A letter from Rhett Wilkinson
March 28, 2022
The wise tell us substance should always outweigh appearance. This month, we witnessed a scarce occurrence of political cooperation among America’s divided political leadership, a positive development of substance buried in the clutter of our time’s 24-hour news cycle. If you ask Iranian Americans, this substance has considerable impact on our security here in the United States and the cause of justice globally. From across the U.S., 53 members of Congress – including Rep. Scott Peters, the House member for the area – from both parties contributed to a virtual conference to show support for a growing movement to establish a democratic republic in Iran. Scheduled to coincide with the anniversary of the 1979 anti-dictatorial revolution in Iran, the online conference called attention to similarities between Iran’s current domestic situation, the situation as it existed just more than 43 years ago, and the contribution of such understanding on the ongoing Western effort to contain the cleric’s influence globally.
“Since 1979, the Iranian people have yearned for the opportunity to live in a democratic, secular, nonnuclear republic, free from oppression by kings, dictators, and religious extremists,” Peters said. “Men, women, children, Kurds, Bahai, Christians, Jews, and Muslims have all suffered for decades at the hands of an oppressive regime solely focused on maintaining absolute power rather than helping the Iranian people.”
On Dec. 31, 1977, during a trip to Iran, President Jimmy Carter called Iran’s dictatorial monarch “an island of stability” in the Middle East. Yet in little over a year, Iranian people proved otherwise. American lawmakers were generally taken aback by the sudden progress of the uprising that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah. William Sullivan, the last U.S. ambassador to Iran, famously wrote a diplomatic cable, however, warning that it was time for “thinking the unthinkable” regarding the prospect of an Iran without the Shah.
The members of Congress who spoke at the event hosted by the Organization of Iranian American Communities tried to inform, if not warn, today’s Western leaders of yet another surprise. Speakers repeatedly pointed to the explosive domestic dynamics in Iran and urged America’s decision makers to place themselves on the right side of history and help the Iranian people achieve foundational change with the least amount of bloodshed and instability possible.
“Iranian people want a representative government in which ballot box is the primary criterion of legacy,” said Nasser Sharif, president of the California Society for Democracy in Iran. “And we are proud of our members of Congress who joined us and have expressed solidarity with this sentiment.”
Unfortunately, too many American and European policymakers continue to assume that instability would be a necessary consequence of the current regime’s collapse. The lawmakers questioned this assumption. In January 2018, none other than Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, blamed the Iranian resistance for contributing to the rapid spread of antigovernment protests. The members of Congress agreed, with many pointing out that recent uprisings were effectively the start of a movement for regime change that continues to this day.
In August, a henchman called Ebrahim Raisi took office as the president of the regime amid clear reminders of his administration’s lack of legitimacy. In 1988, Raisi played a leading role in the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners. In Nov. 2019, he played a similar role in a crackdown that killed at least 1,500 peaceful protesters.The event served to highlight that Congress is monitoring an active resistance organization in Iran. Early last month, for example, less than 24 hours after a statue of terrorist operatives, Qassem Soleimani, was erected, it was set on fire. All of this points to a situation of obvious instability in the current regime, similar to that which existed with the Shah 43 years ago.
Indeed, Iran has deserved that since before its people surprised the U.S. in 1979 by deposing the Shah in an effort to establish a system of popular sovereignty. The lawmakers noted that the prospect of a new revolution is not bleak. This substantive change, the event participants argued, is the required prerequisite if the West is to address the nuclear, terrorism, and human rights violations by Iran’s belligerent regime. Majid Sadeghpour is the political director of the Organization of Iranian American Communities.
