[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 13895-13896]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




AMBASSADOR JOHN BOLTON'S ADDRESS TO THE PRO-DEMOCRACY IRANIAN RALLY IN 
                          PARIS, JUNE 26, 2010

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MIKE COFFMAN

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 22, 2010

  Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado. Madam Speaker, on 26 June 2010 tens of 
thousands of pro-democracy Iranians and hundreds of parliamentarians 
and dignitaries from Europe gathered in Paris (Taverny), France to 
express their support for the Iranian dissidents based in Camp Ashraf, 
as well as the uprising in Iran. Notable among prominent speakers was 
our former Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. John Bolton. I believe 
his speech provides very important guidelines beyond partisan politics, 
for any American policymaker who is genuinely concerned about Tehran's 
nuclear threat and is looking for potential options as the solution to 
the Iranian problem.

 Ambassador John Bolton's Address Before Tens of Thousands of Iranians 
and Hundreds of Parliamentarians and Dignitaries from Europe Held on 26 
                       June 2010 in Paris, France

       Ambassador John Bolton: Thank you. Thank you very much. 
     It's a great pleasure to be here today and to say thank you 
     for the opportunity to address the free people of Iran. I 
     would like you to know and all the people still inside Iran 
     to know how many tens of millions of Americans believe that 
     the policy of the United Sates government should be regime 
     change in Iran.
       I don't need to tell anybody here today how oppressive the 
     regime is and the crimes it has committed against the people 
     of Iran. This is not a government that is loyal to the 
     people. This is a government that is loyal only to itself and 
     keeping itself in power. What is important, I think, for the 
     rest of the world to understand is how, in the past several 
     years in particular, the regime has become increasingly a 
     military dictatorship, and that this is an oppressive, in 
     fact fascist, regime that controls Iran today.
       The repression that followed last year's fraudulent June 12 
     presidential election was an eye opener for many people in 
     the West and certainly in the United States. And this is 
     because not simply that the election itself was fraudulent 
     and not simply because of the brutality of the Pasdaran and 
     the Bassiji against the people of Iran, but because the 
     entire sequence of events revealed just how basic are the 
     flaws in the current regime and just how strong is the 
     opposition of the people of Iran to the regime itself.
       I must say, speaking as an American, that I found the US 
     reaction to the repression after the June 12 election as very 
     disappointing. I think that the administration did not want 
     to speak the truth about what was going on inside Iran 
     because it was still focused on the open hand that it had 
     extended to the Iranian regime; an open hand for negotiations 
     particularly over the nuclear weapons program. Now, I think, 
     anyone familiar with the regime had to know at the beginning 
     that the open hand would be rejected and that there would be 
     no negotiation over the nuclear program and certainly no 
     negotiations over the freedom of the Iranian people. It 
     remains to this day a disappointment that the administration 
     in Washington has not realized that yet.
       But I do want to assure you that in the United States, 
     among the people, in the Congress, in the media, and in 
     academic circles, there is an increasing realization that the 
     regime in Tehran is not a regime that we can negotiate with 
     and that the open hand policy has failed.
       This meeting today is a signal both to the people still 
     trapped inside Iran and the democratic countries all around 
     the world that the people of Iran seek to have control over 
     their own government and to participate in democratic 
     elections. It is a tragedy for Iran that its best friend and 
     closest ally in the world is North Korea; North Korea, which 
     has its own nuclear weapons, which pursues ballistic missile 
     technology that threatens peace and security not only in Asia 
     but in the Middle East as well, which, financed by the regime 
     in Tehran, was building a nuclear reactor in Syria, and which 
     partners with Iran on the nuclear program. It is a regime 
     that is the most dictatorial on Earth today; North Korea is a 
     prison camp. North Korea's people are on the verge of 
     starving; and it still nonetheless pursues nuclear weapons 
     and works with the government of Iran. This is a huge tragedy 
     for the people of Iran. But what it reflects is the isolation 
     of the regime from civilized governments all around the 
     world. It is a fitting tribute to the free people of Iran 
     that so many parliamentarians, from Europe, Canada, the 
     United States, and around the world have begun to see the 
     impact of the regime on the people of Iran.
       It also has to be troubling that the regime's closest large 
     friends around the world are Russia and China; China which 
     has never had on the mainland true democratic institutions; 
     and Russia which passed from authoritarianism into a period 
     of democracy and may be passing right back into 
     authoritarianism. This is not something that a free Iran 
     would tolerate.
       Moreover, the regime's support for international 
     terrorism--some have described it as the central banker for 
     international terrorism, supporting terrorist groups all 
     around the world--have helped contribute to the isolation of 
     Iran and the increasing difficulty imposed on the Iranian 
     people. Now, I think that the United States' policy of regime 
     change should be a very active policy. I think the first 
     thing that we need to be clear on is that the United States 
     will not stand in the way of legitimate opposition groups of 
     Iranians who seek regime change in Iran.
       As all of you know, in many European countries, the 
     designation of the MEK as a terrorist organization has been 
     lifted. That has not happened in the United States yet. But 
     there are many members of Congress

[[Page 13896]]

     who have pressed Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to have 
     the State Department reevaluate that designation which after 
     all was first imposed in 1997 during the Clinton 
     administration, many say as a favor to the regime in Tehran. 
     That obviously has not produced anything in response. And I 
     do think that it is incumbent on this administration to make 
     it clear if it has evidence to bring it forward and if it 
     does not have evidence to remove the designation.
       U.S. opposition to international terrorism is unwavering 
     but it is an opposition that has to be based on facts and not 
     ideology and that is what we need to see. In the short term I 
     believe the United States has a responsibility for the safety 
     of people at Camp Ashraf. At an absolute minimum, the US 
     presence inside Ashraf has to be continued and perhaps 
     expanded back to something like its previous level. I think 
     the UN mission inside Ashraf has to be extended and I think 
     we need to make it clear to the government of Iraq that we 
     will not tolerate interference in the camp and certainly not 
     the kind of assaults that have occurred on the inhabitants of 
     the camp before. This is again something, I think, of a very 
     high priority in the American Congress.
       I think going beyond simply getting out of the way of 
     legitimate democratic opposition to the regime in Tehran that 
     the United States should be prepared to provide assistance to 
     the opposition; resources and information continuing and 
     expanding, for example, the work of Radio Farda, and other 
     ways to get information to the people still inside Iran. I 
     think the utility of this kind of support has been 
     demonstrated throughout history, such as Solidarity in 
     Poland. Obviously we do not want to do anything that would 
     give the regime the ability to say that the opposition was 
     anything other than fully independent. But, I think our 
     support and the support of other western democracies should 
     go beyond the merely rhetorical.
       In recent weeks we have seen the UN Security Council impose 
     the fourth set of sanctions against the regime because of its 
     nuclear weapons program. Sanctions are useful to put pressure 
     on the regime and will bring us closer to the day when the 
     regime will fall and there will actually be a democratic 
     Iran. But I do not think that the sanctions unfortunately 
     will be enough to stop the regime's continued pursuit of 
     nuclear weapons. And I worry very much that the Obama 
     administration and our western European friends believe that 
     there is now nothing more that can be done to prevent the 
     regime and the Revolutionary Guards from obtaining nuclear 
     weapons. Their fallback position is that the mullahs and the 
     Revolutionary Guard can be contained and deterred once they 
     achieve a nuclear weapons capability. I think this is a huge 
     mistake for the region and the world but mostly for the 
     people of Iran. The fact is that once this regime gets 
     nuclear weapons it will be immeasurably strengthened and the 
     power of Revolutionary Guards, already considerable, will be 
     strengthened even further. This regime with nuclear weapons 
     is not simply an external threat to its neighbors and 
     stability in the region and the world as a whole, but an even 
     greater threat to the people of Iran. It is the trump card 
     for the regime to stay in power.
       I think it is very significant here that the position of 
     the democratic opposition is that it does not want an Iran 
     with nuclear weapons. Commentators in the West are 
     continuously telling us that opposition to the nuclear 
     program helps bring the people of Iran into closer support 
     for the regime in Tehran. We know that that is simply not 
     true and I think it is very important that in Maryam Rajavi's 
     platform for the future Iran it says in point 10 very 
     explicitly, (let me quote it so that the media can hear it, 
     this is Mrs. Rajavi's own platform), ``We want the free Iran 
     of tomorrow to be devoid of nuclear weapons and weapons of 
     mass destruction.'' Mrs. Rajavi's position is exactly the 
     right position, because an Iran with nuclear weapons will be 
     a less secure Iran. If this regime gets nuclear weapons, you 
     can count on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and perhaps others 
     getting nuclear weapons. So in a very brief period of time, 
     five to ten years, you can have a multi-polar nuclear Middle 
     East that will make everybody less secure and particularly 
     Iran. This is why it is so important that we support the 
     democratic opposition in Iran to see regime change at the 
     earliest possible date.
       Now, some people in the West, although they do not like to 
     put it this explicitly, basically do not think Iran is ready 
     for democracy. I think they are flatly wrong. Iran is more 
     than ready for democracy. This is something that we feel very 
     deeply about in the United Sates.
       I would offer to all of you the great insight of our 
     President Abraham Lincoln, who gave us the inspiration that I 
     hope will be of assistance to you, that what we want for the 
     people of Iran is what Lincoln wanted for the people of the 
     United States: government of the people, by the people and 
     for the people.

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