[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 24, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E958-E960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 POLICY INITIATIVE ON IRAN: BREAKING THE STALEMATE, ENGAGING WITH THE 
                           IRANIAN OPPOSITION

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. TOM McCLINTOCK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 24, 2015

  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, with a long history of serving the 
American people and the U.S. national interest, we stand together today 
to call for a new approach in our country's policy toward Iran and the 
Iranian opposition.
   Ours is an independent initiative, motivated by our concerns for 
United States national security, as well as justice and opportunity for

[[Page E959]]

millions of Arab and Persian citizens whose futures are being shaped by 
current events, and the unending suffering of the Iranian people, who 
have been deprived of their most fundamental rights for over 35 years 
under the tyrannical regime ruling Iran.
   We are also concerned about the safety and security of the 
approximately 2,500 Iranian opposition members trapped in Camp Liberty 
in Iraq, whom our government, through its military, has pledged in 
writing to protect. Their safety while being processed for onward 
relocation by the United Nations remains a moral obligation for the 
United States, arising not only from our written guarantee but also 
from the valuable help and intelligence--including information about 
Iran's nuclear program--provided by these opposition members. Our 
country's failure to uphold its solemn promises to these defenseless 
men and women is inexcusable, and is a by-product of our government's 
misreading of the Iranian regime's intentions.
   We are united in our understanding of the nature of the regime in 
Iran, a subject about which many of our colleagues in Washington seem 
uncertain. While we share the goal of seeking an end to Iran's nuclear 
weapons activities through diplomacy if such an outcome can be 
negotiated, we believe it is a mistake for Iran's actions in Syria, 
Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere to be overlooked, minimized, excused or even 
welcomed. We also believe it will better serve our country's interests 
to pay closer attention to the human rights and aspirations of the 
Iranian people.
   Today we call for an end to the misguided position of those in 
Washington who seek to isolate, exclude or otherwise ignore Iran's 
largest, most established and best organized political opposition, the 
National Council of Resistance of Iran, led by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi. In 
recent years we have come to know Mrs. Rajavi and the NCRI, and we know 
the resistance far better than many in Washington who believe that the 
NCRI should be kept at arm's length for one reason or another.
   We call as well for immediate pressure by our government on the 
government of Iraq, which depends on United States military and 
financial aid, to end the systematic torment of the MEK members still 
in Iraq that has thus far resulted in 142 deaths (101 outright 
murdered, 15 victims of rocket attacks, and 26 denied access to proper 
medical treatment) and the ongoing denial of livable health, sanitary 
and nutrition conditions. This cessation of harassment should be 
followed immediately by their physical removal from Iraq to countries 
in which Iranian opposition members are already leading productive 
lives, including the United States.
   Mrs. Rajavi's steadfast message, to political and religious leaders 
around the world over a period of many years, is a 10-point plan for 
the future of Iran that would resolve Iran's most dangerous and 
destabilizing challenges. The plan would restore political legitimacy 
through universal suffrage, guarantee rights for all citizens and 
particularly women and minorities, end the cruel excesses of the 
judiciary and establish the rule of law, end the nightmare of 
fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship by once again separating church and 
state, protect property rights, promote equal opportunity and 
environmental protections, and--last but certainly not least--seek a 
non-nuclear Iran, free of weapons of mass destruction. The idea that 
Washington should continue in 2015 to disregard a worldwide group of 
Iranians promoting such a platform is indefensible. The United States 
should be maintaining a vibrant and constant dialogue with the National 
Council of Resistance of Iran.
   It is by now beyond dispute that the regime in Tehran is fomenting 
instability and conflict throughout the region, most notably in Syria, 
Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Its campaign to undermine stability was 
launched because the regime sought to enhance its influence throughout 
the region and because it feared the emergence of more open political 
systems in nearby countries that could revive the democratic forces 
behind the Persian Spring of 2009. Iran shares responsibility for the 
rise of ISIS; this phenomenon was cynically facilitated by Syrian 
dictator Bashar al Assad and then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in 
Iraq to divert the focus from their own divisive sectarian actions, 
supported by Iran, about which we have repeatedly warned in previous 
years.
   Iran's regime has sustained a leader in Damascus guilty of major war 
crimes against his own people and in defiance of a Presidential ``red 
line,'' a UN-brokered transition process and the united stance of Arab 
League governments insisting on his departure. It has supplied 
military-grade weapons to Hizballah, a Lebanese non-state actor with 
the blood of American diplomats and Marines on its hands. It has 
supported and led sectarian militias in Iraq assaulting Sunni villages 
and towns. It has provided long-range rockets to Hamas in Gaza to be 
aimed at population centers in Israel, destabilizing efforts at a 
negotiated two-state solution. And it has supplied arms, explosives, 
and funds to an insurgent group in Yemen that has driven out foreign 
Embassies, including our own, seized power and provoked a new regional 
military conflict.
   In all of these actions, while the U.S. Administration has exercised 
restraint in the apparent hope of moderating Iran's behavior, Iran's 
leaders have shown nothing but contempt for longstanding American, 
European, and Arab interests throughout the Middle East. They have also 
clearly demonstrated that money is no object in their efforts to quell 
popular movements for more open and democratic governance, both 
domestically and in neighboring Arab countries.
   Inside Iran, while many Americans have for years detected signs of 
moderation, the regime has become, if anything, more repressive since 
Hassan Rouhani became President in 2013. Imprisonment and executions 
have increased. Information, including access to the internet, radio, 
and television, as well as social media, are now substantially 
controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. The 2013 elections were 
carefully managed by the regime to avoid a repeat of the open rebellion 
in the streets in 2009, after which many were executed and more have 
been imprisoned.
   The editors of The Washington Post, writing about its reporter, whom 
they say is ``entirely innocent of the charges'' for which he has been 
imprisoned in Iran since July of 2014, write that this ``blatant abuse 
of the human rights of an American journalist'' raises ``disturbing 
questions about a regime that Mr. Obama is counting on to implement a 
complex and multifaceted accord limiting its nuclear activities.'' The 
Post editors ask, ``If [Foreign Minister] Zarif and President Hassan 
Rouhani either countenance or cannot stop such blatantly provocative 
behavior by the Iranian intelligence services and judiciary, how can 
they be expected to overcome the entrenched resistance to limiting 
Iran's uranium enrichment?''
   We share these concerns. We also recognize that the fundamentalist 
regime in Tehran, in violating so many norms of political governance 
and international behavior since the 1979 revolution, survives not 
through the ballot box but only by absolute suppression and its false 
claim to religious authority--a formula which has now been repeated by 
Sunni extremists attempting to create an Islamic State in Iraq and 
Syria. No one should misunderstand why the National Council of 
Resistance of Iran is the single entity feared most by the rulers in 
Tehran: it is because the MEK and NCRI directly challenge the religious 
claim of authority that the mullahs have used to exercise and maintain 
political power.
   The ayatollahs' thirty-five-year war against the MEK and the NCRI; 
the repeated deadly assaults against the residents of Camp Ashraf and 
Camp Liberty; their intelligence services' covert influence and 
propaganda campaigns against the Resistance in Western countries; their 
constant diplomatic requests over the past two decades for the U.S., 
France, and other governments to place the MEK on their lists of 
terrorist organizations; their confiscation of satellite dishes and 
jamming of Iran National TV signals reaching the population inside 
Iran; their arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, and execution of anyone 
supporting the Resistance--all these aspects of the regime's obsessive 
focus on the Resistance are due to one fact.
   This is not about terrorism, not about culture, not about the Iran-
Iraq War or the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War. All the propaganda 
generated by the regime to defame and criminalize the Resistance has 
now been exposed, and the NCRI has challenged every terrorist listing 
and won. No, this obsession of the mullahs with the Resistance is about 
Islam, and the desire of millions of Iranians to exercise their faith 
while living in a modern society with higher education, and economic 
and political empowerment for women and men alike. The concept of 
Velayat e-faqih in the new regime's constitution--forcefully imposed by 
Ayatollah Khomeini after the fall of the Shah to place total religious 
and political power in the hands of one man--has been a disaster for 
the Iranian people, for Iran, and for the world. You will not hear any 
debate in Washington that ISIS must be stopped; it is high time 
Americans also recognized that if ISIS succeeds, what the world will 
get is a Sunni version of Khomeini's Iran.
   We recommend the following four initiatives to our government and to 
presidential candidates and prospective candidates in both parties, 
aimed at de-escalating conflict throughout the Middle East, in part by 
recognizing these realities, standing for American principles and basic 
international norms, and opposing the destructive role of Iran in the 
region.
   First, on the nuclear issue, we support a peaceful solution if it 
can be achieved through diplomacy. However, we strongly believe that 
such a solution cannot be achieved by making concessions to Iran but 
rather by making clear that Iran will be denied any potential 
opportunity to obtain a nuclear bomb. Iran under the ayatollahs has 
consistently shown that it cannot be trusted. Verification, not blind 
trust in

[[Page E960]]

the Iranian government to fulfill conditions of the agreement, must be 
an unconditional reality. Furthermore, western negotiators must clarify 
what is meant by Possible Military Dimension (PMD) activities of Iran 
before a comprehensive deal can be signed.
   Second, Iran's destructive role throughout the region must be curbed 
and deterred. Far from being part of the solution, Iran is a major part 
of the problem. There should be no direct or indirect cooperation with 
Iran under the pretext of fighting ISIS. Iran has been a major engine 
of the spread of Islamic extremism and fundamentalism. It is globally 
recognized to be the primary state sponsor of terrorism. The success of 
a long-term stabilization strategy in the region hinges on ending 
Iran's cynical and destructive meddling in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, 
and other countries.
   Third, we should be more vigilant and vocal about the serious human 
rights abuses by the regime that continue inside Iran. Our policy on 
Iran's internal and external transgressions against universal 
international norms can no longer be held hostage to the nuclear issue. 
Indeed, our failure to stand for basic principles and rights only 
encourages the regime to violate them further with impunity. Nuclear 
negotiations, which many have taken as an indication of moderation 
within the theocratic regime, must not inadvertently provide it an 
undeserved veneer of legitimacy and abet its suppression of the Iranian 
people. During Mr. Rouhani's tenure as President, the human rights 
situation in Iran has measurably deteriorated, while illicit arms 
trafficking and support for terrorist non-state actors has continued 
unabated. A successful policy toward Iran and the Middle East cannot be 
based on denial of these realities.
   Ultimately, the core of our approach is to side with 80 million 
Iranian people and their desire, along with people everywhere, for 
freedom and popular sovereignty based on democratic principles. 
Engaging with the democratic opposition has been the missing piece of 
U.S. policy for many years under both Republican and Democratic 
leadership. Thus, as our fourth initiative, we call on our government 
to break the stalemate and engage in respectful dialogue with the 
Iranian opposition, consistent with our country's policy of dialogue 
with all political groups. Whatever the outcome of nuclear negotiations 
and in virtually any possible scenario, the wishes of the Iranian 
people and their desire for change must be taken into consideration.
   The fact is that Washington officials, experts, and expatriates 
cannot possibly know what Iranians living under a violently repressive 
dictatorship truly believe about their circumstances or whom they would 
support in an open political process. We disrespect a great people by 
assuming that a democratic and non-nuclear Iran is impossible. It is 
not impossible; to the contrary, it is the only way to a future of 
regional stability.
   Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, as a Muslim woman advocating a tolerant and 
democratic interpretation of Islam enabling Muslims to be accepted and 
respected by all cultures and faiths, represents the very opposite of 
the misogynous Iranian regime's dictatorial nature and that of all 
Islamic fundamentalists and extremists. We need to align our policies 
with our principles, and begin listening to the voices of brave 
Iranians, many of whom have waited more than three decades, as their 
loved ones endured torture and death in the mullahs' prisons, still 
believing in the promise of America. All of us here today stand with 
them in solidarity with their deepest aspirations for a respectable, 
just, and democratic Iranian government worthy of its people.
   Hon. J. Kenneth Blackwell--Former U.S. Ambassador, UN Human Rights 
Commission
   Hon. Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr.--Former Special Envoy and Asst. 
Secretary of State
   Hon. John Bolton--Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN
   Col., U.S. Army (Ret.) Thomas V. Cantwell--Former U.S. Military 
Commander for Camp Ashraf
   Hon. Marc Ginsberg--Former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco
   Hon. Rudy Giuliani--Former Mayor of New York City, Presidential 
Candidate
   Hon. Porter Goss--Former Director of CIA, Former Chairman of House 
Intel Committee
   Hon. Newt Gingrich--Former Speaker of the House
   Brig. Gen., U.S. Army (Ret.) David D. Phillips--Former U.S. Military 
Commander for Camp Ashraf
   Hon. Mitchell B. Reiss--Former Ambassador, Former Special Envoy to 
the Northern Ireland Peace Process
   Hon. Bill Richardson--Former NM Governor, Secretary of Energy, UN 
Ambassador, Presidential Candidate
   Hon. Glenn Carle--Former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for 
Transnational Threats, National Intelligence Council
   Gen., U.S. Army George Casey--Former Chief of Staff and Commander of 
Multi-National Forces--Iraq
   Hon. Linda Chavez--Former Assistant to the President for Public 
Liaison, Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity
   Gen., U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) James Conway--Former Commandant
   Hon. Howard Dean--Former Governor of Vermont, DNC Chairman, 
Presidential Candidate
   Dr. Alan Dershowitz--Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
   Lt. Gen., U.S. Air Force (Ret.) David Deptula--Former Deputy Chief 
of Staff for Intel, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
   Hon. Paula J. Dobriansky--Former Under Secretary of State for 
Democracy and Global Affairs
   Hon. Louis J. Freeh--Former FBI Director
   Gen., U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) James L. Jones--Former Commandant, 
NATO Commander, National Security Advisor to the President
   Hon. Robert Joseph--Former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control 
and International Security
   Hon. Patrick Kennedy--Former Congressman from Rhode Island
   Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman--Former Senator from Connecticut
   Col., U.S. Army (Ret.) Wesley M. Martin--Former U.S. Military 
Commander for Camp Ashraf, Senior Antiterrorism Officer--Iraq
   Lt. Col., U.S. Army (Ret.) Leo McCloskey--Former U.S. Military 
Commander for Camp Ashraf
   Hon. R. Bruce McColm--President, Institute for Democratic Strategies
   Col., U.S. Army (Ret.) Gary Morsch--Former Senior Medical Officer, 
Camp Ashraf
   Hon. Michael B. Mukasey--Former U.S. Attorney General
   Hon. Tom Ridge--Former Governor of Pennsylvania, Secretary Homeland 
Security
   Hon. John Sano--Former Deputy Director, CIA National Clandestine 
Service
   Gen., U.S. Army (Ret.) Hugh Shelton--Former Chairman of U.S. Joint 
Chiefs of Staff
   Hon. Eugene R. Sullivan--Retired Federal Judge, Lt. Col., U.S. Army 
(Ret.)
   Hon. Raymond Tanter--Former Personal Representative of Secretary of 
Defense to Arms Control Negotiations
   Hon. Robert Torricelli--Former Senator from New Jersey
   Hon. Frances Townsend--Former Homeland Security Advisor to the 
President
   Gen., U.S. Air Force (Ret.) Charles (Chuck) Wald--Former Deputy 
Commander U.S. European Command

                          ____________________