By Daniel Mahdavi
Iran protests: How to learn from history?
A review of human history and events is a testament to the repetition of similar events humans have not only failed to learn from but have prepared grounds for their repetition with the utmost recklessness.
One of these events in recent years is the appeasement policy vis-à-vis the Iranian regime, embodied in an agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran nuclear deal, with world powers. The deal was made only to prolong the survival of Khamenei’s bloodthirsty regime, and also for the satiated greed of the West to achieve Iran’s oil and trade interests, while not including the slightest right for the Iranian people.
According to the deal, large sums of money and funds were sent to Iran by then US President Barack Obama. This money was spent on suppressing the people inside and maintaining the ideology of the Islamic Republic abroad, as well as equipping and reinforcing terrorist and proxy forces in the region. Of course, much of this money was spent on strengthening and expanding the regime’s nuclear capability, which the regime has not acknowledged and will not do so.
Now, in the face of this apparent contradiction, Westerners, who have had Hitler’s experience in the past and gone through World War II, are silent. This is truly surprising!!
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought that with the signing of the 1938 Munich Agreement with Hitler, had been able to distract the German dictator from his intentions and place him under control. Unaware that Hitler had plans of conquering Europe in mind, and by Munich agreement, he was only looking to buy time. At the time, the West was thinking of its own interests rather than the lives of the people!
The deal did not stop Hitler, and eventually the fires of war swept across Europe, killing more than 60 million and leaving millions injured and displaced. As we can see, that experience was forgotten, and several decades later, another mistake was repeated in history; this time in the name of the JCPOA with a mullah like Hitler.
Yes, the Europeans, the US, Russia and China have closed their eyes and ears to Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s desperate regime in a quest for incentives and their interests. They don’t care about the humanitarian situation and the conditions of the Iranian people who are the regime’s hostages. They don’t care about the killing of people in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. It seems that the smell of oil is so pleasing to these opportunists that they do not smell the people’s blood.
With a brief reflection on the mullahs’ insistence on developing nuclear-capable long-range missiles, maintaining nuclear power plants, installing new generations of centrifuges, stockpiling high-enriched uranium, and ongoing threatening of its neighbors despite many crushing sanctions, Tehran’s intentions leave no doubt in mind.
Unfortunately this November when Iranians peacefully protested for high prices, especially following a three-fold gas price hike overnight, embezzlement and injustice, corruption, cruelty and discrimination in more than 190 cities across the country, repressive forces brutally killed more than 1,500 using snipers in the first few days, and injured and wounded more than 4,000.
More than 12,000 people have been arrested and imprisoned so far, but the figures are likely to increase.
In the early days, the killers shut down the Internet across the country to prevent people from reporting and they turned the protests into violence. They have brutally controlled the situation and put families under intense pressure.
Many families are unaware of the fate of their loved ones. This evidence shows that the regime did not shut down its killing machine but reinforced it !!
In the midst of the November uprising, Khamenei and his mercenaries spoke loudly about the severity of the punishment and the sentencing of “Moharebeh” (enmity with God, sentenced by execution in Iran) for protesters, wounded and those arrested. A few days later, Khamenei, feeling the pressure of public outrage, resorted to Islamic forgiveness and kindness; Islamic forgiveness means killing and shooting defenseless youth, Islamic forgiveness means shooting the head of youth on the streets, Islamic forgiveness means killing a 14-year-old girl…
Iranian regime official Abolfazl Bahrampour had made interesting remarks about protesters on state television while quoting The Quran: “You have to hang them or cut off their right hand and left foot, and leave them on a scrap ship in the middle of the sea to suffer and die at the same time.” But soon after, he tactically retreated from his disgusting remarks!
All this is due to the fact that Iranian officials have realized that the Iranian people have started an uprising that does not stop until victory and they are forced to retreat more and more every day in fear of being overthrown.
They know very well that they have no popular base and these nonsense comments are no longer applicable even to their own forces. People are aware of their evil and anti-popular nature. This Iranian people are determined to save themselves from the burden of oppression, betrayal and looting, and no force can stop it…
Recent developments in Iraq and Lebanon also tell us that the people are not stepping back from their demands and want the complete overthrow of authoritarian regimes. Iraqis have repeatedly shouted a message of hatred to the mullahs in Iran by setting the regime’s embassy in Najaf on fire at least three times and called for the mullahs’ eviction from Iraq.
The deafening silence of Europe and other countries over the atrocities and massacres perpetrated by Khamenei’s regime in the region and Iran will continue to be a disgrace to their history. To be happy in such circumstances and launching a financial mechanism with the mullahs called “Instex” is considered complicity in their crimes.
If the international community had held the regime accountable for its 40-year-old crimes against the Iranian people, especially the massacres of 1981, 1988, 2009 and 2017, we would not have witnessed the massacre of Iranian youth in November 2019.
For all these years, the regime has been and is attempting to cover up its crimes and trample the blood of Iranian youth.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has been the pioneer of the justice movement for the 1988 massacre. This movement began in 2016 aiming to bring to justice the perpetrators of this massive genocide.
Through the course of the past four decades, the regime has killed 120,000 freedom-loving individuals. Members of the notorious “Death Committee” who issued the death sentences remain in high-ranking
positions of the Islamic Republic. They must be tried in international courts and by competent authorities.
Yes, this justice movement, by revealing the nature of the regime both in those years and now, is bringing the regime closer to its end.
The blood of Iranian youth will not be trampled and this fire, which has been ignited by the Khamenei regime in the region, will also engulf the Europeans.“We should all stand together with every thought and belief and overthrow the corrupt regime of the Islamic Republic in order to embrace freedom and victory soon.”
