Council of Resistance of Iran, addressed a press briefing at her residence in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris on January 31.
Speaking about the urgent actions required to deal with the clerical regime’s threats, Mrs. Rajavi underlined the essential steps in particular the need to remove the terror label from the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the main opposition to the fundamentalist regime in Iran. The following is the full text of her address to the briefing:
In a letter to the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the heads of state of the European today, I welcomed the decisions taken on the need to refer the Iranian regime’s nuclear file to the UN Security Council.
I wrote that the Iranian people and Resistance were unfortunately perceived as pawns in a bid by Western countries to satisfy the mullahs and moderate the regime’s behavior. Now, both the policy of conciliation has faltered and the mullahs are on the verge of getting the bomb. I also emphasized that time had come for a new policy vis-à-vis the Iranian people and Resistance by supporting democratic change in Iran.
In short, by appointing Ahmadinejad to the presidency, the Iranian regime has made a strategic choice to secure the regime’s survival by obtaining nuclear weapons, devouring Iraq and showing enmity toward peace in the region. The regime has only two choices, all or nothing. There is no middle-of-the road option. If it retreats a single step, it would slide toward disintegration and demise.
Today, the crux of the matter is whether one can prevent the mullahs from obtaining the bomb and an outbreak of another war in the region? After two decades of appeasement, could a repeat of the Munich experience of the 1930s be avoided? My reply is indeed, yes, through democratic change in Iran. The world community is facing a critical choice: Continued compromise leading to unwanted war or firmness and removing the obstacles it has placed in the path of change in Iran.
The Iranian Resistance declared last July that by appointing Ahmadinejad as the regime’s president, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had on the one hand stepped up a war against the Iranian people and on the other declared war on the international community. Today, the clerical regime has placed all its resources in the service of this war and formed a front consisting of Islamic fundamentalist forces in the region. The aim is to thwart the advent of democratic change.
Contrary to what the mullahs’ apologists assert, more than 90 percent of the Iranian people seek regime change, and have never approved of a nuclear program, which wastes Iran’s national wealth; particularly at a time when according to official figures more than 80 percent of Iranians live below the poverty line.
The Resistance, with its network of supporters in Iran and help from the Iranian people, exposed the mullahs’ nuclear projects to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons. In summer 2002, the Iranian Resistance revealed the principal nuclear sites, plans for uranium enrichment and plutonium production, and alerted the world to a dangerous program that had remained a secret for 18 years. Yet, the world community has a three-and-a-half year delay in referring Tehran’s nuclear file to the Security Council. The mullahs are, therefore, much closer to the bomb. During this period, Tehran has completed Isfahan nuclear site, Arak’s heavy water plant, both of which were in preliminary stages when first revealed. By the end of next year, the mullahs will produce plutonium that could be used in making a nuclear bomb. The regime has currently prepared Natanz to house 5,000 centrifuges, which have already been manufactured. They have also built and stockpiled missiles with a 1,500-2,000 km range that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Eighteen years of secrecy, three-plus years of negotiations and maneuvering by the United States, Europe and Russia have seriously imperiled the security of the world. Time has run out. I warn that either the Security Council acts quickly or the mullahs will have the bomb.
Then-Supreme National Security secretary Hassan Rowhani admitted last July that "in the past 21 months, the Islamic Republic has achieved brilliant results in technical, legal, political, propaganda and national security spheres… The crisis started back in August 2002, when the Monafeqin [Mojahedin] said Iran is building nuclear weapons in three secret sites. At that time, we had succeeded in enrichment at the laboratory level. In Arak, we had just begun. It may seem on the surface that we have accepted the suspension. But in reality, we have used the time to alleviate many of our shortcomings. We have not suspended work in Isfahan, even for a second. Arak has not been suspended at any time. We have postponed referral to the Security Council for at least two years. We have obtained the greatest security concessions. In the Paris Accord Iran and Europe pledged to cooperate in the fight against terrorism.”
The EU-3 official proposal to the mullahs in October 2004 stipulated that if the mullahs limit their nuclear programs, Europe would continue to keep the Mojahedin in the terrorist list. This was the biggest concession that granted the mullahs immunity from change and was tantamount to taking part in the suppression of the Iranian people.
All of this has come at a time when everyday, in my homeland one sees the heart wrenching scenes of the hangings of young boys and girls who are under 18. Women and girls are victims of suppression, discrimination and severe assaults against their dignity.
Gangs affiliated with the regime abduct and sell young girls in neighboring countries. Drug addiction has spread to vast segments of our society and the mullahs are the principals involved. Religious and ethnic clampdown abound.
The Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq
But the bigger threat the mullahs pose is their meddling in Iraq, which they have overshadowed with nuclear projects. The mullahs’ meddling in Iraq has advanced so much that they have set up prisons and torture centers in that country. They have also gained control of many of the Ministries. Iraq for the Iranian mullahs is a springboard for dominating the entire Middle East. Today, the clerical regime is using its position in Iraq as a lever to coerce Western countries into retreat in nuclear talks. The mullahs’ advances in Iraq have emboldened the regime to demagogically call for the elimination of Israel. Democracy in Iraq and peace in the Middle East are dangerous for the mullahs. For this reason, they are trying their utmost to sabotage both processes.
The solution
Currently, the world is in search of a solution. Some make it look as though the alternative to accommodating the Iranian regime is a foreign war and that the world must accept the nuclear-armed mullahs to avoid war. The regime’s lobby and those with vested interests are propagating this notion. On the other hand, some see the only solution in foreign war and military intervention.
I agree with neither. War is not the alternative to accommodation; it is the natural extension of accommodation. Eight years of Western concessions to the regime in order to strengthen Khatami gave Khamenei the opportunity to put in power the most extremist factions and remove all obstacles toward acquiring nuclear weapons and dominating Iraq. Since the ascension of Ahmadinejad, Khamenei has increased the powers of the Supreme National Security Council by creating seven directorates, giving it an executive role and putting it in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards. Earlier, the SNSC used to meet once every two weeks now meets twice a week. Its secretary, Ali Larijani, has more say in foreign policy than the Foreign Minister. Its executive secretary is a Revolutionary Guards general who has personally directed many terrorist attacks abroad. Strategic, political, internal security and defense directorates are led by IRGC generals. The person leading the strategic directorate was previously a deputy Defense Minister in charge of nuclear projects and WMD programs. Many of the meetings are chaired by Khamenei who makes the ultimate decision about the nuclear program and Iraq.
This is how the regime is preparing itself to advance its policies.
Nevertheless, we can still avert a catastrophe. We must take advantage of whatever opportunity that remains. I believe there is a third option: democratic change by the Iranian people and the Resistance.
Despite brutal suppression, there were 730 protests and strikes last month alone across the country. The organized Resistance with 120,000 martyrs to the cause of freedom reflects Iranian society’s yearning for change.
To bring about change, we ask the West neither for money, nor weapons. If the West stops giving concessions to the mullahs, petro-dollars do not fill the mullahs’ coffers, silence and inaction vis-à-vis the systematic human rights abuses and terrorist crimes are ended, and the terrorist list as well as other unjust restrictions on the Resistance are removed, change would be within reach. By presenting a pluralist alternative, through its vast nationwide network and its access to the most confidential secrets of the regime, the Iranian Resistance has the capacity to bring about change. Knowing this, the mullahs have always in their dealings with their foreign counterparts, demanded the imposition of harsh restrictions on the Resistance and branding it as terrorist and a sect and demanding that the Mojahedin be either expelled from Iraq or handed over to the regime.
As 2.8 million Iraqis stated in a petition last year, by virtue of their democratic and tolerant interpretation of Islam, the Mojahedin, the pivotal force in the NCRI are "the anti-thesis to Islamic fundamentalism and an important political and cultural bulwark against its infiltration into Iraq. The PMOI provides an effective counterbalance to the expansionist ambitions of the Iranian regime." The West’s policy against such a movement has contributed greatly to the advancement and progress of fundamentalist movements in the region. By hamstringing the Mojahedin who espouse a democratic Islam, fundamentalist forces are allowed to gain and maintain the upper hand.
We, in the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of democratic forces, seek the establishment of a democratic republic based on the separation of church and state. We have repeatedly called for free elections under United Nations auspices. The mullahs have never accepted that. The Council has committed itself to hold free and fair elections for a legislative, national constituent assembly within six months of the regime’s overthrow and hand over the affairs to the people’s elected representatives.
We want a peaceful Iran free of weapons of mass destruction. We want to rebuild our devastated country with the cooperation of different countries around the world.
Urgent actions
Let me repeat, the mullahs have pushed the region to the precipice. The world community is faced with a choice: compromise with mullahs, leading to inevitable war, or show firmness and gain peace. The international community must take the following first essential steps:
1. Immediate review of the clerical regime’s nuclear file by the UN Security Council;
2. Imposition of oil, arms, technological and diplomatic sanctions
3. Investigating the atrocities of the Iranian regime and its leaders against the Iranian people and its terrorist crimes outside Iran in an international tribunal.
4. Removing the unjust terror tag from the People’s Mojahedin of Iran and extending support to the National Council of Resistance of Iran as the Iranian people’s legitimate resistance.