Posted on 06/24/2017 5:01:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
Thirty years after President Reagan seized upon an historic opportunity to bring down the Iron Curtain, there are growing indications that President Trump can make similarly historic strides in the conflict between the US and the new Evil of our time: Islamic extremism.
In its first five months, President Trump’s presidency has witnessed dramatic shifts from the policies normalized by the Obama administration. Few are as significant or wide-ranging as the changes in American dealings with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The new attitude enjoys rare bipartisan support in Congress, and with good cause. The conciliatory policy of Trump’s predecessor resulted in an ineffectual nuclear agreement and tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief for a regime that remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
President Obama had insisted the Deal would prompt Tehran to moderate it behavior, but since the nuclear deal, Iran’s regime has only become more belligerent and more prone to human rights abuses, both within its own territory and across the Middle East.
In his speech at the Arab-US summit on May 21, Trump emphasized that Tehran is responsible for much instability in the region. From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, the Iranian regime funds, arms, and trains terrorists and extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict while openly advocating mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many nations. Among Iran’s most tragic and destabilizing interventions is its support for the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in the midst of its unspeakable crimes.
But the Iranian regime’s longest-suffering victims are its own people, as President Trump has rightly pointed out. Iran has a rich history and culture, but the people of Iran have endured hardship and despair under their leaders’ reckless pursuit of conflict and terror.
The US has a strategic and moral imperative to push back. The new administration has strengthened ties with adversaries of the Islamic Republic. It has also increased sanctions on Iran’s dangerous ballistic missile program and taken steps toward isolating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The overwhelming majority of Iranians have become disillusioned with the regime. The world saw this in massive uprisings in 2009, but by reaching out to the tyrants ruling Iran, the Obama administration helped doom them to violent suppression. Nevertheless, there are still constant reports of protests over unpaid wages, minimum social warfare, rampant corruption at the top of the regime, and so on.
These trends point to the popular support that exists for regime change. But the question then becomes whether that popular sentiment has the necessary organization to bring it to fruition.
Some contend that there is no such movement and that the opposition is fractured or lacking in support. In that case, the best strategy would be to merely contain the regime. But Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly stated in recent weeks that any change in Tehran’s behavior would be tantamount to the regime change. Faced with this attitude, containment is clearly not a realistic possibility.
A growing number of observers are making the case that there is a viable alternative. They point out that unlike many other cases in the Middle East, the Iranian opposition is organized in the form of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. It has an identifiable female leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has a progressive, democratic ten-point plan for the future of Iran.
The support among the diaspora is evident in its annual major gatherings in Paris (scheduled for July 1st), which draw tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates and their international supporters. It has solid bipartisan support among US congressmen and senior national security officials from the past four administrations.
For years the level of opposition support inside of Iran was an issue of dispute. It has been true that the key movement of the coalition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (POMI/MEK) has witnessed the brunt of the regime’s suppression and some 100,000 of its activists have been executed over the years.
One noticeable change in the Iranian political landscape has been a substantial upsurge in domestic activism of the MEK. Its activists throughout the country have been risking arrest and torture by hanging banners and posters in major express ways and walkways urging regime change and support for Maryam Rajavi. The July 1 rally is expected to be viewed by millions, via a banned Resistance television network.
The Trump administration has moved Iran policy in the right direction but has yet to exploit the unique opportunity to turn the page against the ayatollahs for good, for the betterment of the Iranian people and the world as a whole.
Hussein Osama bin Indonesia would be yugely pi$$ed.
Interesting. Thanks for posting. BUMP!
The question is HOW to assist with this unique opportunity. Does the author have any suggestions?
I think women in that country have more power than they realize. Prayers for their difficult situation.
Can they do it without killing anyone? I don’t think so. The ‘enforcers’ need to be identified and killed before being brought to trial. They will otherwise behave like the Democrats in congress or the shooter at the baseball game.
To say nothing of valjar.
Sure. It worked so well the last time.
The mess of the “Arab Spring” created by Bushites of the Neocon variety along with the Saudis, the now disgraced Qataris and so on culminating in Syria’s Civil War was all anti-Iran activity disguised as a ‘people’s revolution’ in the Arab World.
President Trump has clearly come out against Iran. How far he wants to push it with American blood is his decision.
A lot of Americans would like to see the Arabs (Sunni-Shia) spill their own blood to make this happen and if the Israelis want to come out in the open as allies of the Saudis and help take down Iran, that’s OK.
The USA needs to stay out of this mess with Afghanistan still on the table and North Korea as examples of USA priorities.
because it worked out so well in 1953.
America First means we don’t go chasing after neo-con fake monsters.
North Korea is bordered by a nation with twice its population and a 40x larger economy to the south and a nuclear power with over a billion people to the North. Can you explain why you think American blood and treasure should be expended in North Korea?
No, only as a testing ground for aircraft ordnance.
This is powerfully important. It places Trump squarely at the head of the pack as the leader of the free world.
It sure does
If it's true that there's bipartisan support for acting against Iran, President Trump (I love saying those two words together!) should get on TV and encourage the Iranian People to shed their oppressive, terrorist supporting, human rights violating mullah's from their "government" and tell them point blank if they do, they'll find they will have no better friend than the United States of America.
That is what President Reagan (I love saying those two words together!) would've done and I believe in my heart President Trump's instincts are screaming at him to do the same thing.
Just as a point of clarification, Iran is not an arab muslim country.
Iran is Persian. Iran's differences with the rest of the muslim world are not just about their being a primarily shia muslim country, it is as much about them not being arab also.
Iran also has its own internal conflicts between the shia dominated theocracy that runs the country and its large sunni population as well that feels they've been disenfranchised for hundreds of years.
Iran's undoing won't come from outside interference by the rest of the arab world's sunni muslim population. Iranian's are proud Persians. Outside sunni/wahabbi interference from the likes of Saudi Arabia for example will only unite the country.
Iran has to collapse from within.
what is conservative about your reccomendation ?
it sounds like Wilsonian liberalism gone wild.
Goodbye.
there is nothing conservative about braying for regime change in a far off foreign land.
Your comments about Iranians being extremely proud of their Persian heritage and their disdain for Arabs is correct. What I am not sure of is whether a new government created by inner revolution will be substantially better for the US or not....but I AM sure the current one is a major problem. The only way I see us really helping is to keep increasing US oil production to further ruin the economic power of the Middle East and Iran in particular and help revolutionaries with small arms only. I don’t want to give anyone in the Middle East more than that.
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