It's Time to Stop Islamic Republic's Expansionism

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.‎
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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