MESSAGE
| DATE | 2016-12-27 |
| FROM | From: "Ruben.Safir"
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout-NYLXS] Israel band, Iran Good
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Iranian dissidents to Trump: Break with Obama’s pro-Iran policy - Middle
East - Jerusalem Post
A group of leading Iranian human rights activists and former political
prisoners published an open letter on Friday to President-elect Donald
Trump asking for a wholesale change from President Obama’s rapprochement
with Iran’s clerical regime.
“Unfortunately, Iranians have been among the main victims of the
detrimental policies adopted by President Obama in the Middle East. A
prime example of these detrimental policies was the secret delivery of
hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to the Revolutionary Guards in
exchange for the release of the hostages,” the dissidents’ letter said.
“The exchange encouraged the Islamic Republic not only to expand its
hostage for cash program, but to double down on its domestic suppression
and interference in the region, to the point that our country is now on
the brink of an allout war
with its Arab neighbors and other American allies in the region.”
(Iran Foreign Minister Zarif hopes nuclear deal is kept once the dust
settles)
Fox News first published the document, the full text of which can be
read on the Farsi-language website Taghato, which is run by the Iranian
Liberal Students and Graduates group.
The signatories come from France, Germany, East Asia, Canada, the US and
other countries.
Hamed Sheibanyrad, a research fellow at the French National Center for
Scientific Research, and Saba Farzan, a journalist and executive
director of the Berlin-based Foreign Policy Circle, are among the signers.
The letter quoted a Trump statement from 2011: “If Obama would’ve backed
the people of Iran two years ago when that county had a big, big
problem, we wouldn’t have any problems in Iran. That country would’ve
been turned over so fast, instead he abandoned those people.”
It also accused Obama of walking away from Iranian democrats during the
2009 Green Movement protests against Iran’s presidential election
results, which were widely viewed as fraudulent.
“In 2009, millions of pro-democracy Iranians poured into the streets of
Tehran and asked President Obama to support them. To their despair, in
what can only be described as an unthinkable shift and a 180-degree turn
on all the principal values of the United States, President Obama’s
administration was busy conducting secret correspondence with Ayatollah
Khamenei… At the same time, Ayatollah’s cronies were opening fire on
protesters,” noted the letter.
“The hope and trust they once placed in the United States to support
freedom and democracy is undermined and can now be amended only through
fundamental changes in the US policy which only you can bring forth.
“The ISIS and the Islamic Republic of Iran are two sides of the coin
that is Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. To end this reign of terror,
the Islamic caliphate (ISIS) and the Islamic regime in Iran must be
replaced with elected pro-peace and prosperity governments.”
The US State department identified Iran as the leading state sponsor of
terrorism in its 2016 report.
The letter called for fresh sanctions targeting “the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the supreme leader’s financial
empire and direct the US Treasury to strongly enforce them” and stop
Iran’s pursuit of long-range missiles.
Publication of the document electrified Iran’s social media and
regime-controlled news outlets. The IRGC-controlled Fars News Agency
called supporters of the letter traitors, while the subject was among
the top hashtags on Twitter.
BBC Persian said the letter was re-tweeted more than 10,000 times.
The signers urged Trump “to support the pro-democracy Iranians whose
goal is to replace the Khomeinist regime of Tehran with a
liberal-democratic government.”
Iran has the capacity to be one of the most steadfast allies of the
United States in the world once the Islamic regime is gone… The world
without the Islamic Republic and the Islamic State is a better place.”
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