{"id":7669,"date":"2017-07-02T00:43:44","date_gmt":"2017-07-02T05:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=7669"},"modified":"2017-07-02T00:43:44","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T05:43:44","slug":"the-washington-times-iranian-dissidents-rally-in-france-for-the-overthrow-of-irans-theocracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/7669\/","title":{"rendered":"The Washington Times: Iranian dissidents rally in France for the overthrow of Iran\u2019s theocracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LE BOURGET<\/a>, France \u2014 Thousands of supporters of a dissident Iranian opposition group rallied here Saturday for the overthrow of Iran<\/a>\u2019s theocratic government<\/span> at an event that featured speeches by several Trump administration<\/a> allies \u2014 including Newt Gingrich and Rudolph Giuliani \u2014 as well as the former head of Saudi intelligence.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The boisterous event, held annually in this town just north of Paris, was organized by the controversial National Council of Resistance of Iran<\/a>, a France-based group of Iranian exiles that brings dozens of current and former U.S., European and Middle Eastern officials together to speak out in support of regime change in Tehran.<\/p>\n

While the Trump administration<\/a>\u2019s posture on the issue is elusive, Mr. Giuliani drew large cheers here by asserting that the new U.S. president\u2019s view is far different from that of his predecessor, who led world powers to dramatically ease sanctions on the Islamic republic with the 2014 Iranian nuclear accord.<\/p>\n

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Mr. Trump is \u201claser focused on the danger of Iran<\/a> to the freedom of the world,\u201d said Mr. Giuliani, who was perceived by many at Saturday\u2019s rally to be an emissary for Mr. Trump, despite holding no formal cabinet position in the administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unlike the Obama administration, the former New York City mayor said, Mr. Trump \u201cis not in a state of denial\u201d on Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran<\/a> must be free!\u201d added Mr. Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker, who rallied the crowd by condemning Tehran\u2019s record of human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The two, who both were close advisors to Mr. Trump\u2019s presidential campaign, headed a U.S. delegation at Saturday\u2019s rally that included several former Democrat lawmakers, as well as three active Republican Congressmen: Reps. Ted Poe of Texas, Thomas Garrett of Virginia and Robert Pittenger of North Carolina.<\/div>\n

But it was an appearance by Prince Turki bin Faisal Al-Saud, the former longtime Saudi intelligence chief, that may have been the most significant part of Saturday\u2019s rally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI salute you,\u201d said the prince, who was in attendance for the second year in a row, and whose presence suggested that Saudi Arabia\u2019s Sunni Muslim monarchy openly supports regime change in Iran \u2014 the Mideast\u2019s Shiite powerhouse and Riyadh\u2019s main rival.<\/p>\n

Prince Faisal\u2019s appearance prompted speculation that the Saudis may even have helped finance Saturday\u2019s rally, although organizers flatly denied that, asserting instead that funding for the National Council of Resistance of Iran<\/a> (NCRI) comes entirely in the form of donations from Iranians disgusted with the government in Tehran.<\/p>\n

Controversial group<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s rally was a marathon of speeches and musical performances. But it drew only limited mention in most mainstream Western media, presumably because of the turbulent history that the NCRI has with the European Union and Washington.<\/p>\n

There were more than a dozen current and former officials in attendance from EU nations, including former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. But, in what could be read as sign of the current French leadership\u2019s feelings toward the NCRI, newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron steered clear of the event.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, French officials hosted Iran<\/a>\u2019s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Paris on Thursday and Iranian state media claimed Mr. Macron was among those he\u2019d met. France\u2019s foreign ministry offered no verification of the meeting, but acknowledged talks between Mr. Zarif and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.<\/p>\n

Political uneasiness toward the NCRI, meanwhile, stems partly from the organization\u2019s most influential faction, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK \u2014 an outfit the EU and Washington listed for years as a terrorist group.<\/p>\n

The MEK first appeared on the scene during the late 1970s, when it engaged in a power struggle against leaders of Iran<\/a>\u2019s Islamic Revolution. The group was later known to have carried out terrorist attacks against Iranian government targets during the 1980s. While U.S. officials say it also participated in attacks on Americans, MEK representatives have long argued that the terrorist listing was never driven by legitimate U.S. national security concerns.<\/p>\n

After an exhaustive campaign that saw MEK supporters spend millions lobbying and cozying up to current and former U.S. officials, the group was removed from EU and U.S. terror lists in 2009 and 2012, respectively.<\/p>\n

While media scrutiny of the MEK has lingered, the bigger NCRI political wing of the organization has come to be known during more recent years as perhaps the only dissent group on the planet with enough money and juice to rally tens of thousands of supporters in the heart of Europe each June behind a collective call for the overthrow of Iran<\/a>\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s rally went off without a hitch. Confetti was blasted over a crowd that organizers claimed was more than 10,000 strong inside a vast convention hall here that pulsed with notably more upbeat energy than past years \u2014 a reality that some attendees credited to the rise in Washington of a Trump government seen as eager to take action against Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most aggressive speech came from NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi, who condemned the \u201creligious dictatorship\u201d of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and asserted that the regime is run by \u201cexecutioners,\u201d who\u2019ve imprisoned or killed tens of thousands of opposition figures since coming to power in 1979.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Rajavi called Iran<\/a>\u2019s recent election a \u201csham\u201d and accused President Hassan Rouhani of complicity \u201cin all of the regime\u2019s crimes against the Iranian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOverthrow is possible and within reach,\u201d she said. \u201cIranian society is simmering with discontent and the international community is finally getting closer to the reality that appeasing the ruling theocracy is misguided.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only solution is regime change,\u201d said Mrs. Rajavi, who\u2019s the NCRI since its founder \u2014 her husband, Massoud Rajavi \u2014 went into hiding in 2003.<\/p>\n

In an email interview with The Washington Times last year, she claimed the organization \u201crepresent[s] the voice of millions of Iranians who are being oppressed in their country and who seek regime change and the establishment of a democratic, pluralist and non-nuclear government based on the separation of religion and state.\u201d<\/p>\n

But critic question the NCRI\u2019s tactics and the extent of its reach inside Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ariana M. Tabatabai, an Iranian-American who teaches security studies at Georgetown University, told The Times last week that the NCRI is \u201ca cult-like organization\u201d and said \u201cpeople inside Iran<\/a> don\u2019t see it as a viable alternative to the Islamic republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that the Islamic republic is widely popular, but it is more popular than the MEK and NCRI, and the reason is that this is a group that was known for its terrorist activities against the Iranian state during the Iran<\/a>-Iraq war [of the 1980s],\u201d Ms. Tabatabai said.<\/p>\n

Seeking \u2018regime change\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

NCRI supporters say their organization is the most influential on the Iranian opposition landscape.<\/p>\n

No one in the Iranian opposition \u201cstands out the way the NCRI stands out\u201d in terms of their \u201cday to day engagement with the Iranian public,\u201d says Ramesh Sepehrrad, a long-time Iranian-American women\u2019s rights activist, who works with George Mason University\u2019s School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution.<\/p>\n

Ms. Sepehrrad told a panel ahead of the rally here that it\u2019s difficult to measure the NCRI\u2019s popularity inside Iran<\/a> because the \u201cregime has made the price very, very high for the Iranian people to express their support\u201d for the movement. \u201cThousands of their supporters and their family members have been executed and imprisoned by the regime,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Shahin Gobadi, a member of the NCRI\u2019s foreign affairs committee, claims the group has become more active inside Iran<\/a> over the past year. \u201cPeople are realizing more and more, especially young people, that regime change is the only answer,\u201d Mr. Gobadi told The Times.<\/p>\n

But whether the Trump administration<\/a> stands behind regime change remains unclear.<\/p>\n

Jack Keane, a retired four star U.S. Army general with the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, says the president is crafting a far more aggressive policy than his predecessor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I don\u2019t know,\u201d said Mr. Keane, who also spoke on a panel ahead the rally, \u201cis if they would make a strategic move to undermine the regime to the point that it would be overthrown.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LE BOURGET, France \u2014 Thousands of supporters of a dissident Iranian opposition group rallied here Saturday for the overthrow of Iran\u2019s theocratic government at an […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,57,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-opinion","category-society-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7671,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7669\/revisions\/7671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}