{"id":9496,"date":"2019-02-16T11:51:17","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T08:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=9496"},"modified":"2021-01-21T19:27:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:57:09","slug":"as-giuliani-calls-for-regime-change-in-iran-netanyahu-raises-the-specter-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/9496","title":{"rendered":"As Giuliani Calls for Regime Change in Iran, Netanyahu Raises the Specter of \u201cWar\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUDY GIULIANI, the former mayor of New York City who now serves as President Donald Trump\u2019s personal lawyer, called for the overthrow of Iran\u2019s government on Wednesday during a rally in Poland staged by a cult-like group of Iranian exiles who pay him to represent them.
\nSpeaking outside the Warsaw venue for an international conference on the Middle East attended by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Giuliani said that his message for the 65 governments discussing ways to confront Iran was simple. \u201cThe theocratic dictatorship in Tehran,\u201d Giuliani said, \u201cmust end and end quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former NY Mayor @RudyGiuliani in Warsaw:
\nIn order to have peace & security in the Mid-East there has to be a major change in the theocratic dictatorship in #Iran. It must end & end quickly in order to have stability#FreeIranWithMaryamRajavi#PolandSummit#IStandWithMaryamRajavi pic.twitter.com\/aKafMjxq4k
\n\u2014 NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) February 13, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Giuliani went on to suggest that peace in the region would only come when Iran was ruled instead by his clients, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exile group of former terrorists also known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People\u2019s Mujahedin. The group\u2019s leader, Maryam Rajavi, already refers to herself as \u201cPresident-elect.\u201d<\/p>\n

.@RudyGiuliani: We have seen regime change work & fail. In #Iran’s case we don\u2019t have to worry. There is a viable alternative. Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan stands for a #FreeIran w\/ a democratically-elected Gov instead of a tyrant\/monarch.#FreeIranWithMaryamRajavi #WarsawSummit pic.twitter.com\/EFJHIw2WUV
\n\u2014 NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) February 13, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Off-stage, the U.S. president\u2019s lawyer admitted that he was paid by the exile group, but stressed to reporters that he was in Warsaw on behalf of the MEK in his personal capacity and would not be attending the diplomatic conference organized by the State Department.
\nEven before the conference began, the Israeli prime minister appeared to shrug off efforts by the State Department and the Polish government to portray the gathering as broadly focused on Middle East peace, describing it as primarily a meeting of Iran\u2019s enemies.
\nIn video posted on the prime minister\u2019s official Twitter feed, Netanyahu characterized a meeting with Oman\u2019s foreign minister as \u201cexcellent,\u201d and one focused on \u201cadditional steps we can take together with the countries of the region in order to advance common interests.\u201d
\nAccording to the English translation of Netanyahu\u2019s remarks in Hebrew prepared by his office, the prime minister then added: \u201cWhat is important about this meeting \u2014 and it is not in secret because there are many of those \u2014 is that this is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Netanyahu\u2019s use of the word \u201cwar\u201d seemed to throw Israel\u2019s diplomatic corps into chaos. Within minutes, as journalists speculated that the prime minister\u2019s office might have mistranslated his comment, Netanyahu\u2019s spokesperson to the Arab media, Ofir Gendelman, wrote that the Israeli leader had described his nation\u2019s common interest with Arab nations as \u201ccombatting Iran,\u201d not \u201cwar with Iran.\u201d
\nThe subtitled video produced by the prime minister\u2019s office was then deleted from his Twitter feed and replaced with the text of Gendelman\u2019s alternative translation.
\nAs my colleague Talya Cooper explains, however, Netanyahu did in fact use the Hebrew word for \u201cwar\u201d in the video, which has not yet been deleted from his Hebrew-language YouTube channel. In a separate video, posted by Netanyahu\u2019s office on Facebook earlier in the day, the prime minister had used the Hebrew word for \u201ccombat.\u201d
\nAron Heller, an Associated Press correspondent based in Jerusalem, also filmed the remarks and reported that although Netanyahu had mentioned \u201cwar,\u201d his office said later that he was referring to \u201ccombatting Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did @netanyahu really say \u201cwar\u201d with Iran? I was there and the word was \u201dmilchama\u201d = war. pic.twitter.com\/ZzhrDs2lWA
\n\u2014 Aron Heller (@aronhellerap) February 13, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, seized on the Israeli leader\u2019s apparent Freudian slip as evidence that Netanyahu\u2019s true aim of provoking a war with Iran was now out in the open<\/p>\n

We’ve always known Netanyahu’s illusions. Now, the world \u2013 and those attending #WarsawCircus \u2013 know, too pic.twitter.com\/0TSDzIak9e
\n\u2014 Javad Zarif (@JZarif) February 13, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Zarif also suggested that the Trump administration and the exiles of the MEK might have been behind a suicide bombing on a bus in southeastern Iran on Wednesday, which killed 41 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it no coincidence that Iran is hit by terror on the very day that #WarsawCircus begins?\u201d Zarif tweeted. \u201cEspecially when cohorts of same terrorists cheer it from Warsaw streets & support it with twitter bots? US seems to always make the same wrong choices, but expect different results.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The foreign minister was clearly referring to the MEK, which spent three decades trying to achieve regime change in Iran through violence, including terrorist attacks. The well-funded exile group was also suspected of being behind social media trickery discovered by the BBC, which reported that Twitter bots had been deployed \u201cto artificially create a trend which hints at popular support for the summit and \u2014 by extension \u2014 widespread resentment towards the Iranian establishment.\u201d
\nThe Iranian exiles have been caught in the past paying nonsupporters to fill out its crowds at rallies, a tactic reportedly used at the event in Warsaw on Wednesday, according to journalists on the ground.<\/p>\n

The MEK is having a rally in Warsaw where as usual about a third of the crowd is random non-Iranians who’ve been bussed in from Slovakia and can’t read the signs they’re holding pic.twitter.com\/NnJyqMxnEY
\n\u2014 Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) February 13, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Spoke to journalist in #WarsawSummit. He had attended the MEK terrorist org’s rally. Many of the”demonstartors”were Slovak high school kids who couldnt really provide an answer as to why they were there.<\/p>\n

Just as the MEK buys bots on Twitter, they do so in real life as well\u2026
\n\u2014 Trita Parsi (@tparsi) February 13, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Members of the MEK helped foment the 1979 Iranian revolution, in part by killing American civilians working in Tehran, but the group then lost a struggle for power to the Islamists. With its leadership forced to flee Iran in 1981, the MEK\u2019s members set up a government-in-exile in France and established a military base in Iraq, where they were given arms and training by Saddam Hussein as part of a strategy to destabilize the government in Tehran that he was at war with.
\nIn recent years, as The Intercept has reported, the MEK has poured millions of dollars into reinventing itself as a moderate political group ready to take power in Iran if Western-backed regime change ever takes place. To that end, it lobbied successfully to be removed from the State Department\u2019s list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2012. The Iranian exiles achieved this over the apparent opposition of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in part by paying a long list of former U.S. officials from both parties hefty speaking fees of between $10,000 to $50,000 for hymns of praise.<\/p>\n

Despite the claims of paid spokespeople like Giuliani and John Bolton \u2014 who predicted regime change would come at a lavish MEK rally in Paris just months before being named Trump\u2019s national security adviser \u2014 the MEK appears to be as unprepared to take power in Iran as Ahmad Chalabi\u2019s exiled Iraqi National Congress was after the American invasion of Iraq.<\/strong><\/p>\n

#JohnBolton 8 months ago among MEK supporters tells them they will overthrow #Iran\u2019s regime and celebrate in #Tehran with Bolton himself present, \u201cbefore 2019\u201d pic.twitter.com\/H7oaaU3faU
\n\u2014 Bahman Kalbasi (@BahmanKalbasi) March 22, 2018<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ariane Tabatabai,<\/strong> a Georgetown University scholar, has argued that the \u201ccult-like dissident group\u201d \u2014 whose married members were reportedly forced to divorce and take a vow of lifelong celibacy \u2014 \u201chas no viable chance of seizing power in Iran.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the current government is not Iranians\u2019 first choice for a government, the MEK is not even their last \u2014 and for good reason. The MEK supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. The people\u2019s discontent with the Iranian government at that time did not translate into their supporting an external enemy that was firing Scuds into Tehran, using chemical weapons and killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including many civilians. Today, the MEK is viewed negatively by most Iranians, who would prefer to maintain the status quo than rush to the arms of what they consider a corrupt, criminal cult.
\nDespite such doubts, spending lavishly on paid endorsements has earned the MEK a bipartisan roster of Washington politicians willing to sign up as supporters. At a gala in 2016, Bolton was joined in singing the group\u2019s praises by another former U.N. ambassador, Bill Richardson; a former attorney general, Michael Mukasey; the former State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley; the former Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend; the former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.; and the former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. That Paris gala was hosted by Linda Chavez, a former Reagan administration official, and headlined by Newt Gingrich, the former speaker who was under consideration to be Trump\u2019s running mate at the time.
\nFears about Bolton\u2019s apparently open desire to start a war with Iran have been exacerbated by his boosting of the MEK and his steadfast denial of the catastrophe unleashed by the invasion of Iraq that he worked for as a member of the Bush administration. Last year, when Fox News host Tucker Carlson pointed out that Bolton had called for regime change in Iraq, Libya, Iran, and Syria, and the first of those had been \u201ca disaster,\u201d Bolton disagreed.
\n\u201cI think the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, that military action, was a resounding success,\u201d Bolton insisted to Carlson. The chaos that followed in Iraq, he said, was caused by a poorly executed occupation that ended too soon. On the bright side, Bolton said, the mistakes the U.S. made in Iraq offered \u201clessons about what to do after a regime is overthrown\u201d in the future.
\nEarlier this week, Sen. Chris Murphy warned that Bolton appeared to be laying the groundwork for war in a belligerent video message from the White House to mark the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution.<\/p>\n

Here Bolton says Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. This simply isn\u2019t true. The intelligence says the opposite and he knows it. He is laying the groundwork for war and we all must be vigilant. https:\/\/t.co\/1zHR5vaEGn
\n\u2014 Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 12, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another strong supporter of the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq was Netanyahu, who, between terms as prime minister, testified to Congress on Sept. 12, 2002 as a private citizen, and advised lawmakers that attacking Iraq would be wise.
\nA review of Netanyahu\u2019s 2002 testimony \u2014 in which he said, \u201cI think the choice of Iraq is a good choice, it\u2019s the right choice\u201d \u2014 reveals that he linked his strong support for a United States invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein with the possibility of inspiring the implosion of the ruling theocracy in neighboring Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a question of whether Iraq\u2019s regime should be taken out but when should it be taken out; it\u2019s not a question of whether you\u2019d like to see a regime change in Iran but how to achieve it,\u201d Netanyahu said then. \u201cIf you take out Saddam, Saddam\u2019s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

“If you take out Saddam,”Netanyahu told Congress in 2002,”I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran\u2026 will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.”pic.twitter.com\/ZNTxpSP3a2
\n\u2014 Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) February 14, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Updated: Feb. 14, 2019<\/em>
\nThis article was updated to include Congressional testimony from Benjamin Netanyahu on Sept. 12, 2002, in which he advocated a U.S. invasion of Iraq.<\/em>
\nRobert Mackey, The Intercept,<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Off-stage, the U.S. president\u2019s lawyer admitted that he was paid by the exile group, but stressed to reporters that he was in Warsaw on behalf of the MEK in his personal capacity and would not be attending the diplomatic conference organized by the State Department. The Israeli prime minister described the gathering as primarily a meeting of Iran\u2019s enemies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[85,90,642,178,20],"module":[81],"ctype":[17],"blog":[109],"class_list":["post-9496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-proxy-force","tag-mujahedin-khalq-terrorism","tag-mujahedin-warmongers","tag-paid-advocacy-for-mko","tag-pmoi-iran-people","tag-third-view-mek","module-article","ctype-story","blog-western-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9496"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=9496"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=9496"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=9496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}