Shahin Gobadi
Spokesman People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK):
Rouhani’s 2nd term will be riddled with more crisis & intensified factional feuding for the regime.
Author: Masoud Dalvand
Regime change in Iran appears increasingly attainable
Thirty years after President Reagan seized upon an historic opportunity to bring down the Iron Curtain, there are growing indications that President Trump can make similarly historic strides in the conflict between the US and the new Evil of our time: Islamic extremism.
In its first five months, President Trump’s presidency has witnessed dramatic shifts from the policies normalized by the Obama administration. Few are as significant or wide-ranging as the changes in American dealings with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The new attitude enjoys rare bipartisan support in Congress, and with good cause. The conciliatory policy of Trump’s predecessor resulted in an ineffectual nuclear agreement and tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief for a regime that remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
President Obama had insisted the Deal would prompt Tehran to moderate it behavior, but since the nuclear deal, Iran’s regime has only become more belligerent and more prone to human rights abuses, both within its own territory and across the Middle East.
In his speech at the Arab-US summit on May 21, Trump emphasized that Tehran is responsible for much instability in the region. From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, the Iranian regime funds, arms, and trains terrorists and extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict while openly advocating mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many nations. Among Iran’s most tragic and destabilizing interventions is its support for the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in the midst of its unspeakable crimes.
But the Iranian regime’s longest-suffering victims are its own people, as President Trump has rightly pointed out. Iran has a rich history and culture, but the people of Iran have endured hardship and despair under their leaders’ reckless pursuit of conflict and terror.
The US has a strategic and moral imperative to push back. The new administration has strengthened ties with adversaries of the Islamic Republic. It has also increased sanctions on Iran’s dangerous ballistic missile program and taken steps toward isolating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The overwhelming majority of Iranians have become disillusioned with the regime. The world saw this in massive uprisings in 2009, but by reaching out to the tyrants ruling Iran, the Obama administration helped doom them to violent suppression. Nevertheless, there are still constant reports of protests over unpaid wages, minimum social warfare, rampant corruption at the top of the regime, and so on.
These trends point to the popular support that exists for regime change. But the question then becomes whether that popular sentiment has the necessary organization to bring it to fruition.
Some contend that there is no such movement and that the opposition is fractured or lacking in support. In that case, the best strategy would be to merely contain the regime. But Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly stated in recent weeks that any change in Tehran’s behavior would be tantamount to the regime change. Faced with this attitude, containment is clearly not a realistic possibility.
A growing number of observers are making the case that there is a viable alternative. They point out that unlike many other cases in the Middle East, the Iranian opposition is organized in the form of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It has an identifiable female leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has a progressive, democratic ten-point plan for the future of Iran.
The support among the diaspora is evident in its annual major gatherings in Paris (scheduled for July 1st), which draw tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates and their international supporters. It has solid bipartisan support among US congressmen and senior national security officials from the past four administrations.
For years the level of opposition support inside of Iran was an issue of dispute. It has been true that the key movement of the coalition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (POMI/MEK) has witnessed the brunt of the regime’s suppression and some 100,000 of its activists have been executed over the years.
One noticeable change in the Iranian political landscape has been a substantial upsurge in domestic activism of the MEK. Its activists throughout the country have been risking arrest and torture by hanging banners and posters in major express ways and walkways urging regime change and support for Maryam Rajavi. The July 1 rally is expected to be viewed by millions, via a banned Resistance television network.
The Trump administration has moved Iran policy in the right direction but has yet to exploit the unique opportunity to turn the page against the ayatollahs for good, for the betterment of the Iranian people and the world as a whole.
Iran Regime’s Ballistic Missile Programme: Exposed by MEK Intelligence Network
London, 22 Jun – The Iranian Resistance group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) held a press conference in Washington on Tuesday, to expose the real threat of the Iranian Regime’s ballistic weapons programme.
It appears that in the wake of the nuclear deal, which severely limited the research and development of nuclear weapons in Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to focus on their ballistic missiles instead.
Members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the largest faction within the NCRI, revealed 42 sites related to the production, testing, and launching of ballistic missiles.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, Deputy Director of the NCRI’s US office, said: “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. These 15 centres include several factories related to a missile industry group and together form a web of dozens of missile production facilities.”
Four of these sites (Semnan, eastern Tehran, Lar, south-central Iran, Khorramabad, western Iran and Karaj, western Tehran) were highlighted by the MEK sources as particularly important.
Only two of these are officially recognised by the Iranian Regime indicating that, as when the MEK revealed Iran’s nuclear programme, the Regime is trying to hide their intentions.
The Regime has claimed that they are building and launching missiles, as they did in Syria on Sunday, in order to defeat ISIS but Jafarzadeh rebuffed that.
He said: “The primary reason for launching these missiles was in no way ISIS.”
The Regime has also been working with North Korea on the missiles and missile sites and it is worrying that they could easily combine the ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons once the nuclear deal runs out in less than 10 years.
Shahriar Kia, an Iran expert and human rights activist, wrote on American Thinker: “In contrast to the ruling mullahs in Tehran, the Iranian people welcome change and deploy the regime’s nuclear and missile programs, and abhor their meddling across the region.”
He continued: “It is high time 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.”
Over the past two decades, the MEK have provided the US and its allies with large amounts of information on the secret plans of the Iranian Regime from their nuclear programme to their terrorist training camps.
Iran’s 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 Khamenei has specifically tasked the IRGC Aerospace Force to carry out this initiative.
The locations of 42 sites were verified by the Iranian opposition, all being affiliated to 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.
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 Khamenei has specifically tasked the IRGC Aerospace Force to carry out this initiative.
The locations of 42 sites were verified by the Iranian opposition, all being affiliated to 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.
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, Khorramabad in western Iran and near the city of Karaj, west of Tehran. Iran has only recognized two of these sites as ballistic missile facilities.
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.
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 has already plunged the region into an inferno.
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… this 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 it meddling across the region. Targeting ISIS and claiming these attacks were in response to the June 7th 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 amongst ranks and files, especially the IRGC. These elements are currently terrified as the U.S. has become active in Syria, intensified its sanctions against Tehran, and America’s top diplomat emphasizing a policy of supporting regime change during their 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 10th.
In contrast to the ruling mullahs in Tehran, the Iranian people welcome change and deploy the regime’s nuclear and missile programs, and abhor their meddling across the region.
It is high time 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.
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.
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 has already plunged the region into an inferno.
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… this 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 it meddling across the region. Targeting ISIS and claiming these attacks were in response to the June 7th 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 amongst ranks and files, especially the IRGC. These elements are currently terrified as the U.S. has become active in Syria, intensified its sanctions against Tehran, and America’s top diplomat emphasizing a policy of supporting regime change during their 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 10th.
In contrast to the ruling mullahs in Tehran, the Iranian people welcome change and deploy the regime’s nuclear and missile programs, and abhor their meddling across the region.
It is high time 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.
Source: Iran’s missile program stepped up after nuclear deal
Citizen-journalists increasingly spied on, hounded in Iran
June 22, 2017 – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the increase in Internet censorship and harassment of citizen-journalists in Iran. According to RSF’s tally, 94 Internet users, mainly users of the instant messaging service Telegram, have been arrested since the start of the year. More and more journalists are falling victim to the war between different government factions.
RSF has learned that, on 9 April, 12-year jail sentences were imposed on three citizen-journalists who were arrested in September 2016 in connections with content they had posted on Telegram.
Users of Telegram, which is very popular in Iran, are increasingly being targeted. Telegram creator Pavel Durov has said that “Telegram has not entered into any agreements with any government on this planet,” and has “no plans to.” But statements by Iranian officials seem to belie this claim.
Information and communications technology minister Mahmoud Vaezi told parliament on 7 June: “Rather than block Telegram, which would drive users to turn to another app, we have reach an agreement with those in charge of it to block content of a sexual or anti-religious nature and content condoning violence and terrorism.”
A total of 173,000 Telegram accounts have so far been blocked. Vaezi said he had “launched an intelligent filtering that has enabled the verification of 400 million logos and images.” He said his ministry did not monitor the content of posts but added that, “in the past three years, at least 7 million addresses and 121 software applications for bypassing filtering have been blocked.”
The censorship and persecution, which is officially intended to protect the public from immoral content, has been extended to political and religious content and to websites dedicated to human rights and women’s rights.
Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, who heads the committee in charge of identifying unauthorized websites, reported in March 20 17 that “more than 18,000 volunteers monitor the Internet and report crimes committed on social networks to the prosecutor’s office.”
According to RSF’s tally, at least 94 Internet users, mostly Telegram users, have been arrested since the start of 2017. In most cases, journalists and citizen-journalists arrested by the regime are charged with cyber-crimes or immoral acts.
Source: Citizen-journalists increasingly spied on, hounded in Iran
United front against Iran regime’s destructive policies
Freedom Star: Below you will read a good article from eureporter about Grand Gathering of Iranian Resistance in Paris 1 July 2017
Well-known politicians and military leaders from the US, Europe, the Middle East and other Muslim-majority countries will attend a massive pro-opposition rally organized by Iranians in Paris on 1 July. The extraordinary international event reflects the participants’ view that there is an urgent need to confront the actions of the Iranian regime, whether it’s human-rights violations inside Iran or its destructive policies abroad.
Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the US House of Representatives and candidate for president; Senator Joseph Lieberman, former candidate for vice-president; John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations; and Ed Rendell, former Governor of Pennsylvania, are among the attendees. They will be joined by a US congressional delegation and dozens of American military officers, some of whom have held top posts under four administrations.
The convention will endorse the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and the platform of its President-elect Maryam Rajavi. Sponsors of the event include communities of the Iranian diaspora from across Europe. The crowd in years past, has exceeded tens of thousands. Many have traveled long hours from countries around the globe to attend.
The convention will advocate the need for a united front against Islamic extremism and a change in Iran’s government as the only realistic solution to ending the rogue behavior of the ruling theocracy. Speakers will argue that the best means of doing so is the movement led by Mrs. Rajavi under the banner of the NCRI coalition, which has an activist network in Iran and a political presence in most major world capitals.
Source: United front against #Iran regime’s destructive policies
