Iran: Protesters Demand Their Deposits from IRGC-affiliated Credit Institution
Hundreds of people who have not been able to withdraw their deposits from Caspian credit institution staged a protest gathering outside the regime’s judiciary office in the capital, Tehran, chanting angry slogans, on Sunday, August 20.
The protesters were shouting “Death to Seif”, referring to the Central Bank governor, Valiollah Seif.
During recent months, there have been many similar protests against Caspian credit institution in other cities, as well.
On Sunday, protestors also gathered outside a branch of the institution in city of Neyshabur in northeastern Iran.
Similar protest also held on Saturday, 19 August, in city of Rasht.
The defunct IRGC backed Caspian Credit Institute, founded in 1990s claiming to be a local low-interest-rate loan fund, attracted thousands of investors by paying higher interest rates but later failed to fulfil its promises.
There are hundreds of similar funds are active across Iran but the regime has failed to regulate them.
The foremost demand of the protesters is to take back their money siphoned off by the IRGC-aligned institution.
Many people across the country had trusted Caspian credit institution enough to decide to invest there, as its name had been listed in Central Bank’s official website as an authorized institution. Therefore, investors say that they can no longer trust the Central Bank.
On the second anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran nuclear deal, some argue that the agreement succeeded in slowing Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon. However, the restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program are only limited, as is the international inspectors’ access to the country’s illicit facilities.In addition, in areas unrelated to the nuclear agreement,
the Iranian regime’s behavior has only gotten worse over the past two years. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has escalated its nefarious activities in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, has deliberately sought out close encounters with American warships, and has boasted of new Iranian military equipment.
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The White House’s efforts to enforce a harder line on Iran policy is well justified and the president’s signing into law of H.R. 3364, which included a title, “Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017” is a step in the right direction.
In June, the National Council of Resistance of Iran revealed details of the escalation of the Iranian missile program, proving the nuclear threat to be real. The opposition coalition identified more than 40 sites for missile development, manufacturing, and testing, all of which were under the control of the IRGC. What’s more, at least one of those sites was known to be collaborating with the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, known by its Farsi acronym SPND, the institution tasked with weaponization activities related to the Iranian nuclear weapons program. SPND activities have continued since the JDPOA.
Such revelations clarified what should already be common knowledge: Iran’s nuclear weapons activities have continued. Even worse, myopic focus on the nuclear issues has distracted attention from the Iranian regime’s terrorism sponsorship, regional intervention, and human rights abuses.
If the IRGC continues to acquire more wealth through its large-scale control of the de-sanctioned Iranian economy, combined with continued lack of access to the nuclear sites of SPND, Iran will undoubtedly deliver a nuclear weapon.
To its credit, the US. has taken steps toward addressing the underlying problem of the IRGC’s expanding control over Iranian affairs. Soon after taking office, Mr. Trump urged the administration to review designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization. With the new Iran sanctions bill now signed into law, the administration should expand all anti-terror sanctions to the whole of the IRGC, including its affiliate entities and associated financial and economic arms.
This is a meaningful start to a new Iran policy that is comprehensive in its aims and in its enforcement. Toward that end, the US should work with the UN and EU to evict the IRCG from the combat zones in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. This will help protect the West and its allies, as well as empower the Iranian people, who are seeking regime change and are more than capable of bringing it about on their own.
Without serious sacrifice, Western powers must do their part. The Iranian regime must be more isolated and financially handicapped by the United States. It must also be subject to pressure not just over its nuclear program but also over a range of current and past crimes, including illicit missile testing, escalating regional and sectarian conflicts in the Middle East, and the 1988 massacre of political prisoners. The United States should subject all major human rights violators of the Iranian regime, including dozens involved in the horrific 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners. Many of the perpetrators of this crime currently hold key positions in the Iranian regime.
These pressures will make a profound difference in the future of Iran, if coupled with reaching out to the people of Iran and their organized opposition. They will succeed in diminishing the power and influence of the IRGC; bolster the Iranian people and the prospect of the emergence of a truly democratic Iranian government.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, the deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is credited with exposing Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002, triggering International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. He is the author of “The Iran Threat” (Palgrave MacMillan: 2008). His email is Jafarzadeh@ncrius.org , and is on twitter @A_Jafarzadeh.
(FILES) A picture dated September 21, 2012, shows a Raad air defense system carrying Taer missiles being displayed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, during an annual military parade which marks Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq, in the capital Tehran. Iranian forces have carried out what they called cyber warfare tactics for the first time as the Islamic republic’s naval units staged manoeuvres in the key Strait of Hormuz, media reports said on December 31, 2012. AFP PHOTO/ATTA KENARE (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)
Following the recertification of Iran’s compliance with a nuclear deal aimed at curbing its controversial nuclear program, there is quite a stir over the Trump administration possibly adopting a regime change policy in the face of Tehran’s belligerence.
There are those who favor such a trajectory, while Iran lobbyists and apologists have promptly argued otherwise, saying war should not be an option and citing ongoing campaigns in countries across the region to back their opinions.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s strong position of supporting regime change in a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent shockwaves in Tehran and beyond.
“Our policy towards Iran is to push back on (its regional) hegemony, contain their ability to develop, obviously, nuclear weapons and to work towards support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government,” he said.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis, known for his “Iran, Iran, Iran” description of the source of Middle East dilemmas, followed suit.
“Until the Iranian people can get rid of this theocracy, these guys who think they can tell the people even which candidates they get a choice of. It’s going to be very, very difficult,” Mattis said in a special interview.
It is broadly assumed that the diplomatic pressure and sanctions initiative embarked upon by the White House and Congress are aimed at serving a regime change objective in Iran. The next necessary step would be to make this policy crystal clear to Tehran and all relevant parties
Such strong statements made by Tillerson and Mattis dig deep into the Iran dossier and realize one stark, and very positive, difference between Iran and its neighbors. In contrast to others, the Iran regime change enterprise enjoys a long-term plan presented by a grass-rooted opposition movement, symbolized in the Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Unfortunately, the campaigns launched in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and even Syria, after former US president Barack Obama said the dictator Bashar Assad must go, all lacked this very necessary element, and the world remains witness in horror of the drastic consequences. Millions left killed and injured, scores more displaced, trillions of dollars literally wasted and entire cities and countries leveled. And the only benefactor has been the mullahs’ regime…, being an entirely different topic of discussion.
Tehran lobbyists stationed in Washington are heard saying Iran also lacks any such organized opposition capable of delivering anything different from what we have witnessed in other countries. For years they have been inaccurately mischaracterizing the NCRI as lacking adequate organization, support and resources.
To spare time, one needs only refer to this coalition’s recent July 1stconvention in Paris, held annually, for a glimpse of its social base and international backing. Over 100,000 members of the Iranian Diaspora, joined by hundreds of international dignitaries from all walks of life representing a conglomerate of political trends, shows how the NCRI, and its President Maryam Rajavi, have garnered growing support both inside Iran and abroad to bring about regime change and establish freedom and democracy in their homeland.
Advocates of the appeasement approach vis-à-vis Iran will further continue quarreling over how the West must continue its effort of seeking internal Iranian elements of moderation.
Ever since the 1980s a slate of senior Iranian regime officials, including former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, and now Hassan Rouhanihave been naively dubbed as “moderates” or “reformists.”
What deserves comprehension after 35 years of deception is the fact that Iran’s “moderate/reformist” pretext has long surpassed its expiration date. While the Iranian people are yearning for change, there is no such appetite, capacity or potential in Tehran’s ruling mullahs’ apparatus.
Mousavi supported the regime’s unnecessary continuation of the war against Iraq, devastating the lives of millions,
Rafsanjani supervised a domestic cleansing of dissident voices, and a string of assassinations and terrorist plots abroad,
Khatami presided over the 1999 student uprising crackdown and advanced Tehran’s clandestine nuclear weapons drive,
and Rouhani’s first term as president rendered the execution of over 3,000 individuals, and the trend continues as we speak with over 100 executions in July alone. Rouhani has also blessed a dangerous spike in ballistic missile advancements by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
As a result, any form of moderation or reform is nothing but a hoax misused by Tehran to continue misleading and deceiving the international community, while threatening the rise of hardliners if the likes of Rouhani are deserted.
Returning to the decidedly significant statements made by Tillerson and Mattis, it is high time such game-changing rhetoric receives deserved backing from President Donald Trump himself.
Iran must feel the heat from Washington’s policies, especially as Tehran prolongs its Middle East belligerence plaguing Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and endures its harassing of the US Navy in Persian Gulf waters.
America must take the lead in facing Iran over its fundamentalist nature both inside the country and abroad. The Trump administration should begin architecting an international coalition to back the NCRI’s drive for regime change and peaceful democratization of Iran.
After four decades of utter atrocities, it is the Iranian people’s right to live in peace and prosperity.
Heshmat Alavi : I am a political/rights activist focusing on Iran & the Middle East. I also write in Al Arabiya English, and contributed to The Hill, Algemeiner and Raddington Report. I tweet @HeshmatAlavi
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Speaker Ali Larijani, and Iranian President Hasan Rouhani during Rouhani’s swearing in ceremony in Tehran on August 3, 2017. (AFP)
Besides their policing duties within Iran’s borders, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was put in charge of the country’s clandestine nuclear program in the 1980s, taking full charge of the regime’s quest for nuclear weapons. With its hard-line commanders determined to lead the most powerful army in the Middle East, it needed sophisticated weapon systems to achieve this, and nuclear weapons soon became an obsession.
The full achievements made in the construction of these devices, will never be allowed to come to light, until those weapons are ready to be unveiled to the world; although, throughout the years, much intelligence has come to light to show the IRGC are well on course to achieving their goal.
With nationalistic fervour having always been at the forefront of the Guards revolutionary goals, they would never give up the quest for such a weapon. They feel that by possessing such an arsenal of weapons, they could steer Iran toward full control of the Middle East, as well as a handy tool for warding off an attack from the US or Israel, who would fear the catastrophic retaliation from Iran over such an attack.
With the Guards in total control of the procurement of weapons of mass destruction, they have supervised the construction of a vast network of underground facilities across Iran. The Iranian regime has claimed for decades that their nuclear program will be used to produce isotopes for medical purposes, and not to pursue a bomb. But with a vast amount of intelligence to prove otherwise, with all evidence pointing to a nuclear weapons program, it has to be assumed that Iranian boffins have been working on such weapons since the early days of Khomeini setting up the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Substantial documentation
There is substantial documentation to show that the Iranian regime has been for many years seeking equipment and expertise with which to build a nuclear device. Over the years, vast amounts of intelligence have come from many sources when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program.
In 2005, it came to light through the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), how Iran was in possession of quantities of polonium-210 and beryllium, plus the know-how to make a “neutron generator” that is needed to trigger a fission chain reaction, all key elements that are essential in the construction of a nuclear weapon.
With so much secrecy behind its nuclear program, plus the fact that underground nuclear facilities have been uncovered by the Iranian opposition group the MEK, and indisputable evidence that the Iranians have been building nuclear capable missiles, which they have been testing in recent months, this all seems to point toward the regime seeking a full nuclear capability for its military forces, and they could reach their goal in the very near future.
The deal
#NO2Rouhani
So as far as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) policing its nuclear program as part of the Iran Deal is concerned, with the Iranian regime refusing the IAEA full access to secret bunkers such as Parchin, and its nuclear program just stalled and not dismantled, the agreement isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.
At the time of the Iran Deal, it was strongly believed that Iran’s nuclear weapon was close to completion, with already an arsenal of missiles capable of carrying them stored in underground bunkers ready to launch, many aimed at the Gulf states, and American military facilities in the area.
But such were the derisory sanctions placed against the regime by the West, headed by the Obama administration; Iran’s nuclear program has in effect only been suspended, which makes it possible for its boffins to restart it at any time. So, with Iran having received continued assistance from North Korea, a country that already has a functional nuclear device, as well as the capability to fit one to a missile, the scenario of full cooperation becomes ever scarier.
Defense systems
Also, through the millions of dollars handed back to Iran, the regime has strengthened both its internal defenses through the application of new air defense systems, as well as updating arms and equipment for its armed forces, making it a much bigger threat to its neighbors than ever before. As well as this, the amount of money it has had returned through the Iran Deal, has helped tremendously in bankrolling its military campaigns in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
So, by participating in this new game of diplomacy, which it has been playing very well, Iran’s clerical leadership is planning to be in the nuclear deceit game for the long haul. If they can keep the West playing along with them, the mullahs will be able to build up Iran’s inner security, and with its new strengthened military, it will have the ability to repel both internal dissent, and any outside invader, showing its neighbours that it is a country to be both feared and reckoned with.
Then no sooner is its economy booming, with its armed forces the most sophisticated in the Middle East, and its air defences second to none, the regime will finish building its long sought after nuclear weapon. Having reached the stage where it feels no outside force can stop it, the true belligerence of its leadership will take over, and their long sought after nuke will be revealed to the world.
But at least, now that Donald Trump is in charge of the White House, fresh sanctions have been put in place; but only time will tell how far the new president will go in confronting Iran, and in what form this confrontation will take.
With the president’s signature on H.R. 3364, formally known as the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, the Trump administration — eager for legislative accomplishments in the wake of the GOP failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act — can take credit for turning the page on failed Obama-era policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The bipartisan passage of the long-anticipated sanctions bill by both houses of Congress allows the administration to take aim at rogue regimes in Iran, Russia and North Korea. Disagreements over U.S. policy toward Russia notwithstanding, the White House can be confident that legislators overwhelmingly support confronting threats emanating from Iran and North Korea and are prepared for even stronger measures to curtail the influence of these dangerous regimes.
The White House should now build on the successful passage of sanctions legislation to push for regime change in Tehran as an appropriate next step.
Trump administration surrogates can remind the American people that the White House first put Tehran on notice for engaging in regional destabilization shortly after Trump took office, pursued comprehensive sanctions targeting Iranian ballistic missile programs and directed the State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization, thereby blacklisting it from the global economy.
The latest sanctions legislation effectively accomplishes this latter goal by extending all terror-related sanctions to the entirety of the IRGC as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. The question now is how far the Trump administration is willing to go to address the Iranian threat.
This question arose in June when the sanctions bill encountered delays, and it arose again in July when the White House, for a second time, certified Iranian compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The move surprised many seasoned Iran experts familiar with Tehran’s belligerence, particularly given the president’s campaign pledges to scrap the porous agreement altogether.
In fairness to the White House, the day after certifying Iranian compliance with the Obama nuclear deal, the administration announced that it planned a thorough review of U.S. Iran policy. Some critics of the nuclear agreement believed that simply tearing it up on day one was not the best way to proceed.
But virtually all analysts agree that steps must now be taken to address the significant shortcomings of the JCPOA. The agreement’s weaknesses and omissions — the result of Obama-era eagerness to secure a deal at any cost — are well known on both sides of the aisle.
Trump’s embrace of the sanctions legislation may be an indication that he intends to adopt a more strategic policy toward Iran that would force concessions from the Islamic Republic or even encourage the transition to a new, democratic system of government.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson previewed this possibility in June and some Iran analysts have suggested that the Trump administration’s assertive posture toward Tehran points in this direction. But Trump, Tillerson and others must now pay attention to how they plan to facilitate regime change via “elements inside Iran” to ensure a permanent solution to the nuclear issue and other matters.
The July 1 gathering in Paris of tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates committed to democratic change, supported by senior members of the president’s own party, was sufficient to remove any doubts about the likelihood of regime change being successful. It was clear to all in attendance that there is a democratic alternative to the ayatollahs and regime change is within reach.
At the Free Iran rally, Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), characterized the then-pending blacklisting of the IRGC as necessary to facilitate a domestic uprising against a weakened Iranian regime. Recent protests suggest that ordinary Iranians have tired of the regime’s civil and political repression, human rights abuses and adversarial relationship with global powers, leaving them vulnerable to a “Persian Spring.”
But Rajavi emphasized that it will take more than a single package of sanctions to ensure success for the resistance movement. Now that obstacles to the IRGC’s terrorist designation have been overcome, it is time to discuss how the U.S. and its allies can further undermine Iran’s hardline paramilitary and curtail its foreign influence.
With provocative ballistic missile tests and harassment of American naval vessels in the Persian Gulf becoming a near routine occurrence, the Trump administration hardly needs a reminder of the importance of confronting the IRGC. Now the White House must decide whether it is prepared to bring an end to the regime that created the hardline paramilitary organization.
By taking assertive actions and supporting the Iranian opposition, Trump can signal not only his displeasure with JCPOA but also write the next chapter in U.S. policy toward Iran by building on the successful passage of congressional sanctions legislation.
Tehran’s rogue status and lack of legitimacy presents the White House with a unique opportunity to further isolate the Iranian regime and deny it the resources to suppress its own people the next time they rise up and demand change. The question is whether the administration is willing to seize the opportunity and push for regime change in Tehran.
Ivan Sascha Sheehan, Ph.D., is director of the graduate programs in Global Affairs & Human Security and Negotiations & Conflict Management in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore. Follow him on Twitter @ProfSheehan.
August 2, 2017. President Trump on Wednesday signed a bill imposing sanctions on Iran, after the legislation overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate. The firm financial sanctions were supported by lawmakers in both parties, The bill itself targets Iran and North Korea as well as Russia.
The Senate passed the bill, 98-2, two days after the House pushed the measure through by an overwhelming margin, 419-3. Both were veto proof numbers, upping stress on Trump to sign the legislation.
The measure targets Iran’s ballistic missile program, its support for terrorism and human rights violations, and yet it would still comply with the Iranian nuclear deal. Specifically, it imposes sanctions on any foreign person or foreign entity that does business with an entity already designated by the administration that has a connection to Iran’s ballistic missile program. These sanctions, for example, could apply to any financial institution or any foreign company that provides key parts or components to Iran’s missile program.
In recent days, The United States and three Western allies Called Iran’s latest launch of a satellite-carrying rocket “a threatening and provocative step” that is “inconsistent” with a U.N. resolution endorsing the 2015 agreement to rein in its nuclear program.
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, obtained Wednesday by the media, they complained that Iran’s Simorgh space launch vehicle, if configured as a ballistic missile, would have the range and “payload capacity to carry a nuclear warhead.”
The U.S., France, Germany and the United Kingdom said this is “inconsistent” with a provision in the 2015 resolution adopted by the Security Council calling on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”
New sanctions on Iran are a step towards taking power away from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but there is much more the US and its allies can do.
By Shahriar Kia
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to rally major new sanctions on Iran, parallel to measures on North Korea and Russia. To impose additional sanctions on Iran’s defense sector, The House voted 419–3, moving the bill forward to be signed by President Trump. Coming after three weeks of negotiations, this bill “tightens the screws on our most dangerous adversaries,” explained House Speaker Paul Ryan.
The bill sanctions anyone associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or anyone whom the US determines is complicit in Iranian human rights violations. Anyone sanctioned under the act may later have sanctions removed after a five-year review.
Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi welcome the US House of Reps’ new sanctions and terrorist designation of IRGC as essential to rectifying the policy of appeasement and described the act as a “step in line with the Iranian people’s desires and peace in the region,” especially as it turns up the heat on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
The new administration coming to Washington has promised many things, not least of which includes a reexamination of US policies towards Iran. Though the Obama administration did all it could to sell the nuclear deal as a victory, at best it has deferred the ultimate questions about how to deal with the regime in Iran, and at worst it has emboldened their belligerence in the region.
A successful policy vis-a-vis the regime in Tehran has seemingly eluded Republicans and Democrats for the last 16 years. It may be time to try something new.
Middle Eastern states when confronted with intense instability can result in the spread of insecurity across the globe. This includes the threat of terrorism in Europe and the US, and the increase of sectarian conflicts abroad.
Yet there are no easy solutions to these issues. The prospects of being dragged into another war are not appealing to anyone, yet neither can we afford to sit back and watch radical terror spread throughout the Middle East.
Unfortunately, the appeasement policy by the West for the past two decades has exacerbated this problem, directly or indirectly supporting or engaging Islamic fundamentalists at the expense of their main secular and progressive opposition. The cold war policies of arming jihadists and undermining democratic groups is a direct example of this. It is time to employ a reversal of this policy.
A common denominator underlying the rise of ISIS, and the spread of instability and fundamentalism, is none other than the regime in Tehran. No one can deny this. Yet at every turn, we are told that the only solution is one which engages the mullahs and strengthens their grip on power. The time for such thinking is at an end.
The regime has been reluctant to make good on promises of change and thus far has continued its brutal repression of dissidents while maintaining an aggressive policy in the region.
The question of how to guarantee a long term shift in the behavior of the Iranian regime remains unanswered by Iranian regime apologists.
The only long term policy which can guarantee a fundamental change of behavior in Iran, and sets an example for hope and change abroad, is one which recognizes the legitimate rights of the Iranian people to bring about democratic change and topple the theocratic fascist state in Iran.
It is the time that the United States firmly aligned itself with the Iranian opposition which embraces democratic change, freedom and liberty, and secular governance. The Iranian people and their organized resistance should be the primary negotiation partners and allies, not the ruling mullahs.
The principal opposition to the Iranian theocracy, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its main pillar, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) is one such organization.
“In history, the name of your president elect, Maryam Rajavi, will go down in the same tradition of fighters for freedom as Washington, Lafayette, and Garibaldi,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in a speech at the annual NCRI convention held this year on July 1st in Paris.
Rajavi advocates a new future of Iran. This includes a ten-point plan for a democratic secular republic in Iran, free of nuclear weapons, capital punishment, and tolerant to all religions, ethnicities, and ideas.
Shahriar Kia is a human rights activist and a political analyst writing on Iran and the MIdlle East. As a member of the Iranian opposition, he dedicated his life for the freedom of his people in Iran. He graduated from University of North Texas (USA).
Shahin Gobadi, a member of the NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee commented on adoption of a bill by the US Senate and House of Representatives on the Iranian regime for violating human rights and pursuing ballistic missiles. He called the bill that included extending sanctions on the IRGC for its role in terrorism, as a positive and important step. Gobadi also commented on the following steps for full implementation of this bill and the need to complete these sanctions with urgent actions against officials in charge of executions, torture and particularly the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988.
July 14 marked the second anniversary of the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the P5+1 in Vienna back in 2015.
This pact was reached fundamentally by sanctions against Tehran due to continuous revelations made by the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), being the first to blow the whistle on Tehran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.
The possibility was at hand to completely uproot Iran’s nuclear bomb-making facilities. The West’s appeasement policy in the face of Tehran and unnecessary concessions provided to the mullahs, parallel to the windfall of billions gifted to Iran as sanctions were lifted, only fueled the flames of war in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Despite all the concessions provided, Iran has been anything but contained.
Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei personally sought to reach a nuclear agreement to prevent the toppling of his regime. For four years, he personally supervised the nuclear talks, even prior to the tenure of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani.
“In 2012 the country faced an oil-for-food program, similar to the measures that destroyed the state of Iraq and caused the fall of Saddam Hussein’s rule in a matter of days. Our regional rivals and enemies were hoping the head of the snake be chopped off soon,” according to the July 16 edition of the Iran Daily.
The international community expected the JCPOA to launch the mullahs’ behavioral shift and containment. The West, however, failed to understand that, as Khamenei recently described, “any change in behavior means regime change.” Iran neither could nor had the will to respond positively to the international community’s request for change.
Eviction of the IRGC and their militia from the Middle East is indispensable to the enactment of this Act
Maryam Rajavi welcomed adoption of a bill by both chambers of the US Congress which imposes new sanctions on the Iranian regime for violating human rights and pursuing ballistic missiles. The U.S. Congress also extends sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) for its involvement in terrorism.
She added: “Since several years ago, the Iranian Resistance had urged the terrorist designation of the IRGC, as it preserves the entirety of the clerical regime and acts as its main apparatus for domestic suppression and export of terrorism and fundamentalism. However, the policy of appeasing the mullahs’ religious dictatorship paved the way for the IRGC and its proxies’ rampage in the entire region.”
Rajavi underscored the need for the immediate and complete implementation of these sanctions and their respective provisions. She emphasized that there should be no loopholes that would allow the regime and its official and unofficial entities, as well as its domestic and foreign interlocutors to evade the implications of the bill.
Maryam Rajavi urged other countries, in particular the EU and the Middle East nations, to adopt these sanctions, so as to deny the regime the opportunity to take advantage of its diplomatic and commercial ties with them and continue to suppress the Iranian people and export terrorism and war to the rest of the region.
She added: “The immediate implementation of sanctions against the IRGC and its affiliated entities must be coupled with the expulsion of IRGC and its affiliated militias from the Middle East, in particular from Syria and Iraq; this is indispensable to the enactment of this Act and a prerequisite to ending conflict and crisis that have engulfed that region.
Rajavi asserted that full implementation of these sanctions against the Iranian regime must be completed with urgent actions against officials in charge of executions, torture and particularly the massacre of political prisoners in 1988. Topping the list is Ali Khamenei, the mullahs’ supreme leader. They must face justice for 38 years of crimes against humanity. The ultimate solution to the crisis in the region is the overthrow of the illegitimate clerical regime by the Iranian people and the Iranian Resistance. Recognition of the Iranian people’s desire and right to overthrow the mullahs and establish democracy and freedom in Iran is the greatest contribution to peace and tranquility in the Middle East and the world.
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