Speaking at an international conference in Paris, the Mayor of New York city at the time of terrorist attacks on September 11, 200, Rudy Giuliani ridiculed the notion of colluding with Iran’s theocracy in the war against ISIS and said: “Iran is more dangerous than ISIS,…we should tell the Ayatollahs we don’t want you as our partner in this coalition”. He described the Tehran leaders as “murderers and assassins” and while expressing his support for the Iranian opposition, called for a regime change.
Alan Dershowitz, prominent American lawyer, compared the concessions made to Tehran in the nuclear talks to concessions that Neville Chamberlain made to Hitler prior to World War Two. He strongly warned President Obama regarding the consequences of granting such concessions to Iran in the nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers.
Michael Mukasey, US Attorney General in the Bush Administration and Patrick Kennedy, former Congressman and a member of Kennedy family were other Americans who criticized the US policy vis-a vis Iran.
A number of European parliamentarians and politicians from France, UK, and Italy also spoke at the conference “Islamic Fundamentalism, Roots, Solutions; Role of Iranian Regime,” that was attended by a large audience.
Maryam Rajavi, the charismatic head of the Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran was the keynote speaker of the conference held on the eve of the 36th anniversary of the revolution that overthrew the monarchy in Iran on February 11, 1979. Rajavi addressed the threat and challenge posed by the Islamic fundamentalism and the role of the Iranian regime in this menace and said, “The first and foremost imperative step in confronting extremism under the veneer of Islam is to evict this regime, particularly from Iraq and Syria.”
Rajavi added, “the consequences of any partnering with the mullahs’ regime in the coalition against ISIS is a hundred times more dangerous than any brand of Shiite or Sunni Islamic fundamentalism and it would inescapably expand and aggravate the current catastrophe.”
According to Rajavi, despite severe repression the Iranian people have “steadfastly refused to submit” to the regime. Citing social discontent and organized resistance as factors weakening the regime, she asserted that the regime of the Ayatollahs is on a weak footing and is meddling in other countries to compensate for its defeats and lack of support domestically.
Western speakers emphasized that democratic nations and particularly the United States have been either ignorant or inactive in the face of Tehran’s meddling in the region, its ongoing support for terrorist organizations, and its occupation of Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. They expressed the view that the international community has taken a conciliatory stance in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, putting them on the verge of leaving Iran as a nuclear-threshold state and further imperiling the region.
The five permeant members of the UN Security Council and Germany have been negotiating over Iran’s controversial nuclear program for more than a year. The West is suspicious that Iran is in pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran maintains that its program is peaceful despite repeated reports by the IAEA saying that it is unable to establish that Iran’s nuclear program is solely peaceful. The negotiations have been at an impasse for months.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for on Friday on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference to discuss developments in nuclear negotiations between Tehran and major world powers.
At Saturday’s conference, Rajavi suggested that the West’s overly soft approach is only emboldening the regime to continue its pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Rajavi insisted that this approach must be reversed so as to compel the regime to fully implement the Security Council resolutions, stop uranium enrichment, and accept snap inspections of all its facilities and suspect sites.
