (They would do it) under the cover of business or media jobs. Many journalists are intelligence agents ... A journalist is not paid well, so he needs to work with an intelligence service."
Revelations and shocking remarks about the 1988 massacre are made by numerous senior Iranian officials recently. What has made these figures acknowledge the nature of the mullahs’ regime of carrying out such massacres and mass murders?
This has been the true, yet unfortunately cloaked, nature of the mullahs ruling Iran. Nearly three decades after that horrific summer of 1988, the efforts placed by the Iranian opposition through its vast network of brave activists inside the country and abroad have forced the mullahs to literally confess to their role in these killings.
It is now high time for the international community to demand a fact-finding mission, and bring to justice all perpetrators of the 1988 massacre and all the atrocious human rights violations throughout the past 38 years.
Two months have passed since the May presidential “elections” in Iran that saw the incumbent Hassan Rouhani reach a second term. The pro-Iran appeasement camp in the West went the distance to raise hopes over the hoax of Rouhani rendering major reforms.
These voices somehow described Rouhani as a “reformist” and completely neglected the over 3,000 executions during his first term as president. Reports from across the country are turning out to be very disturbing, signaling more troubling times to come in reference to human rights violations.
As fellow Forbes contributor Ellen R. Wald reported, “On July 16, news came out that an American graduate student at Princeton University named Xiyue Wang had been sentenced to 10 years in an Iranian prison for ‘espionage.’”
This is Iran again resorting to old tactics of taking Westerners as hostage, mainly dual citizens, to be used as bargaining chips in advancing objectives and politics in negotiations with interlocutors.
Another practice the regime in Tehran will continue is sending scores to the gallows. The Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a report recently indicating 57 individuals have been executed across Iran in the beginning of July alone.
Reports from inside Iran also indicate nearly 120 inmates held in a prison west of Tehran are on the verge of execution. These hangings are planned for the next few weeks, their families say citing authorities, and the sentences of at least 13 individuals are to be implemented soon.
These alarming reports have all arrived only after a recent tour launched by the mullahs for dozens of foreign ambassadors to visit the notorious Evin Prison located in the hilltops of northern Tehran.
But of course, no human rights organization or international prison expert were invited, only selected areas of the prison were shown, and merely hand-picked images were provided to the media to depict a highly peaceful environment and go against any claims of rights violations.
