- How do you see the future of Iran?
The remarkable thing about thinking about the future of Iran is that the goal should be that the future of Iran is like its past. Iran historically was one of the great nations with one of the strongest cultures in the world. It wasn’t a place of intolerance, abuse of its own people, backward and narrow ideology, extreme poverty. This was a rich culture, a place of innovation and science and advancement. A place where people respected each other and a place of prosperity, not where children lived in abject poverty.
Parents had to worry about providing the health care or food or opportunity for their children, where hundreds of thousands had to flee their homeland to seek security and safety. Iran historically was one of the great nations of the world. It was Greece. It was ancient China. It was Rome.
The history of the Persian people is that they were in their time what Americans or Germans or Chinese or Japanese are today. The goal is that that happens again. And why not? What’s standing between Iran being a nation of free people, a prosperous people leading the international community rather than being a pariah, the mullahs, the regime, there’s nothing else. These are the same talented people that built Persia, that built empires.
Same people, same culture, same skills. One barrier, that is the regime. It ends and then a new future begins.
- Do you think this was a spontaneous uprising? What is the reason for the continuation of the uprising?
What’s happening in the streets? The city of Iran is both planned and spontaneous.
Interestingly many ways. Like the fall of the shah, what began as public outrage from murder, assassination spontaneously by citizens who have simply reached the point where they’ve had enough. Like every other revolution history. But it would have fizzled, and it would have died under extreme pressure from the regime. The murderous actions of its forces, the abuse of its people, the jailing of its children, if not for the fact that plans have been laid in place.
Hundreds, even thousands of revolutionary cells have been lying and waiting for their moment. Now, in towns all across Iran, it’s no coincidence that in 200 cities simultaneously, people are chanting the same slogans of death to the mullahs, death to the regime, chance of freedom. To that credit goes to many organizations, but none more than the MEK, which had slogans and people and organizations in place to rise the moment. Full credit goes to the Iranian people. They rose up everywhere the same time with enormous courage.
The fact that this revolt, however, has lasted, been heard around the world. That credit goes to brave organizers who were there and put their lives on the line to assure that this time it was different. This time there’ll be no next time. It is the end for the mullahs. It’s the end for the regime.
A new Iranian history begins now. Credit to those on the streets. Credit to those who have organized. Credit to the Iranian people.
- The regime claims that it has no viable alternative and the MEK has no popular support in Iran; how do you see this?
The core of the regime’s argument is that their murderous ways, the poverty they have imposed upon the Iranian people, the abuse upon Iranian citizens will continue because there’s no alternative. Ironically, they have on the same playbook as the shah, eliminate professional organizations, weaken the professional military, weaken the business sector, eliminate all political opposition, force abusers either into prison those who would rise against them, force them into prisons or force them abroad. It’s the same playbook. Here’s the problem. It’s not true.
There is an alternative. For years, almost 40 years, the MEK has been organizing around the world, organizing thousands and thousands of people in the diaspora and organizing quietly behind the scenes all over Iran, working in conjunction with nations in Asia and Latin America and Africa, throughout Europe and across north America. Building support. Today, the MEK has the support of a majority of members of the United States House of Representatives, but hundreds of members of the Bundestag and the British parliament and the French national assembly. More importantly, quietly, at great danger all across Iran.
Is there an alternative to the Mullahs? Of course, there’s an alternative. This is Iran. This isn’t some backward nation. This is a nation of educated people, sophisticated people with real skills in a nation of real resources.
Of course, there’s an alternative. The MEK is the point of the spear. They will not bring revolution alone. They will not end the mullahs alone. That will come from the courage of the Iranian people, thousands of them students, workers, soldiers who rise up.
But it is a lie to say that the mullahs must remain in power because there’s no one else. There’s somebody else. And for many of us and governments around the world, we’ve been waiting for this moment, quietly supporting the MEK for years. They have the resources. They have the courage, they have the experience, they have the credibility. Mrs. Rajavi’s ten-point plan lays out a clear, democratic, prosperous, tolerant nation at peace with its neighbors and the world without wasting its resources on nuclear weapons, devoting itself to the prosperity of its own democratic future. Alternative? Yes, Mrs. Rajavi, The MEK.
- Why do you support the MEK and the National Council of Resistance of Iran?
My support of the MEK and of regime change in Iran is not new. It’s been my struggle, like the struggle of so many Iranians and so many people around the world for almost 40 years, 30 of those I’ve been active as a member of the house representatives, the United States senate, and as a private citizen.
Why? Because what’s happening in Iran makes no sense. This is not a backward country. This is a nation with a rich culture with enormous resources. The Iranian people should be living a middle class, prosperous life competing with France and America and China and Italy, Britain and the world economy, not wondering how to feed their children, not worrying about whether or not you can speak or pray freely.
But part of the coalition that’s advancing those human rights around the world, part of the leadership. Instead, Iran finds itself in the likes of North Korea, Cuba, pariah nations subject to sanctions, jailing and murdering its own people. It makes no sense. I’ve been a part of this struggle for a long time and to me, ending the regime, ending the pariah status of Iran, bringing freedom to Iran is simultaneous. It is the same struggle as supporting the MEK because it is the one organization with the means, the focus, the strategy, the resources, the willingness to sacrifice to get there.
I don’t know when freedom comes to Iran. I used to think about it in terms of a generation or decades. Now I think about it in terms of months or a few years. I don’t know. But what I do know is this getting there involves the MEK.
It involves adopting the ten-point plan of Mrs. Rajavi of democratic reforms and respect and ends of jailing, of dissidents, the ends of torture, the ends of assassination, the ends of nuclear ambitions, the sharing of Iranian resources with the Iranian people. I know that. And I know when that day comes, the MEK will be part of it. And all of us in the international community who have so mourned the death of Iranian freedom and prosperity will all be there to help them.
Because restoring 40 years of lost growth, indeed, if you put back-to-back the abuses of the Shah and the loss of that freedom and prosperity with the mullahs’ generations have been lost. And in Europe and in Asia and in North America, all of us are going to have to be there to help. Free trade, commerce, investment, to ensure that all the lost generation of Iranian people are made up for by a new democratic freedom. I so respect all those who sacrificed so much in Iran. Whether you’re with the MEK or not. Together we have a common future and I’m so excited to be part of it.