Unprecedented stance in Paris for a viable Iran policy
Fox News, July 3, 2008
Transcript
As policy-makers on both sides
of the Atlantic continued to tear their hair at the Iran
policy impasse, the clearest call yet for a viable approach
to Tehran came over the weekend, not from Washington or
London, but from Paris. According to Agence France Presse,
“More than 70,000 supporters of Iran's opposition protested
near Paris on Saturday,” June 28, to challenge Tehran's
unabated nuclear drive and the escalating crisis between
Iran and the international community. They called on the
United States and European Union to adopt a new approach
toward the ayatollahs' regime by empowering the Iranian
people in their struggle for a secular, democratic, and
non-nuclear Iran. The Iranians from across Europe and North
America rejected both a military invasion and preserving the
status-quo, as at best ineffectual in resolving the current
crisis.
The unprecedented gathering was held on the eve of France's
assumption of the EU's rotating presidency, and just days
after Gordon Brown's government removed the main Iranian
opposition, the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran
(PMOI/MEK) from the UK's list of banned organizations. Now
the European Union must review its blacklisting of the MEK,
since the EU's designation was based solely on the group's
UK status.
The keynote speaker was Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect
of Iran's Parliament-in-exile, the National Council of
Resistance of Iran. Calling the blacklisting of Iran's most
organized and largest democratic opposition “unjust,” she
said: "The Iranian Resistance has never called on the US or
any other country to send their sons and daughters to fight
a war with the mullahs…If you stand with the Iranian people
as they stand for liberty, then end the terrorist
designation of their Resistance movement. This is a
resistance with 120,000 martyrs lost to the cause of
freedom. Do not deprive the world of the most effective
counterweight to fundamentalism and terrorism."
Former House Majority Leader, Dick Armey also addressed the
cheering crowd. He said: "We understand that it is the duty
of governments to honor and protect freedom…It is my job to
help members of the American government, people who have
known nothing in their lives but the blessings of liberty,
to understand that they have failed in their duty to protect
liberty by listing this freedom-loving organization."
Media reports of the event went around the world. Voice of
America described the crowd as “massive.” “Young and old
packed a cavernous exhibition hall north of Paris, waving
blue flags and cheering their support for Maryam Rajavi.”
The international flair of the VIP sections, in particular
the Iraqi delegation, caught the journalists' attention.
Sima-ye Azadi television news reported that the “nearly
1,000 parliamentarians and distinguished political,
religious and cultural personalities as well as law experts”
had come from Europe, the United States, Canada, and a half
dozen Arab countries.
The Washington Times ran a front-page article, describing
why Iraqi political figures and tribal leaders consider the
Iranian opposition as “a bulwark against Tehran's
interference in their country's affairs.” Quoting Sheik
Matlab Ali Abbas al-Massari, president of the National
Council of Tribes of Iraq, the Times said "the People's
Mujahedeen (MEK) is the true friend of the Iraqi people.”
Sheik al-Massari stressed the group's role in battling
Tehran's violent meddling in Iraq, which he said would be
even more effective if the dissident group was removed from
the US and EU blacklists. "They have a lot of restrictions
because of this list... That's why we want this list to be
revised so they will have more direct impact against
Iranians (Tehran's agents) in Iraq."
Another influential tribal leader, Hawas Showkat Hassan,
head of an anti-terrorist association in central Iraq, told
the Times that "We have a common interest against Islamic
fundamentalism and against Iran."
There was also a strong showing by Jordanians lawmakers, who
included the Deputy Speaker Mamdouh Al-Abbadi, Chair of the
parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs Mohammed
Abouhodaib, and the majority leader Meflah Hamad Al-Rahimi.
The Jordanian presence thumbed its nose at Tehran's claim of
regional popularity. Seriously irked, the clerical regime
immediately summoned the Jordanian ambassador in protest.
Amman reacted with an implicit rebuke of Tehran for
demanding that Jordan's executive branch interfere in the
affairs of its legislative branch, This so angered the
regime that, according to news reports, it expelled the
Jordanian ambassador on Tuesday. Amman reciprocated shortly
thereafter.
The delegation of British lawmakers included 15 members of
both Houses, including Lord Waddington, former Home
Secretary; Lord Corbett; and Baroness Gould, who had
spearheaded the de-listing of the Iranian opposition in the
UK. Lord Corbett, from the Labor Party, told Voice of
America that "The sole reason the PMOI (MEK) is on the
terrorist list was because the Mullahs made it the price of
opening talks with Britain and the EU over their nuclear
deceit.”
The message of the Paris event is clear. As former UK Home
Secretary David Waddington told the International Herald
Tribune, "now the PMOI can get on with its work,” which, in
a nutshell, is to end Iran's nuclear weapons drive,
destabilizing campaign in Iraq and hegemonic regional
ambitions, by bringing about democratic change in Iran.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is a FOX News Channel Foreign Affairs
Analyst and the author of "The
Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear
Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
