Press Release by European Iraqi freedom Association:
According to various media sources President Obama secretly wrote a letter in mid-October to Iran’s Supreme Leader, 75-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for a shared interest in fighting ISIS. This is apparently at least his fourth letter to Khamenei.
Continuing to follow the widely disparaged policy of engagement and appeasement with the brutal leader of a theocratic state is a major mistake. Iranian meddling in Syria and Iraq and Khamenei’s brand of Islamic fundamentalism lie at the root of the rise of ISIS. Iran has provided money, arms and military personnel to back the former brutal, sectarian Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and the terrorist Shia militias in Iraq. Iran has also given its full support to Bashar al-Assad in Syria, prolonging the bloody civil war and costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Iran has been the main part of the problem, in creating unrest and exporting fundamentalism and terrorism in the Middle East.
After 6 years Mr Obama is still mistakenly extending a hand of friendship to a regime which was responsible for the execution of over 120,000 political prisoners and recently executed a young girl of 26, Reyhaneh Jabbari, after seven and half years in prison for self-defence; the Iranian government has condoned a recent spate of acid attacks on women for “mal-veiling”, leading to dozens of young women being permanently disfigured and blinded. The supposedly ‘moderate’ regime of President Rouhani has executed more people than even his predecessor Ahmadinejad, imposing an atmosphere of fear and terror throughout the country; last week they even sentenced a young British girl to a year in prison for watching a volleyball match.
To give concessions to such a regime, under the pretext of fighting ISIS, will simply exacerbate the violence and worsen the crisis, strengthening support for ISIS and other Islamic extremists. It will also pave the way for Iran to become a nuclear power and a threat to world peace.
Europe should not be a part of this dishonest appeasement policy and we call on our colleagues in the US Congress strongly to condemn President Obama’s letters to Khamenei and to end the strategy of rapprochement with Iran, which is clearly against the interests of the American people.
Struan Stevenson
President of the European Iraqi freedom Association
President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq (1999-2014)
