NCRI – “The mullahs have penetrated Iraq to a point where it has gone far beyond meddling,” Mrs. Maryam Rajavi said regretting that the warnings by Iranian resistance in the past two years had been ignored.
In her message to a conference in London on human rights in Iran and mullahs’ meddling in Iraq on Thursday, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran reiterated: “Supporting the Iranian people’s Resistance at this sensitive juncture is not merely supporting a resistance group, but a historic step toward victory over evil forces and toward saving peace, security and democracy.” Full text of her speech is as follows:
I salute all of you representatives, political personalities, advocates of peace and human rights as well as supporters of the Iranian Resistance who have gathered in London today.
In recent weeks, the world has been reacting appropriately to the remarks by the mullahs’ president, his repeated calls to establish a theocratic empire under the banner of Islam and his expression of revulsion toward civilized society. Regrettably, however, the world has remained essentially silent and failed to show any attention or sensitivity toward the root cause of this adventurism, namely the velayat-e faqih’s extensive and deep infiltration in Iraq.
Owing to the explosive state of society in Iran and repeated domestic and external failures, the mullahs, fearing any change or reform, are facing a deadlock. They have found it opportune to meddle in Iraq as a reprieve and devoted an important part of their resources to it.
Two year ago, the Iranian Resistance exposed the mullahs’ dangerous meddling in Iraq for the first time. At the time, I told a gathering of Iranians in London that the danger of the mullahs’ interference and terrorism in Iraq was a hundred times greater than its nuclear threat.
Regrettably, the US and UK governments, which had several months earlier bombed the People’s Mojahedin bases in Iraq at the behest of Tehran, ignored these warnings. Indeed, after the war, the most urgent task was to curtail Iran’s meddling in Iraq and not the vice versa. Ignoring this threat was a major policy blunder with grave implications. Today, the mullahs have penetrated Iraq to a point where it has gone far beyond meddling.
Some 2.8 million Iraqis are correct in emphasizing in their statement, "Our country is facing a secret war and an undeclared occupation by the Iranian regime." So are 300 Iraqi lawyers who said in a joint declaration in defense of the freedom and independence of the press, "From Basra to Al-Amara, from Karbala to Najaf, Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, our country is facing another kind of occupation. Regrettably, the Iranian regime is leading this foreign intervention."
The statement by 2.8 million Iraqis provides a shocking picture of what the clerical regime is doing in Iran: "Hundreds of thousands of agents have been sent to Iraq under different covers; arms and ammunition continue to be smuggled across the border; dozens of radio and television stations and many newspapers, magazines and periodicals have been set up or bought to saturate Iraq with Tehran’s’ propaganda; exorbitant sums have been spent to buy many corporations and factories… women have been suppressed… physicians, university professors and government workers have been assassinated; intellectuals and journalists have been threatened; narcotic drugs have been smuggled into Iraq; dissidents have been killed. Iran’s catastrophic meddling in Iraq affects our day-to-day lives."
To this list, one must add a series of criminal actions by the mullahs in recent months. They include kidnappings, which victimized two members of the People’s Mojahedin organization of Iran, Hossein Pouyan and Mohammad Ali Zahedi who were abducted on August 4, 2005 and disappeared after being taken to the Interior Ministry
The regime has also set up spy and assassination centres, prisons and torture chambers, which are intrinsic to the presence and activities of the clerical regime everywhere. Al-Jaderiya torture center in which more than 160 Iraqi prisoners were being tortured with cables, metal rods, electric shock and cigarette burns as well as another prison in Baghdad in which hundreds were being tortured are two examples. A large number of other torture centers are being directly controlled by the mullahs’ agents.
The Iranian regime’s multi-facetted role in Iraq is truly astounding. It practically controls an important pat of the government in that country. It also routinely launches raids on people’s homes and takes those detained to unknown locations for interrogation and mistreatment. It is also active in setting up terrorist networks.
In an important investigation into the Tehran regime’s strategy of exerting influence in Iraq, the US weekly, Time Magazine, revealed that the Revolutionary Guards Corps had created a terrorist network consisting of 17 groups with 280 members in Iraq. In addition, the clerical regime actively provides other terrorist networks in Iraq with support, offering them money, weapons and training.
Furthermore, the experience of the vote on the Constitution and two parliamentary elections last year demonstrated that in addition to rigging and fraud and sending already-marked ballots by trucks from Iran, as reported by the New York Times, the mullahs have resorted to assassinating candidates and dissident Iraqi personalities or fabricating cases against them as well as influencing the Commission which is observing the elections
The main objective behind these devious operations is to gain control of the Iraqi government or a major portion of it and to deliver blows to the Iranian Resistance, especially to Ashraf City. If the mullahs do not succeed in realizing this objective, their extensive presence and meddling in Iraq would be beneficial as it prevents the collapse of the velayat-e faqih system. Last September, Supreme Leader said his deadlocked regime had solidified its influences in other countries.
Dear friends,
The bloodbath in Iraq today and its horrific implications for the region as a whole give rise to one question. Why did the situation turned out the way it did? The answer lies in the mistaken approach as a result of which, as Tehran’s former Intelligence Minister boasted, "The Islamic Republic gained unlimited victory," and as the Saudi Foreign Minister lamented, "practically handed Iraq to Iran."
The major blunder was to bomb and disarm the Iranian Mojahedin, upsetting the strategic balance with the Iranian regime in that sensitive region of the world.
Another big mistake was to underestimate or even ignore the main threat to post-war Iraq, namely the Iranian regime, which is the epicenter of exporting fundamentalism. From the outset, Iraq was Tehran’s biggest prey and the bridgehead to realizing its dream of installing a medieval caliphate.
The big mistake was the policy of appeasement toward the mullahs who gained the windfall of devouring Iraq after the fall of the previous government in that country.
Keeping the Mojahedin in the terrorist lists, which blocked a significant part of the resources of the Resistance’s principal force, gave the mullahs the opportunity to advance their plans.
Consistent with a policy of appeasement, the Coalition forces wrongly believed that they could thwart the mullahs’ advance in Iraq through negotiation and that they could cajole pro-Tehran factions into becoming moderate. They believed that if they showed some tolerance toward the activities of pro-regime operatives, such leniency would enable them to reach accommodation with the clerical regime over Iraq.
In this way, the borders were left wide open to infiltration by the Iranian regime’s operatives whose extensive activities throughout Iraq were ignored. They also turned a blind eye to rigging and blatant interference of the Iranian regime’s operatives in the election, their control of a number of the most sensitive ministries and the setting up of torture centers by the Intelligence Ministry.
In the past two years, the British government was so involved in appeasing Tehran that according to the Daily Telegraph, the Foreign Office insisted that not even a single word that could be interpreted as criticism should be uttered against the Iranian regime.
The mistaken policy that led to the current catastrophic situation in Iraq, and is threatening global peace and security, emanated from an erroneous point of view.
This point of view is before anything else, the result of ignoring the main factors that dictate Iraq’s geo-political situation. The Iranian regime has always had covetous designs on Iraq as a nation, two-third of whose population are Shiite and which is host to the shrine of six Shiite Imams. The long and porous border and cultural and historical similarities between the two countries have facilitated this situation. This is particularly the case, because the regime ruling Iran is based on absolute repression, export of fundamentalism and terrorism. Due to its historical decadence, the mullahs’ regime must inevitably expand in order to survive otherwise they would disintegrate from within.
Another point of view that should be faulted for leading to the current mistaken policy was the illusion that democracy could take shape in the current state of Iraq, where the religious dictatorship ruling Iran has influenced its political and social environment through its intelligence agents, terrorism and spending petro-dollars.
In reality, the clerical regime has stretched its tentacles to the depths of Iraq’s political and social survival and taken the democratization process hostage.
We are living in an extraordinary era, when major developments are in the making. Thus, understanding what the correct policy and motto should be and striving to realize them would have lasting significance.
What is the correct policy?
Such a policy is derived from recognizing the region’s political, social and historic situation, the real threat, the antithesis to it and a practical solution. I would summarize this policy in three short phrases: Curtailing the clerical regime’s meddling in Iraq, preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons and removing the Mojahedin from the lists of terrorist organizations.
The aim of this policy is to block the path of the clerical regime and remove the obstacles against the Iranian Resistance, which would ultimately result in the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship. The objective is the freedom and liberation of the enraged people of Iran whose lives have been devastated by barbaric repression, poverty and destitution.
Fundamentalism and dictatorship in Iran have impeded democracy and stability in Iraq. Any policy that does not want to see the region plunge into the darkness of medieval fundamentalism must inevitably face up to this regime and recognize the resistance of the Iranian people.
Dear friends,
Supporting the Iranian people’s Resistance at this sensitive juncture is not merely supporting a resistance group, but a historic step toward victory over evil forces and toward saving peace, security and democracy. In this path, I extend my hand to all of you for help.
Thank you very much
