More than 830 executions, almost five per day, have taken place since Masoud Pezeshkian took office as the so-called ‘moderate’ president of Iran last August. The frenzy of executions, aimed at quelling rising dissent in the rebellious population, has had the opposite effect. Unbridled brutality, suppression, and intimidation have failed to extinguish the spark of revolution, which threatens to ignite the nation. Protests, which began at Tehran University in mid-February following the suspicious death of Amir Mohammad Khaleqi, a 19-year-old student, have spread nationwide to other universities and are spilling out onto the streets. Students hold the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – the regime’s Gestapo, and the thuggish Basij militia, responsible, chanting: “We fight, we die, we will take back Iran” and “Death to the dictator, either the colonial Shah or the reactionary mullahs.”
The Iranian currency has halved in value since Pezeshkian took office, causing soaring inflation and impoverishing the majority of Iranians. When the 1979 revolution led to the overthrow of the reviled Shah, the currency was valued at 74 rials, equal to US $. Today, it is 940,000 rials to the US $. Pensioners, teachers, nurses, doctors, office workers, laborers, and truck drivers are routinely seen joining the demonstrations, protesting about unpaid pensions, overdue wages, the broken economy, corruption, and oppression. The protests have turned overtly political, with chants of: “This year is a year of blood, Seyyed Ali [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] will be overthrown,” and “Basij, IRGC, you are our killer. Students will die but will not accept humiliation.” As the mullahs try to blame Israel, America, and Western nations for their escalating problems, the students can be heard chanting: “Hey, head of government! You lied to the nation. Our enemy is right here.”
Weakened by the fall of their key ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the effective decapitation of their proxy terrorist militias Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) in Iraq, the theocratic regime’s ‘axis of resistance’ is disintegrating. The 85-year-old fundamentalist Supreme Leader is acutely aware of the massive nationwide uprising that erupted following the death in custody of the young Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini in 2022. He knows the subsequent insurrection will sound the death knell for his tyrannical regime, and he is trembling with fright. He and his cohorts face trial in the international courts for crimes against humanity and human rights abuse after their 46 years of dictatorship, and he is indiscriminately using violent oppression as the last remaining tool in his toolbox to cling onto power.
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Courageous Resistance Units of the main democratic opposition movement – the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) – have mounted escalating operations against the regime’s infrastructure, targeting incendiary attacks on Basij and IRGC compounds and other government centers. Banners, posters, and graffiti proclaiming support for the PMOI/MEK have appeared in towns and cities across Iran. State-controlled TV and radio broadcasts have been hacked into, displaying support for the opposition and calling for regime change. The theocratic regime is so concerned they have issued a directive sent to all parts of the country, warning of the rise of the PMOI/MEK Resistance Units and stating that they fear it could lead to another nationwide uprising. It was university students and the PMOI/MEK who overthrew the totalitarian monarchy in 1979, chanting “Death to the Shah,” only to see their revolution hijacked by Ayatollah Khomeini and his legion of mullahs. Students have emphasized that “the oppressed people of Iran now expect the same from their children in universities across the country, chanting: “Death to Khamenei.”
The PMOI/MEK have repeatedly assured the West that they do not seek military intervention or boots on the ground in Iran. They simply look for moral support as they struggle to overthrow the world’s most evil dictatorship. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has a government in exile, with an adopted plan to form a provisional administration to step in immediately after the fall of the clerical regime. The NCRI is the Iranian people’s parliament-in-exile. It has over 530 members, more than half women, and 25 committees. Following the overthrow of the mullahs, the provisional government will remain in place for six months, and their primary role will be to conduct free and fair elections and ensure the peaceful transfer of power to the representatives chosen by the Iranian people.
The NCRI has several plans for the future of Iran, including a ten-point plan that would restore freedom, justice, democracy, human rights, women’s rights, an end to the death penalty, and an end to warmongering, terrorism, and the nuclear threat. The NCRI and their leader, the charismatic president-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, state that elections for the “Constitutional and National Legislative Assembly” will be held no later than six months after the fall of the regime, and the provisional government would hand in its resignation to the Constitutional Assembly upon the formation of the Assembly. The Constitutional Assembly will then draft Iran’s new constitution, appoint its government, and legislate its affairs until the constitution is adopted. The Constitutional Assembly will be in charge for no longer than two years. The NCRI unanimously elected Mrs Maryam Rajavi as the Council’s President in 1993. As President-elect, she will preside over the country six months after the mullahs are overthrown. The NCRI has declared that it will cooperate with other willing political forces committed to the same goals. They welcome all Iranians who reject entirely the mullahs’ religious dictatorship and all of its various factions and seek to replace it with a democratic and independent republic based on the separation of Church and State. President Donald Trump should now move with speed to consult with Mrs. Rajavi and the NCRI to achieve regime change and relieve 95 million Iranians from their oppression and suffering.