There’s a famous saying: “You have to know the past to understand the present.” The rapidly escalating crisis in Iran has echoes right back to the earliest weeks of the fundamentalist Islamic Republic. Following the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini hijacked the popular revolution and laid the foundations for his own vicious tyranny. The Iranian people soon realized the pitfall of swapping the savage autocracy of the hated Shah, for the cruel, fundamentalist oppression of the mullahs. They realized they had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. A massive uprising took place on June 20, 1981. Half a million protesters, organized by the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), rose up against Khomeini and against his nascent Islamic Republic and its toxic Velãyat-e faqih, or ‘guardianship of the Islamic jurist,’ constitution.
The courageous people who took to the streets of Tehran and other major cities that day, protesting at the Ayatollah’s attempt to arrest the leader of the PMOI/MEK - Massoud Rajavi and other dissidents, were met by gunfire. Bullets fired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – the regime’s Gestapo, tore through the crowds, killing dozens. Thousands were arrested. The regime’s executioners began their diligent work which has continued to this day, torturing and executing thousands. Since the 1979 revolution, over 100,000 members and supporters of the PMOI/MEK have been executed, including more than 30,000 political prisoners during the infamous 1988 massacre, described by the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran as a crime against humanity and genocide. Massoud Rajavi made a daring escape to France, where he set up the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) which has led the democratic opposition to the clerical regime ever since.
Today, the mullahs’ theocratic regime teeters on the edge of the precipice. Their so-called ‘axis of resistance’ that included Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has collapsed. Israel and now America have joined the forensic assault on the Iranian regime’s nuclear sites. Dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders and key nuclear scientists have been eliminated. The 86-year-old and increasingly befuddled Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must truly regret his decision to train, finance and direct the horrific October 7, 2023, terrorist Hamas attack on Israel that led to the murder of more than 1200 men, women and children and triggered the Middle East conflict that has raged ever since and has now engulfed Iran itself.
Khamenei’s years of sponsoring international terrorism and warmongering, while desperately trying to persuade the West that he was only enriching uranium for peaceful, civilian energy purposes, has spectacularly imploded. There can be no comparison with the “weapons of mass destruction” misinformation that triggered the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) say the mullahs' pretext for enriching uranium has been exposed as a sham. The IAEA have noted that Iran now has a stockpile of around 900 lbs of uranium enriched to near weapons’ grade - 60 percent purity, while uranium enriched for civilian purposes only requires 4 percent purity. The UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, told the IAEA board meeting in Vienna in June how the mullahs have obstructed inspections, withheld crucial information, and restricted monitoring. He said Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make up to nine nuclear bombs in rapid time. Clearly there was no way Trump or Netanyahu were willing to wait any longer. With the mullahs chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, the theocratic regime’s development of nuclear bombs and ballistic missile delivery systems was clearly never going to be tolerated.
As western leaders call for a de-escalation of tensions and warn Iran that direct retaliation against American military compounds in the Middle East would be grave mistake, Khamenei and his puppet president Masoud Pezeshkian continue to issue belligerent threats. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made no secret of the fact that he would welcome regime-change, and he has repeatedly invited the Iranian people to rise-up and challenge the very foundations of the Islamic Republic. Netanyahu may be pushing at an open door. Today, the atmosphere in Iran is one of palpable unrest. The regime, led by fundamentalist fanatics, faces mounting challenges compounded by economic turmoil, international isolation, and widespread dissatisfaction among the populace. There are reports that the IRGC has not been paid for weeks and many in its lower ranks are now contemplating the value of risking their lives in conflict with Israel and America, on behalf of a collapsing regime.
The mullahs, enmeshed in corruption and incompetence, have squandered the nation’s wealth on funding terror and proxy militias rather than uplifting their own people. The Iranian economy now lies in ruins, strangled by mismanagement and laden with the oppressive burden of sanctions. Billions have been wasted on the clandestine nuclear bomb and ballistic missile program that is now a smouldering ruin. The Iranian people, particularly the youth, are increasingly disillusioned, yearning for a future free from the shackles of clerical rule and economic despair. The nationwide protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, served as a stark reminder that the spirit of dissent is alive and well in Iran. The killing of 1,200 protesters by the IRGC and the arrest of 30,000 at that time, simply fanned the flames of resistance in the hearts of a generation yearning for a tomorrow free from darkness.
The Iranian people are not easily silenced. Ninety million impoverished Iranians have lost their fear of the mullahs and their savagery. The exponential rise of PMOI/MEK Resistance Units across the nation has demonstrated the courage of the opposition, daily spraying anti-regime graffiti on the walls of public buildings, firebombing IRGC and Basij compounds, displaying banners of NCRI leaders like Mrs Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the NCRI, and mounting cyberattacks on regime TV and radio communications.The PMOI/MEK Resistance Units illuminate the path to liberation, and the world waits to witness the dawn of a new era.
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