MEK Poses a threat to Iranian Regime
Ladies and gentlemen, there is an expression in American show business to say if someone or some people that they are a hard act to follow, I am following several hard acts to follow.
One accomplished soldier like General Jones, My good friend, Roudy Giuliani, whose accomplishments I could stand here for hours and discuss. Of course Dr. Kouchner, whose Currier, and whose achievements have marked him as somebody like the others with authority to deliver the message that he delivered, and their achievement of course give them the standing to deliver the message they delivered. But I will tell you that the greatest privilege, for me is to appear on the same program as Mrs. Rajavi, as the young people, you heard from at the beginning of this program, the intelligent, focused and determined young people you heard from, and before you, because they and you are the future of a great country.
That really is a great privilege. We’re gathered here on the eve of another session of the U.N. General Assembly. This one will be devoted at least in part to a discussion of nuclear proliferation and of course that makes it entirely appropriate to discuss Iran which has been intent the current regime at least has been intent on acquiring a nuclear weapon for decades. In fact, available intelligence shows that the regime continues to try to build facilities to help further that program despite claims that it is not doing so.
We know that the United Nations as a body, and the General Assembly in particular, has been at times a great disappointment, welcoming as they have, various scandals, including Ahmadinejad and of course Rouhani who they’re about to welcome.
That’s a great disappointment to people who cherish freedom, like those who are assembled here, but at least it’s useful in providing the occasion to discuss the problem posed by the current regime in Iran and what has to be done about it, and the problem posed by the current regime is way beyond the threat of nuclear weapons and the mullahs desire to develop and use such weapons, because that’s only a symptom of a more basic problem which is that under the current regime, there is a theocratic, despotism in place in Iran that oppresses and appeal exploits its people in particular and that finances terrorism both inside and outside its borders. As trying to become the dominant power in the Middle East, but there’s reason to hope.
The discontent in Iran that we’ve seen evidence of here has shown itself in repeated and widespread protests and demonstrations. It’s not simply the same people or groups and or even people who are affiliated with particular groups who are participating. The demonstrators, the protesters come from all segments of society. The merchants in the bazaars, truck drivers as we’ve seen, even students in religious seminaries. The slogans that are used in these protests are not confined to limited remedies, give us lower prices. They include things like “Down with Khamenei” the regime’s supreme Mullah, “Down with Rouhani”, the regime’s puppet president. They show an understanding that the regime has used its resources not to benefit the people of Iran, but rather to engage in terrorism abroad.
Such slogans as “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon I will give my life for Iran” and “The enemy is the mullahs, they lie when they say it’s America”, show that the protesters will not be bought off with half measures.
Of course, protests alone can’t bring down the regime there has to be basic weakness in the government’s ability to control the lives of its citizens and the conditions in its country and on that front, the news is encouraging as well.
Although President Trump was criticized by some for reinstituting sanctions against Iran and more are coming and it was suggested that somehow the United States was acting alone and could not succeed. The fact is that sanctions are succeeding. That’s not surprising. When other nations are faced with a choice between doing business with the nineteen trillion dollar economy of the United States or with the four hundred and thirty nine billion dollars and going down the economy of Iran, the choice is obvious. The United States has become the largest source of energy in the world. It’s an exporter of energy rather than a country dependent on others and as a result in part, Iran’s oil exports have dropped. In addition, the huge decline in the value of Iranian currency, there are now about one hundred twenty thousand or one hundred thirty thousand Rials to the dollar or fifteen thousand to mans if you prefer that measure.
If you measure things by the relationship between countries that are despotic, Iran is second only to Venezuela in the rate of its inflation and the chief cause of that by the way is not sanctions. The chief cause of that is corruption. The corruption that is rotten at the core of the Iranian regime.
What more is going to take to bring about regime change? Well, I would suggest to that a clue to what more is going to take, maybe found in the regime’s own conduct. The regime as we’ve seen and heard is absolutely frantic about the threat posed by MEK. The statements of Iran’s leaders show it. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei has charge that MEK is responsible for carrying out coordinated activities that threaten the country security. A member of the Majles said this summer that the slogans repeated by demonstrators were designed by the MEK.
A preacher in the holy city of Qom said this summer that students in the seminaries have to be careful not to let MEK take over their rallies and draft the slogans. I could go on and on with this but you get the idea, and you don’t have to stop with the statements of the members of the regime. In March, Albanian authorities stop the bombing plot, when two Iranians were arrested just before moving a truck bomb to a Nowruz event at which Mrs. Rajavi and Mayor Giuliani were about to address a crowd of three thousand people.
Also Germany, now has in custody an Iranian diplomat who’s charged with planning to bomb an MEK gathering in Paris this summer. A gathering of course in which Mrs. Rajavi and many Americans were present. Americans including Mayor Giuliani and I’m proud to say me.
In addition, last month, the United States charged two agents of Iran with collecting intelligence on Americans linked to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (N.C.R.I) and MEK and with conducting surveillance of Israeli and Jewish facilities in the United States for a possible attack.
The criminal complaint in that case if you read, it’s chillingly specific in quoting conversations about the people being surveilled and the intent to do them harm. That the regime would even think about such outrageous terrorist plots in Tirana and in Paris and about committing similar acts in the United States, targeted as MEK.
This shows the seriousness of the threat that the regime sees in this organization. Acts of violence like that on the soil of a foreign country are acts of war. In other words the regime has been willing to risk committing acts of war in order to get at this organization.
To put it very succinctly, you, we, the demonstrators in Iran, we’re inside their heads. We are in their heads.
Obviously, that’s something that can be used to the advantage of the Iranian people and the world. The United States can and should endorse the activities of MEK specifically, not simply because it would help this organization and its members but also because it would drive the mullahs absolutely crazy to make more of the kinds of clumsy mistakes they’ve already made. Such support would also serve the purpose of focusing the activities of dissidents within Iran and showing people both inside and outside the country, that there is an alternative to the regime.
That alternative has all the characteristics necessary to earn serious support. It has an organization, a structure with the ability to conduct activities in Iran and elsewhere. It has a viable leadership focused on replacing the theocracy in Iran with a democracy that can sustain a representative government. It has a platform that includes separation of religion and state, gender equality, pluralism, democratic secular and non-nuclear Iran as we’ve heard.
It supports diversity and the rights of all ethnic groups and there are many in Iran. It has a hardship and shown its resiliencies, it has shown competence in the way that organizes its activities and is shown itself to be a genuine rival of the regime by organizing demonstrations in the face of the regimes best efforts at repression. It has achieved international standing in the European Parliament and in the bipartisan support it has received in the United States. It will take continued pressure on the regime from this organization and others for it to ultimately fall but that pressure will succeed.
We are now at a point where the government of the United States appears to have accepted the idea that the regime in Tehran will not reform, that it must be replaced and it’s impossible, it is impossible to overstate the importance of that policy or the significance of this moment. We have to focus every political and economic effort we can to bring about regime change and there is no more fit and ready group to participate in that effort than the MEK.
Thank you
