The totalitarian regime of Iran has done nothing but escalate its regional destabilizing efforts since the nuclear agreement.
When the Iran National Council declared our conditional support for the Joint Plan of Action on nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran, we did so based on the premise that such an agreement would reduce regional and international tensions and the risk of imminent war. We did so, while firmly reminding the free world that this agreement does not address the repressive policies and tyrannical nature of the theocratic regime and its state sponsorship of terrorism, nor does it address the hardships imposed on the Iranian people by its internal violations of human rights and basic principles of a civic society.
Barely three months since the announcement of the said agreement, the theocratic regime has been busy acquiring new missiles technology from some of the signers of the agreement, while at the same time aggressively expanding its proxy support of terror in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
We strongly condemn and challenge Hassan Rouhani's statement at the UN General Assembly that the United States and Israel are responsible for regional terrorism. Such a statement from the representative of a theocratic expansionist state that embodies the rise of militant religious and political terrorism both at home and abroad for the past 36 years, is an insult to the collective intelligence of the civilized world.
Even more outrageous, is the Rouhani's contention that they are supporting democratic forces in Syria by sending military and financial aid to the Ba'athist dictatorship of Bashar al Assad. This is similar to the old Stalinist practice of establishing Soviet totalitarian satellite regimes in Eastern Europe and calling them democratic republics.
Hassan Rouhani's scandalous utterance are only matched by Ali Khamenei's recent statement, threatening Saudi Arabia of military response after the unfortunate tragedy that took place in Mina during the Hajj pilgrimage.
These statements prove that this regime will never change its behavior and will continue to generate crisis, in order to extend their hegemony through the whole region.
The conventional wisdom amongst the unconditional supporters of the "nuclear deal" is that the so- called peace dividend derived from the agreement will open the doors of Iran to greater trade and social interaction with the West and therefore will have a liberalizing effect on the regime and its policies both at home and abroad. Judging by the recent statements from the regime's leaders, this has been an abysmal failure.
As we stated in our conditional support, this is a fallacy based on the presumption that the financial windfall provided to the regime, will be spent on the people of Iran, and that the international community will have transparent disclosure and verification mechanisms in place which would ensure that the windfall would not be spent on further arming the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, and the proxy forces of the regime such as Assad of Syria, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis and Hamas.
We believe that the international community, and the deliberative bodies of the democracies who are parties to this agreement, should hold the regime accountable for its unacceptable human rights violations and state sponsorship of terrorism, and demonstrate through their actions that this agreement will not further consolidate and expand the tyrannical policies of the theocratic regime and its hegemonic aims for regional dominance and oppression.
Reza Pahlavi,
President of Iran National Council for Free Elections