Author: Ophelia Benson

The lack of a strong and united democratic and secular movement in Iran has left the way clear for the Islamic regime for the further destruction, plunder, and bloodshed of our country. Although the panic-stricken bullets of Islamic mercenaries would suffocate any voice of protest, people are brave enough to resolutely claim their freedom despite any risk of torture, rape, and execution as “Mohareb” (heretic).

Unfortunately, the worst-ever conditions of our people have not enough stimulated responsible reactions among all democratic and secular activists to form a united movement to free the country from the plague of the Islamic regime.

Sadly, yet the people of Iran must wait; such a liberation movement has long been deemed illusory. It is however expected that this movement should simply be formed without further delay. It should learn from all historical experiences of both our past and all peoples of the world who achieved movements to free their countries. It should realistically use any tactical method and independently accept any international assistance to hasten the fall of the IRI because each day of the IRI parasitic life destroys lives.

A democratic and secular movement’s programme consists of forming a democratically elected new state in Iran, in which all political authorities will be directly elected by the people. Such authorities must be secular and democratic; their political background must be clean with no ties or sympathy for any religious or unelected form of state. Dictatorial regimes will have no place in the future of Iran. All authorities of free Iran must swear an oath to unconditionally respect Human Rights and democracy; they should be competent and independent — our national interests should never be bargained away by whims of any foreign power.

Our society is not a lab for another Islamic or extremist experiment. National leaders should be the fruit of the Iranian people’s struggles for freedom from any kind of dictatorial regime. Our society is strong enough not bow to any ideology, religion of submission, or domination of an elite class.

An Iranian democratic and secular movement now is needed to be nationally present in the scenes of people’s protests. This of course will spontaneously surface in the process of revolution; however, an immediate formation of it will hasten the revolution itself. Such an opposition movement should immediately present its programme which comes in practice after the fall of the IRI. The programme must contain effective solutions to free Iran from the yoke of backwardness and dictatorship.

The programme should explain how to prepare the conditions for the unconditional democracy, social justice, gender equality, question of Islamic hijab, development of national economy, rehabilitation of an Iranian identity, reviving of art and culture, negation of Islam as state religion, elimination of all religious institutions, removal of all religious influence from education, judiciary, calendar, language, and all aspects of social life in a democratic and progressive process.

Any new regime after the IRI is expected to bring all criminals of the IRI, since its inception, and all their collaborators before an international court for crimes against humanity. However, we should not ignore the fact that an essence of such a process is not the individual punishment but the reestablishment of justice and rehabilitation of victims of the IRI. As such, the process should emphasise the following tasks:

No Iranian woman is worth half the value of a man, no Iranian can be punished for political or religious belief. From now on, Iran will never possess dungeons, torture, and political prison. From now on, no Islamic law will be ever permitted to commit stoning, amputation of limb, lashing, or any human humiliation. By condemning the judiciary of a medieval belief system which has been imposed on our country in a very violent and long process, it is time that our generation transmit our lesson to the next generations and those Iranians who need practical proofs to quit the imposed cult of Islam.

As we know, the key powers are traditionally interested in economic issues. The EU still ignores the fact that their barrels of Iranian oil cost many lives extinguished by the criminals of the Islamic regime. We should demand an adequate policy from the EU. For the moment we must forget Russia and China, because of their dictatorial past and present undemocratic states. In fact, these have never learnt an integration of Human Rights and human ethic into their policy. The US, despite the rhetoric of regime change under the Bush administration and the appeasement policy of the Obama administration, can be ultimately satisfied with some reforms within the regime. An Iranian democratic movement should not rely on the agenda of any foreign power that tries to influence their politics toward the illegitimate IRI.

US conflicts with the IRI have nothing to do with the fact that the IRI is trampling on the basic elements of democracy and Human Rights in Iran. US concerns are derived from the fact that the IRI is stirring sectarian conflicts in Iraq, and its nuclear ambitions can be a future danger for Western interests in the region especially if it threatens the existence of Israel.

Neither the US nor our heroes will topple this despised Islamic regime in Iran. People with their raised fists, roars, and red blood need to be organised to crush this regime. Only the organised people will sow seeds of freedom and secularism in a free Iran.

Occasional human rights violations in Iran are not the main concern of the West. Also, these accusations are true of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and many other allies of the US. The US has arranged notorious compromises with Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden’s Islamist movement, Islamists in Pakistan, and corrupt Sheiks in the region. This can be also done in the case of Iran. As a matter of fact, if today the bellicose IRI refuses to enrich uranium for its nuclear programme and does not disturb the US in Iraq, a likely sympathy of the Obama administration for “Green Movement” can be overnight forgotten.

In the ongoing critical conditions, and under pressure of a chain of crises, the ruling IRI can be further divided into many cliques and factions. Secular and democratic opposition should be vigilant by avoiding accepting any variation which keeps the IRI or one of its Islamic factions in power. The least demand of our people is “no” to all models of the IRI.

The fact that a nuclear Iranian regime will have greater bargaining power to use as a lever to intensify its dictatorship must be recognised by all freedom-loving Iranians; therefore an opposition movement should take part in any international campaign against the IRI nuclear ambitions. However, it should not be forgotten that the greatest danger is not the regime’s nuclear programme but the IRI’s parasitic existence itself.

What practically can be used from this atomic conflict is to internationally isolate the regime. Therefore, along with condemning the IRI’s dangerous nuclear programme, we should always put the priority on the question of defending the basic rights of people. The basic rights of our people cannot be guaranteed under this regime or one of its factions led today by “reformists” such as Moussavi and Karrubi.

The nuclear conflict is intentionally propagated by the IRI and its factions to mask the totalitarian character of the whole regime; it is a cover-up to associate its parasitic existence with the alleged “national” right of having a nuclear programme for the “peaceful” needs of the nation.

It is wrong to reduce the whole legitimacy of the IRI to the nuclear conflict; for Iranians the problem is the existence of the IRI itself with or without this conflict. In the nuclear dispute, both the IRI and the West are adding fuel to the flames and making nonessential assertions to attempt a dangerous escalation. This is however not our main problem, one should argue that the IRI is a totalitarian regime with a capacity of thousands of brainwashed jihadi who can blow up any “enemy” of God. So, nuclear technology in the hands of such Islamists means a new weapon for jihadis; only because of this jihadi and anti-human character of this regime, a nuclear arsenal should not fall into the hands of IRI authorities.

There are no military solutions to the nuclear ambitions of the IRI. Economic sanctions cannot solve our real problems with this regime. Not only these are immoral, but also counterproductive and even exacerbate the activities of both Mullahs’ mafia and state repression in Iran.

Nevertheless, more than 40% of the domestic consumption of gasoline is now mainly imported in Iran from India. If this delivery is timely and temporarily stopped, not only will a shortage of Iran’s domestic consummation create a series of uncontrolled popular riots, but it will mainly affect the repressive machine of the regime so that it will be in a short while paralysed and vulnerable. In such a case the heroic people of Iran can do the rest by sending the whole regime into the dustbin of history.

India supplies a great part of the needed gasoline which helps the Mullahs’ regime to survive. If Russia and China, as close accomplices and partners of the IRI, are undemocratic states, India is known as the greatest democracy of the world. We, all freedom-loving Iranians, solemnly expect India to suspend its delivery of gasoline to the IRI.

The IRI must be internationally isolated, all diplomatic, cultural, and sport contacts with it must be suspended. All foreign accounts of IRI officials must be frozen. Their mafia activities in the Persian Gulf and around Iran must be internationally controlled and the IRI Mafiosi must be internationally prosecuted.

International mandates must be issued against IRI officials for their crimes against humanity. So, there are many other sanction regimes that can be imposed on the IRI, but neither military nor economic sanctions can be yet accepted by a majority of Iranians.

The outstanding point is the illegitimacy of the IRI: it is illegitimate because its Supreme Leader is unelected, and its repressive organs permanently violate Human Rights. Therefore, the UN and the Council of Europe must demand resolutions which put the IRI and political Islam on an equal status as fascist, racist, and criminal organisations. Such resolutions are not beyond judicial facts, but legal contributions to elaborating a charter of principles for the totalitarian IRI.

Once an Iranian democratic and secular movement is officially formed and internationally recognised, this movement must try to represent the Iranian people in the UN and any international institution as the only legitimate delegation of that people.

In short, although a common platform is difficult to specify for all opposition groups, at least such a movement must respond to the following four major aspirations of most Iranian people:

• Organising and leading Iranian people’s struggles to sweep away the IRI and all its Islamic relics, institutions, and suppressive organs.
• Forming a temporary government to organise a constitutional assembly for a new constitution. The new constitution is only legal when it is approved by the majority of people in a referendum supervised by the international inspectors.
• Preparing conditions as quickly as possible for a democratically elected parliament and government based on the right that people can elect and dismiss all key authorities.
• Transferring the power to the hands of the new government without monopolising or influencing on the military or political apparatus.