How To Tackle The Iran Dilemma

Shahriar Kia :Policy Analyst

The Iran dossier is high-priority issue on the desk of US President Donald Trump and his entire administration. Both his Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor have long years of experience in dealing with Iran’s belligerence, especially seen in the mullahs’ meddling in the Middle East.

Regime change will be necessary before the U.S. and Iran can have substantially positive relations, according to Secretary of Defense James Mattis.“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 told the Mercer Island High School Islander in a rare and special interview with high schooler Teddy Fischer.

The US Congress also has a full deck of cards consisting of numerous measures, including the recently adopted Senate resolution targeting Iran’s ballistic missile program, terrorism and human rights violations.

In early June the House introduced a bill condemning a horrific genocide kept mostly cloaked by the Iranian regime from the West. In the span of a mere few months more than 30,000 political prisoners in prisons across Iran were massacred.

In a rare bipartisan move, Democrats and Republicans placed their weight behind House Resolution 188 deploring this genocide that “included thousands of people, including teenagers and pregnant women, imprisoned merely for participating in peaceful street protests and for possessing political reading material, many of whom had already served or were currently serving prison sentences.”

The 1988 massacre is a highly sensitive matter for the mullahs’ regime in its entirety. While mainstream media in the West continue to mistakenly differentiate various elements in Iran as “moderates” or “reformists”, all factions inside the regime apparatus consider this issue a red line.

This very opposition, represented politically by the renowned National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its President Maryam Rajavi, held its annual convention in Paris on July 1st emphasizing it is high time for the international community to adopt a policy of regime change vis-à-vis Iran.

For the past year, however, the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) has focused its efforts inside Iran through its network of activists on raising public awareness about this massacre. This has been welcomed on a wide-scale by Iran’s very young population, with nearly half the country under the age of 35.

A delegation of US Senators and Representatives sent video messages and were present at the scene to support a cause seeking freedom for the Iranian people. Standing by their side was a long slate of American dignitaries, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, representing further signs of support from both sides of the aisle in Washington, sent video messages condemning especially Iran’s human rights violations and meddling in the affairs of regional neighbors.

Mrs. Rajavi in her speech cited America’s Declaration of Independence to emphasize the Iranian people’s right to overthrow this unwanted regime, also reiterated by the North Carolina representative in his remarks.

“When our forefathers met 241 years ago, this time, they pledged their lives, their fortune, their sacred honor, for a Declaration of Independence, for a new America,” Rep. Pittinger said addressing the massive crowd. Referring to the US celebrating Independence Day on July 4th, he added, “Yes, from that, we found Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and that’s what we want for Iran today.”
Developments inside Iran with dissent on the rise and the Middle East brewing further for more crises are placing the international community on a fast track to make important decisions on this very strategic state.

The Trump administration should ally with the Congress, enjoying support from both sides of the aisle, and tackle the vital Iran dossier by imposing crippling sanctions on the regime and its main leverage in all endeavors, being the IRGC.

Nevertheless, the conclusion is what the Iranian Resistance has emphasized since the outset and many in the world have reached today: The solution, the only solution, is regime change.

The truth is that the regime’s overthrow is possible and within reach, because the regime is besieged by extensive social discontent.

Shahriar Kia (@Shahriarkia) is an Iranian dissident and a political analyst on Iran and the Middle East. He is a member of the Iranian opposition, and a graduate of North Texas University.