By Struan Stevenson Conflagration engulfs the Middle East, with the Israel-Hamas war having gone on for more than a year now, and many Israeli hostages are still being held in deplorable conditions by Hamas terrorists. In Northern Israel, constant missile and rocket attacks by Hezbollah led to the mass evacuation of more than 70,000 Israelis from their homes in 2024 and to the inevitable military retaliation by the Israel Defense Forces, as they crossed the border into Southern Lebanon. Israeli missiles are raining down on key Hezbollah targets in Beirut. The assassination of Hezbollah’s terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, a seismic event, shattered his close friend and ally Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader and Hezbollah’s main sponsor. Nasrallah’s successor, Hashem Saffieddine, was also killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut within hours of being nominated for the Hezbollah leadership role and before the funeral of his predecessor had even taken place. Es...
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Cognition, Recognition and Change
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By Dr.Alejo Vidal Quadras
On May 16, as the news of an official meeting between the 70th United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Maryam Rajavi, was made public, critics and advocates exchanged words on how to interpret the occasion. With strong views on the subject, I believe that our distinct perceptions rely on interests rather than principles.
Since the Declaration of Independence of the United States was read to the world on July 4, 1776, until this proud nation established itself as a frontrunner of prosperity after World War II, the outlook of western leaders towards political movements in other countries has fluctuated in accordance with leanings or political interests. The White House has hosted hundreds of leaders as well as many wishful figureheads. At times, American presidents have defended autocrats on the edge of being overthrown and there were also those who called on a foreign tyrant “that the time has come for him to go”.
In July 2011, then U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford risked his own safety and took to the streets of Hama to join protests against Bashar al-Assad that was already under a brutal government crackdown. The State Department said Ford is there “to make absolutely clear with his physical presence that we stand with those Syrians who are expressing their right to speak for change.”
At a news conference on November 14, 2012, former US President Obama called the Syrian Opposition Coalition “a legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people”. On December 12, 2012, at the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People in Marrakech, Morocco, as 130 state representatives, members of the Syrian opposition, and officials of several international and regional organizations stood witness, the United States announced officially that it acknowledges the SOC as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. The main reason for this recognition was the SOC’s opposition to the brutal Assad regime.
Nine years, five months, and 17 days on, with at least half a million human lives lost, if anyone were to question the decision of President Obama, he or she is either naively engaged in partisan politics or has the Syrian dictator’s interests at heart. The very fact that the full-fledged support of the world’s most powerful nation on earth, along with dozens of other UN member states, failed to change the tides in Syria should be a lesson for historians that the fate of a nation is not determined on foreign shores, but through the people’s own sacrifices, blood, sweat, and tears.
The war in Ukraine today is another testament to that fact. Obviously, Washington and its allies have all the reasons to stand behind Ukraine against the Russian aggression, but we should not forget that if Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had picked a ride over ammunition, the geopolitical map of Europe and perhaps the future of the European Union would have been completely different.
As leaders of the Western world, we preoccupy ourselves with inspiring speeches and rally public support for our goals. We like to present ourselves as people who recognize the distinction between just and unjust and we always side with the truth. With public awareness at an all-time high, it’s not a secret that political support comes with strings attached. But sometimes, one must judge a friend when there is nothing to gain.
Almost 20 years ago, when I was Vice President of the European Parliament, I decided to put my political weight and add my voice in favor of a small group of colleagues from various political factions in the EP who supported the main Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The movement had vocal critics in the United States and Europe, not to mention a full-fledged and well-orchestrated lobbying network against it controlled by the Iranian regime.
The democratic coalition’s main constituent group is an organized movement inside Iran, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). They had everything an opposition group would dream of. But still, even though Tehran was considered a pariah state in the West, supporting them was an uphill battle.
In the post-Soviet era, it was incredibly tough to clear your mind of convenient political cliches and stereotypes. Siding with the Iranian opposition that had never surrendered its beliefs or practices to become more likable by Western leaders was anything but Machiavellian.
When the so-called reformist Mohammad Khatami came to power as president in Iran and the Clinton administration in the US thought the clerics might be worth talking to, the opposition was sidelined and marginalized. However, the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and its geopolitical consequences turned the world upside down.
In the last twenty years, even though this group won legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic against its “terrorist” label, some called it a PR campaign. Those of us who braved the storms and risked our entire political capital to support the MEK were branded as “paid advocates”.
Regardless of the number of strategic blows, the MEK dealt against the regime in Tehran and no matter how much the Iranian state plotted, conspired, and terrorized them, for some people short-term political and economic interests prevailed over the democratic ambitions of the Iranian people.
This week, as former Secretary of States Mike Pompeo visited Camp Ashraf and met with the NCRI President-elect, I couldn’t help but think back to all those years and how the tides failed to change our understanding. I believe that Mr. Pompeo has been and still is among the many political figures who remained consistent in supporting the democratic Iranian opposition and chose principles over political gains.
Mr. Pompeo is bravely standing on the right side of history today. Not because he shares the exact same set of values with the MEK, but rather because he understands that the fate of a nation is not decided on safe shores abroad, but it’s written with sweat, tears, and blood on the ground. And if you are serious about changing things in the Middle East, you should start by measuring acts and merits in the real world instead of virtual claims. When there is a true understanding of developments on the ground, change becomes inevitable.
Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras
Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a professor of atomic and nuclear physics, was vice-president of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014. He is President of the International Committee In Search of Justice (ISJ)
Written by Mahmoud Hakamian Two-minute read On Sunday morning, April 14, the Iranian regime launched an unprecedented attack against Israel, escalating tensions in the Middle East. Despite military experts’ assessments that the attack failed, it underscores Iran’s role as a focal point of regional conflict. The October 7th attack sent shockwaves globally. Despite ample evidence implicating the Iranian regime, Western governments dismissed Tehran’s involvement, adhering to a flawed appeasement policy toward the primary state sponsor of terrorism. They disregarded explicit statements from Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commanders boasting about their direct role in the attack. For decades, the Iranian Resistance has urged the international community to adopt a resolute stance against the Iranian regime’s aggression and terrorism. Despite persistent calls, the failed appeasement policy of the West allowed Tehran to escalate its belligerent activities, including ...
By DR. MAJID RAFIZADEH President Donald Trump will make a decision on whether the US will leave or stick with the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, by May 12. It has been almost three years since the nuclear accord was reached between the Islamic Republic and the UN Security Council’s five permanent members — Russia, the UK, China, France, and the US — plus Germany (the P5+1). Since the JCPOA’s implementation day on Jan. 16, 2016, the Iranian regime has been receiving various benefits that can be divided into four categories. Based on the terms of the JCPOA, four rounds of the United Nations Security Council’s economic sanctions against Tehran were lifted immediately. The regime also received unilateral sanctions relief from individual countries in exchange for halting its nuclear activities and dismantling some sections of its nuclear program. For instanc...
Link to call signing: https://www.change.org/p/un-secretary-general-call-for-justice-for-the-1988-iran-massacre Let's move our hands to change our world In the age of consciousness, and in the 21st century, brutality and barbarism must be stopped, this is not worthy of humanity. At the first step, you should be the center of this cruelty and the godfather of crime and murder, terrorism and fundamentalism that nobody is part of Iran's terrorist government. The fact is that the killing and execution of political and conscientious prisoners in public or in prisons is secretly in its astronomical dimensions on the coin of killing innocent people abroad by this regime. The issuance of terrorism and the support of fundamentalist and terrorist groups in this regime is institutionalized and is part of the constitution. The crimes committed by perpetrators and groups affiliated with this corrupt and expansionist state in Syria and Lebanon and Iraq ...
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