New York may be The Big Apple – the world’s financial hub and a city that never sleeps – but every September it becomes something else entirely. For one week, the city that defines commerce and culture transforms into the epicenter of global politics, as presidents, prime ministers, and diplomats gather for the UN General Assembly.
Every leader uses the UN’s bully pulpit to advance their national agendas, while countless sideline deliberations focus on pressing global issues. This year, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) offers a unique opportunity to forge consensus on a new policy toward Iran – one of the most acute and pressing challenges facing the international community.
Almost two years after the October 7 attack, with the Iranian regime playing a central role – and following a 12-day war with Israel and the U.S. in June – Tehran shows no sign of abandoning its nuclear program. A more assertive policy on Iran is long overdue.
On September 6, tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates gathered in Brussels to call for such a shift. On September 23 and 24, thousands of Iranian-Americans will converge in New York during the UNGA. They are expected to raise concerns over Iran’s worsening human rights situation, its longstanding role in fueling regional crises, and the urgent need to prevent the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The Brussels rally came just days after the UK, France, and Germany triggered the “snapback” mechanism of the 2015 nuclear deal. The New York demonstrations will coincide with the closing of the 30-day window for Iran to avoid re-implementation of suspended UN sanctions.
The coalition behind both events, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has long argued that Western powers’ focus on engagement with Tehran has amounted to appeasement of the world’s leading executioner and foremost state sponsor of terrorism.
This policy of appeasement has emboldened the regime to accelerate its malign activities, with the world paying the price: mounting terrorist threats, detailed in recent intelligence reports from Britain, Denmark, and Australia, alongside provocative nuclear advances.
But no one has paid a heavier price than the Iranian people. While enduring repression, they have built a formidable Resistance movement. The September 2022 killing of a young Kurdish woman by the Islamic Republic’s “morality police” sparked the largest uprising since 1979. It was the third such nationwide revolt since 2017, fueling recruitment for networks of “Resistance Units” committed to the regime’s overthrow.
Tehran has responded with a surge of executions. Iran already had the world’s highest per-capita execution rate, but the numbers are now staggering. In 2023, more than 850 people were executed; the following year, roughly 1,000 – a 20-year high. This year, nearly 900 executions have been carried out with three months still remaining. The pace is accelerating.
In late July, authorities executed two members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), the NCRI’s core member and organizer of Resistance Units. Soon after, six others were transferred to undisclosed locations, suggesting their executions are imminent. These sentences, handed down on vague national security charges such as “enmity against God,” echo the 1988 massacre in which more than 30,000 political prisoners, mostly MEK members, were systematically executed. No Iranian official has ever been held accountable for that crime against humanity.
This impunity is a stark reminder of the cost of appeasement. It also underlines why the international community cannot remain silent today.
Yet dissidents are not calling for foreign intervention. They advocate a new policy – one that rejects both war and appeasement, and supports regime change by the Iranian people themselves.
That policy begins with European governments following through on the snapback mechanism and reimposing UN sanctions. But it must not end there. Western powers should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization across the board, and pursue accountability for Iranian officials over crimes against humanity, whether at the International Criminal Court or through universal jurisdiction in national courts.
A truly assertive Iran policy also requires recognition of the Iranian people’s right to resist oppression, and particular recognition of the NCRI and its President-elect Maryam Rajavi as a viable democratic alternative to the theocracy. Her Ten-Point Plan envisions a secular, democratic, non-nuclear republic with gender equality, abolition of the death penalty, and peaceful coexistence with the world.
As world leaders gather in New York, the UNGA offers not just another global summit but a rare chance to reset Iran policy. The stakes are too high for timidity or delay. No to appeasement. No to reckless war. Yes to freedom. Yes to the Iranian people – and to the organized resistance leading the charge.