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Regime change in Iran is key to regional security

By Mona Salem al-Jabouri

Any scrutiny of the political situation in this region reveals the prominent role played by the Islamic Republic of Iran. One cannot contemplate ending or restricting this role without thinking about its consequences in Tehran.

Meddling in the affairs of other nations in the region is a pillar of Tehran’s strategy, and it uses it as a lever to extract concessions from these nations, as well as using it as a playing card in its negotiations with world powers.

To expect Tehran to change its strategy overnight or for the moderate faction to stop it is erroneous because this strategy is a pillar upon which the Islamic Republic has been built and its destiny is intertwined with it. This is an important point to keep in mind for us who aim at ending Iran’s interventions in Iraq and the whole region.

Such a conclusion places the region in a difficult situation with options each of which is more bitter than the other. This situation cannot end except by Tehran itself. Certainly, negotiating with Tehran means to kowtow to its demands and ambitions, and no one can guarantee that Tehran would be bound to cease its mischief in the region in any case. The conclusion is that the only ideal solution lies in a regime change which is a task for the Iranian people and their Resistance. On June 13, 2015, the world was witness to a grand gathering of the Iranian Resistance in Paris attended by over 120,000 in which Iranian dissidents called for change and the overthrow of this regime.

It is unclear how much longer countries in the region would keep themselves with the regime away from the reality of an expanding opposition by the Iranian people and for how long they would ignore the Iranian Resistance which is the vanguard in shaping political activity and mustering a campaign against Tehran. Is it not time for the countries in the region to extend their hands in support of the Iranian Resistance? This Resistance represents the wishes of the Iranian people. Is this not the prime time for responding to Tehran with redoubled force and to point to the reality that ‘the one sitting in a glasshouse should not throw stones at others’?

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the Iranian opposition, expressed her view of the conditions in the region by saying: “The solution lies in ridding the entire region from this regime and to overthrow the caliphate of fundamentalism and terrorism ruling Iran.” This is the direct consequence of the dubious strategy of this regime, because this strategy will not cease without a regime change through its overthrow.

U.S. Investigating 7 Fires at Black Churches

WASHINGTON – The FBI is investigating seven fires at churches in black communities in the southern United States that broke out after the June 17 massacre of nine people at an historic African-American house of worship in Charleston, South Carolina.

The latest fire occurred Tuesday night at Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville, a small town 120 km (75 mi.) from Charleston, local authorities said.

It is not yet known if this fire was the result of arson, but two of the other six fires being investigated certainly were.

The Mount Zion church, like hundreds of others since the first such fire for racist reasons in 1822, burned down once before in 1995, when two white youths with links to the Ku Klux Klan set it ablaze.

A year later, then-President Bill Clinton visited the rebuilt church and issued a call to the nation from there to unite against racism.

That fire was one of a series of at least 30 blazes in churches in black communities in the southern United States.

The social networks have erupted in outrage at the images of African-American churches in flames, which resurrect the worst fears of past racial violence in this country.

The incidents have come in the two weeks after the Charleston massacre, where 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof shot to death nine worshippers, including the pastor, at Emanuel AME Church with the declared aim of sparking “a race war.”

“Racism, we are not cured of it,” President Barack Obama said in an interview just days after the Charleston shooting.

“The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, you know, that casts a long shadow, and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on,” the nation’s first black president said.

Burned Bodies Found on Highway in Northwestern Mexico

CULIACAN, Mexico – At least two burned bodies were found on the highway that links Culiacan, the capital of the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, with the community of Palos Blancos, state prosecutors told EFE.

Investigators suspect that the killers used automobile tires to burn the bodies of the unidentified victims.

Bullet casings from a .45-caliber weapon, an AK-47 assault rifle and a .38-caliber “super” pistol were found at the crime scene.

Investigators did not find any of the victims’ belongings at the crime scene, so they have not been able to determine the gender of the bodies.

The burned bodies were taken to the coroner’s office, where autopsies will be performed and specialists will try to identify them

Blast at Fireworks Warehouse Kills 1, Injures 5 in Mexico

MEXICO CITY – At least one person was killed and five others were seriously injured in an explosion at a house being used to store fireworks in Refugio de la Pila, a town in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, emergency management officials said.

The explosion occurred on Monday, Guanajuato emergency management office spokesmen told EFE.

The five injured people were transported to the regional hospital in Silao, where they are listed in critical condition and are undergoing treatment for burns.

Guanajuato Attorney General’s Office investigators are trying to determine what caused the explosion.

It is not known whether the owners of the house had permits to store the fireworks at the property.

Iran news in brief, 30 June 2015

Appeasing the ayatollahs and suppressing democracy

Professor Raymond Tanter, cofounder of the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), wrote an article on Monday in The Hill about the misguided policy of successive US governments towards Iran’s main democratic opposition group. The following is the full text of Prof. Tanter’s article:

Source: The Hill, Congress Blog
Published date: June 29, 2015

Appeasing the ayatollahs and suppressing democracy
By Raymond Tanter

Concessions characterize Washington’s policy in nuclear talks with Tehran. Running out of ways to concede, there are rumors the ayatollahs may ask Washington to place the main opposition that rejects clerical rule — prodemocracy organizations — on the chopping block.

Will the U.S. administrations reach out to Tehran by sacrificing the main Iranian prodemocracy opposition, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) / Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or broader parliament in exile, of which it is a part — the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)? If the executive branch takes such action, many Washington pundits believe that Congress would see this as a shameful policy for our nation, and may wish to act.

London, Paris and Washington fall victim to the chess players from Tehran whose end game repeatedly trumps the major powers. But the prodemocracy opposition also plays chess. The NCRI just announced that it plans to hold another press conference about Iran’s negotiating tactics to extract concessions from the United States to maintain its nuclear infrastructure intact.

We are approaching the end game of the nuclear deadline, June 30. With too little progress, expect Tehran to demand concessions about PMOI members in Camp Liberty, Iraq, held in prison-like circumstances for the Iranian regime.

In 2002, during the invasion of Iraq, Tehran asked the Bush administration to bomb PMOI bases in Iraq, which the U.S. did despite the group’s nonbelligerent posture. Washington received Iran’s pledge not to interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs, which Tehran soon violated.

During the summer 2009 uprising in Iran, the PMOI was active in fomenting dissent; its main residence, Camp Ashraf, was attacked by pro-Tehran Iraqi forces. The State Department first blamed the PMOI.

In September 2013, Baghdad’s swat teams entered Camp Ashraf and executed 52 unarmed PMOI members by shooting at them at point blank range and tying their hands in the back before execution. The State Department claimed a close ally of Iran, Nouri al-Maliki, had nothing to do with the murder or with the seven people including six female hostages.

On Nov. 13, 2015, in a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Bret McGurk, deputy assistance secretary of State for Near East Affairs, said, “In that attack there was no foreknowledge from the highest levels of the Iraqi government.” Tehran “cheered” the murders, as the Obama administration secretly negotiated with Iran before the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action.

The PMOI has been the enemy of Tehran for decades. Tehran pays more attention and dislikes it more than all other opposition organizations combined, according to one quantitative study. Why? The PMOI has been responsible for much of what we know about the nuclear program of Iran, including the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz and heavy water facility in Arak.

A June 19 2003 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirms the PMOI as first source:

"During the General Conference, the Director General met with the Vice President, and asked that Iran confirm whether it was building a large underground nuclear related facility at Natanz and a heavy water production plant at Arak, as reported in the media in August 2002 …

"During his visit [to Iran], the Director General was informed by Iran of its uranium enrichment programme, which was described as including two new facilities located at Natanz …. These two facilities were declared to the Agency for the first time during that visit … Iran also confirmed … the heavy water production plant [NCRI August 2002, Arak]."

Regarding a February 2015 PMOI revelation of a secret site, Lavizan-3, Iran is suspected of conducting tests and enrichment with advanced centrifuge machines. And Fordow underground enrichment facility near Qom is another NCRI revelation.

NCRI intelligence revealed, during September 2009, sites in and near Tehran, where Tehran may be working on detonators for nuclear warheads. Prompted by such publicity, it acknowledged in September existence of a uranium enrichment facility about 20 miles north of Qom. By January 2012, Iran admitted enrichment at the site: Fordow.

A day after the NCRI revelation of a covert site, Lavizan-3, Secretary John Kerry appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee; he said the powers hoped to close off a covert pathway to the bomb, but admitted, “Covert, of course, is the hardest.” “You need to have verification and intrusive inspection to be able to find covert facilities.” On February 25, Kerry had called for enhanced inspections to catch Iranian cheating, but on April 9, Tehran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said its “military sites cannot be inspected under the excuse of nuclear supervision.”

According to my research, it is time to have intrusive IAEA inspection, “anytime, anywhere,” of hidden sites; have inspectors take samples from the environment in secret facilities. Doing less, Washington may find itself at the end of the line of Churchill’s adage that an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat the appeaser last. For Washington to think that instead of pressuring Tehran to comply, it may have better success by demonizing the PMOI members in Camp Liberty, would be wishful thinking and a dangerous path to follow.

Tanter cofounded the Iran Policy Committee (IPC) and serves as its president and of Iran Policy Committee Publishing. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee on the Present Danger, and was for about a decade an adjunct scholar at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.