By: Giulio Terzi former foreign affairs minister of Italy
The national uprising of the last twelve months in Iran has
launched a clear and unequivocal political message, leaving no doubt about the
real desire of the people for a regime change. In response, regime officials at
the highest levels, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei, have shown
themselves to be particularly quick in attributing slogans such as "death
to the dictator" and organizing of the revolt to the PMOI / MEK Movement,
which has always been at the forefront to end the theocratic regime, its
oppressive controls and violent repressions - implemented by the Iranian
security and intelligence apparatus - and the immediate release of all
political prisoners and for an Iran that fully respects its international
obligations and rule of law.
In this regard, it is important to underline how the
political platform of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) led by
Maryam Rajavi has obtained an ever wider support, both internationally and
among the Iranian people, and has turned into a valid, reliable and democratic
alternative to a bankrupt ruling system, responsible for economic
disintegration, rampant corruption, bloody repressions in Iran - and elsewhere
through the regime's "proxies" - which is definitely isolating the
Iranian people.
In this context, after more than a year of demonstrations
across the country against the corrupt and despotic regime of the Ayatollahs,
last December 15 Iranian expatriates in 50 cities of the world met to raise
awareness about the need for profound change at home. "Pro-democracy"
activists denounced the recent terrorist plots against the regime's opposition
and called on foreign governments to engage in more determined policies and
concrete commitments against the mullahs.
It should now be clear to the international community that
the clash between the deeply unpopular theocratic regime and the increasingly
influential democratic resistance is most alive. I have already had the
opportunity to write how Western politicians have for too long ignored the
presence of such "natural" allies in Iranian society, which now can
no longer do so in a credible way.
Europe is in danger of missing a golden opportunity to
contribute to a better future for the Middle East, while protests continue in
different forms. The improvement of living conditions for the Iranian people
and the conquest of full freedom should be an imperative for Western countries
and a further motivation in shaping a common horizon in the decision-making
processes that take shape at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, in EU
in Brussels and Washington.
Over the years Tehran has always been frantically active in
spreading a propaganda of hatred against the Resistance, depicting the Movement
as a nest of "terrorists": a practice common to all dictatorial
regimes against political opponents. As an example, the way in which the same
subject was used in Syria by Assad in 2011, when the so-called Islamic State
was not yet born. The truth is that the Iranian regime has not only attempted
to delegitimize the democratic opposition of the NCRI through the dissemination
of false information, but with a strategy of targeted killings, which has been
going on for many years, has also taken the path of physical elimination of
political opponents residing abroad.
The terrible history of Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf in Iraq
is well known: thousands of Iranian political refugees - officially under the
protection of the United Nations and the United States - had been repeatedly
slaughtered by militias sent by the mullahs. In Europe, over the last twenty
years, numerous murders and attempted terrorist attacks have taken place
against Iranian dissidents. More recently, last March, Tehran agents were
arrested in Albania while planning the attack on the PMOI / MEK headquarters,
where over 2,000 members are in exile.
In June, an effective collaboration between the authorities
of several European countries managed to thwart a bomb attack near Paris on the
occasion of the annual meeting of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
If the attack were successful, it is unthinkable how many of the 100,000
participants would have been killed, or whether the death toll would have
included the hundreds of high-profile political representatives from around the
world who took part in the event.
Not long after, at the end of an investigation conducted in
the United States, an Iranian citizen and an American of Iranian origin were
indicted for espionage activities on behalf of Tehran. The complaint showed that
the PMOI / MEK activists were the main target, with a high likelihood of
terrorist attacks against them to be brought to the United States.
Finally, last October, the Danish authorities announced the
arrest of a potential assassin sent by Tehran to eliminate the opposition
activists residing there. This led the Government of Denmark to make a strong
appeal to the European institutions and to the other Member States by bringing
to everyone's attention the real danger of the terrorist threat coming from Tehran.
Almost at the same time, after a thorough investigation into the events of
Paris last June, the French government unilaterally imposed sanctions on the
Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and some of its well-known agents. This is
undoubtedly the right course of action.
But dissidents are not the only targets of Tehran's terror
plots. Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Italian
Interior, recently highlighted the terrorist nature of the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, funded and supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, operates
as an armed wing of the Iranian regime around the world, with actions in Europe
and Latin America over more than three decades.
At this point, it remains increasingly difficult to
understand the reason why the EU is so hesitant to face this great amount of
evidence. Part of the explanation undoubtedly implies a short-sighted greed.
Many European nations and companies based in Europe are keen to keep access to
Iranian oil and to the still unexplored Iranian markets, a sort of new
"Eldorado" utterly unreal and illusory.
Italy and Spain, for example, have energetically resisted the
Danish demands, as well as the commitments of France, Germany and the United
Kingdom to sanction Iran for the clear violations of UN Security Council
Resolution 2231, which calls on the Iranian regime to avoid the development and
testing of ballistic missiles and other nuclear weapons.
But another factor also weighs heavily on the collective
decision-making process of the EU: Western policies on Teheran have long been
paralyzed by a fundamental misunderstanding on the real political situation
within the Islamic Republic. Those in charge of current policies tend to
erroneously consider the Ayatollah's resilience of power and consider any
attempt to disrupt this situation as ineffective, if not harmful. What instead
shows us the reality of the facts is an increasingly vulnerable regime, year
after year, and this data cannot continue to be ignored for a long time.
Fortunately, to give a jolt to such a dangerous
"impasse", many exceptions contribute to the European political
scene, within the European Parliament and the Parliaments of many Member
States, including Italy, through a series of urgent appeals for Tehran be faced
with the responsibilities of one's attitude. Thirty-three Italian Senators
recently signed a declaration of support for the Iranian people in their
anti-regime uprising, praising the Iranian Resistance as the main interlocutor
to bring freedom and democracy to Iran. Another initiative was undertaken by
310 parliamentarians, members of the entire political spectrum, to ask the
Italian government to officially condemn the massacres in 1988 of 30,000
political prisoners and to condition relations with Tehran, at all levels, at
the definitive abolition of executions.
Along the same lines, 197 members of the European Parliament
have appealed to the European institutions to support an international and
independent inquiry into the 1988 massacre ordered by the regime, with the personal
contribution of some people who still hold important government positions. Just
to mention, the Ministers of Justice chosen by the "moderate"
President Rouhani in his two equally "moderate" leaders: the current
Alireza Avaie and his predecessor Mostafa Pourmohammadi.
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