By Marziyeh Amirizadeh
Since coming to America, I have never stopped warning my fellow Americans about the danger of Iran’s Islamic Republic regime and its agenda to infiltrate and destroying our country’s values and principals. This evil Islamic enemy has infiltrated deep our society at the highest levels through exporting agents and fake opposition which are trained by alleged Iranian “reformists.” Sadly, they have done far more damage than people know.
By way of background, despite growing up in Iran and under the heel of the Islamic regime which seized control of Iran this week in 1979, I understood that the regime was evil at its core, that misogyny was central to the regime maintaining control, and that the “Death to America and Death to Israel” chants that we were forced to repeat as children were the cornerstone of their lies.
After becoming a Christian, I was arrented and sentenced to death, spending nine months in Evin prison, spared only by public activism of Christians around the world, and the grace of God. Unfortunately, I know more about the regime’s behavior and goals, stories which I share in my books. As much as I am committed to my faith, I am committed to my adopted county and its safety. Its critical that we become aware of and defend ourselves from this insidious Islamic threat and cut off the head of the octopus of the Iranian regime.
Successive US governments and some of our politicians foolishly keep appeasing the ayatollahs and support the fake Iranian opposition for their own interests. Instead of making the Islamic regime accountable to the Iranian people who seek to overthrow the regime, they mistakenly empower the regime indirectly by allowing themselves to be deceived by Iranian agents. The goal of these agents is to mislead western politicians, preventing the true voice of Iranian freedom fighters from being heard. They also try to offer western politicians a fraudulent alternative for after the fall of the regime, perpetuating power in Iran under evil leaders wearing different masks.
There are three groups of fake opposition: two which work systematically outside Iran, and one inside Iran. The first fake opposition outside Iran are those who supported, worked for, and cooperated with the regime since the beginning of the revolution in 1979. Some of them were trained and supported by alleged reformists and were exported outside Iran for different missions. The second fake opposition outside Iran are radical armed Islamic terrorists such the National Council of Resistance of Iran, known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and other ethnic groups which seek the division of Iran into small independent countries.
The third fake opposition are those who are trained by reformists inside the country and play the role of misleading both Iranians and western people from inside prisons. We see this in the staged elections (I call selections) where a hardline Islamist always runs against a fake “reformist” who is hand-picked by the “Supreme Leader.’
Americans and other westerners typically see the external fake opposition, propped up by politicians who are either too self-absorbed or ignorant, or media thinking that anyone who says they oppose the Islamic regime can be trusted.
The fake opposition outside Iran are wolves in sheep’s clothes. They don’t look like ayatollahs with long beards, strange clothes, and forced Islamic hijabs for women. They wear western clothes and some of them speak English better than their mother tongue. Recognizing these people as fake opposition is complicated but critical. They are lobbyists, journalists, and political advisors. They appear and are celebrated throughout secular media.
But a simple investigation of these people reveals the truth through many videos, pictures, interviews, and documents from their past. These show they were not only strong supporters of the regime, but also have been betraying Iranians for decades. However, shortly after emigrating, being set up as agents of the regime overseas, they started singing a different tune in their mission to mislead politicians and exert influence. Even if a few of them truly changed and turned their back to the regime, there is still evidence that shows they are not trustworthy.
Iranians who truly seek change and the overthrow of the Islamic regime have exposed their lies and tactics many times. But this is mostly in Farsi, leaving people like me to expose it to the West.
As with many things, another way to expose these people is by following the money trail. Income from jobs in Iran and America reveals further truth about these fake opposition puppets. One has to ask how they came to America and reached their positions of influence? Who in western countries and America is supporting them and helping to amplify their voices? Through simply following public posts and documentation, it’s easy to see that most were former “reformists,” mostly supported by left-wing groups and leaders such as Hillary Clinton, Kamala Haris, Barak Obama, and other globalists.
One prominent example is Masoumeh (Masih) Alinejad. Her true name is Masoumeh, the name of one of the Islamic imam’s daughters, whose shrine is Qom, Iran’s Shiite holy city. The shortened version of Masoumeh is Masi not Masih which means nothing. Adding an (H) to Masi changes it to Masih (Christ in Farsi) which is the title of Jesus and is not an Iranian woman’s name. She may be a feminist, possibly an Islamic version of atheist, but she is not a Chrisian as her new name would have one believe, and she does represent the Iranian opposition. Most Iranians do not know who she is, but for those who do, they ridicule her as anything other than a puppet of the regime, and use #Masihalinejad_blood_dealer to document this.
The second fake opposition group outside Iran includes groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). They opposed the Shah of Iran, Mohamad Reza Pahlavi, and supported the Muslim extremist Ayatollah Khomeini, who seized power and control of Iran in 1979, 46 years ago this week. MEK supported Khomeini’s massive purge and through killing of Iranians as they consolidated control through fear, intimidation, and mandating their strict version of Islamic extremism. Because of disagreement over sharing power, something Islamist tyrants are not known for, MEK leaders were forced to flee Iran, and created an armed opposition army against the Islamic regime. They share part of the same radical Islamic ideology as the regime, but mix their Islamic extremism with Marxism.
In 1980s, during the bloody Iran-Iraq war, MEK joined Sadam Hussein in killing innocent Iranian civilians, a legitimate means to an end of unseating Khomeini and his extremists, having lost their control and influence. Iranians know that MEK is only out for its interests, not for the well-being of the Iranian people with the blood of tens of thousands of Iranians on their hands. MEK also has the blood of Americans on their hands through assassination of US military personnel and contractors throughout the 1970s. In 1997 the US State Department designated MEK as terrorist organization. The European Union also put MEK on its terrorists list in 2002. Despite countless horrible videos and documentation about their crimes, the EU and the US removed the MEK from their list of terrorist organizations in 2009 and 2012 respectively. Iranians know the truth and share this widely using #MEKterrorists.
Iranians hate these groups because of their treason. They have no public support inside Iran. In prison, I met and got to know several MEK followers. While I met many in prison who I respected and became friends with, some who actually supported Iran becoming a country of its citizens in opposition of the Islamists, and many victims of the regime, it’s clear that the strict Islamic ideology and support for terrorist’s leaders of the MEK make it dangerous to Iran. When Iranians say we prefer the ayatollahs to the MEK does not mean the ayatollahs are better, but they just want to show the level of their contempt to the MEK.
Unfortunately, it pains me that support for Iranian terrorists is not limited to Democrats. American leaders such as former Vice President Mike Pence, CIA director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Ambassador John Bolton and other American and European politicians shamefully support MEK. Iranians revealed that Pence and Pompeo have received hundreds of thousands of dollars just for speaking at MEK events. Recently, Trump’s Ukraine envoy Kellogg also attended an event in Paris, hosted by MEK to show his support to this terrorist group and its leader, Maryam Rajavi. These are people who should know better and if they don’t, they are also guilty of supporting terrorists.
Iranians are distrustful of the external fake opposition and sick and tired of treasonous acts that they represent and support. Iranians know they represent and try to influence policies in the countries in which they develop influence, policies that are not only wrong, but which will perpetuate suffering of Iranians under the heels of extremist Islamists. What’s needed is politicians and policies that represent and facilitate the vision of liberating Iran from these evil influences and can be the cornerstone for a free and democratic Iran, and an end to it being the biggest supporter of terror in the world.
Part 2
As we mark the 46th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power and has kept Iran and Iranians hostage for nearly five decades, and as the Iranian Islamic regime is the head of an insidious global network of terror that has caused untold death and destruction around the world, it’s time to look to the future of an Iran and a world without this evil influence. One can only wonder what the world would look like today had Jimmy Carter strengthened the US ally, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1978, and how Iran could have become a world leader and global exporter of innovation and not death and blood shed through extremist Islam.
To do so, it’s necessary to unmask the alleged opposition outside Iran, and the so-called reformists inside Iran, and to work toward a future where Iran can be free and not the head of the octopus as the global terrorist threat it is, with tentacles around the world.
To do so we must look at and learn from the past, and see how that’s playing out in the present. Otherwise, we will be doomed to repeat past mistakes and not change the future. For instance, today, the fall of Bashar al- Assad and the Baathist regime in Syria that began with his father for five decades is something to celebrate. Both Bashar, and his father Hafez al-Assad, were dictatorial tyrants who were responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and many more in the Middle East.
However, succeeding Assad with the support and influence of Turkey’s Islamist regime, Syria now has a new dictator who is nothing more than a radical jihadi terrorist in a suit. Today, Syria’s new president Ahmed al-Shara who took over following Assad’s fleeing, is being celebrated. Even the US has removed a $10 million bounty on his head. Unfortunately, world leaders are tripping over one another to welcome Al- Sharsa, also known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, which is foolish, dangerous, and very concerning.
It reminds me of how in 1979 when Khomeini came to power in Iran. France and the UK polished the demon then and portrayed him as a spiritual angel to Iranians welcoming him back from exile to Iran. Western politicians are masters of whitewashing terrorists, portraying them as normal leaders when it comes to an immediate solution and for their narrow interests. They do not understand that a terrorist is a terrorist even if they dress him in western clothes and trim his beard. They also do not understand Islam and the evil nature of Islamic extremism embodied by Khomeini then, and Al-Sharsa today. Based on the teachings of Islam, Muslims are allowed and even encouraged to engage in hypocrisy, deception, and telling outright lies for the sake of strengthening Islam and their political gain. That is the Islamic principle known as taqiyya, and is still widely practiced.
Previously I discussed the fake opposition and its agents outside Iran. But we also must understand and expose the fake opposition inside Iran, and which Iranians loathe and know too well. These are the ones trained by the Islamic regime to be sent to Iranian prisons as spies among political prisoners, to infiltrate and brainwash dissidents inside Iran and mislead the real opposition groups.
With the calculated help of alleged “reformists” who have infiltrated and have strong connections in western countries, this fake domestic opposition draws international recognition, even winning a Nobel Peace Prize. This was not the first time the Nobel Committee awarded a prize that was foolish if not fraudulent. Through ignorance or just plain stupidity, their voices are given wide exposure through secular media in America and around the world, allegedly representing bad actors and influential people from inside Iranian prisons. But it’s all a fraud perpetuated on the Iranian people and the world.
So called “reformists” orchestrate a fake opposition inside Iran to present western politicians with different options of a possible future leader after the fall of the regime. Another mission of the fake reformists and their agents is to portray inaccurate information about the situation of prisons and human rights violation in Iran. On one hand, they criticize the prisons and the behavior of their interrogators, and on the other hand they release videos dancing with no Islamic hijab to show how happy they are inside prisons. The videos are widespread in Iran, and Iranians know the truth.
Narges Mohammadi is a prominent example of fake opposition inside prison. She is the close friend of Faezeh Rafsanjani, daughter of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the mastermind of reformists who was able to deceive Iranians for so many years. Faezeh goes to prison occasionally through a fake arrest and to control the opposition from inside. I know her and her family very well since they are from the same city in which I was born. Narges’s Mohammadi’s husband also is antisemitic and supporter of Sharia law. There is much evidence about them and people like them, proving what Iranians call treason. In Iran, this is clear. In the West, most don’t care. Iranians know the truth and document that using #NargesMohammadi.
The goal of the fake opposition in Iran is to mislead ordinary Iranians, and to control any protests and rallies inside and outside the country. They strive to discourage full regime change in Iran by influencing western politicians. For instance, they focus mostly on the reforms and specific issues such as human rights violations, hijab and other forms of misogyny and gender apartheid, while Iranian people are demanding full regime change from which they have suffered for nearly 50 years.
So called reformists been exposed and are rejected by the majority of Iranians because of their past support of the regime. They have no support inside the country. On the other hand, the regime magnifies the fake opposition from within Iran by highlighting them on national TV as a true opposition, to depict the regime as fighting against the “reformists” while ignoring or avoiding covering any news about the true opposition that is supported by majority of Iranians. Through this, the regime misleads and manipulates the West to believe that the “reformists” are truly against the regime, rather than the reality that its leaders, including the current President Masoud Pezeshkian, being hand selected by the “Supreme Leader.”
For the future of Iran and the well-being of its citizens, the majority of Iranians support Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah Mohamad Reza Pahlavi. While exiled in 1979, Pahlavi remains the most unifying leader because of his father’s and especially his grandfather’s service to Iranian people and modernizing the country. He is the only opposition leader trusted by millions of Iranians wishing for his return. Whether they state it or not, Iranians owe an apology to Pahlavi’s family for not standing with them in 1979, and not appreciating their freedom and prosperity under his father.
I support Reza Pahlavi’s return and restoring Iran’s greatness, yet my hope is that he does not repeat the same mistakes of his father in appeasing radicals and not acting forcefully against them. Unfortunately, Iran still is not ready for a Jeffersonian democracy. Iran needs a strong leader who knows what is best for people, and one who can restore Iranian’s pride in their own country, rebuild an economy that’s been devastated by decades of the Ayatollahs funding the IRGC and global terror. That leader must be able to instill confidence in its people, as well as around the world, and to bring necessary investment to build what the Ayatollahs destroyed. Iranians must have freedom to practice their own religion as they choose, not as dictated by Islamic extremists who put me in prison and sentenced me to death for the “crime” of becoming a Christian. Any ideology or religion that encourage violence and intolerance must be purged.
Iranians know that the force preventing this is radical Islam, the extremist Sharia law and ideology of the Islamic regime. The cornerstone of this is freedom for Iranian women for whom the Islamic hijab represents their being second class, and dominated and controlled by men under the misogynist Islamic ideology. To see true freedom and a liberation of Iranian people and the world from the Islamic extremism that has created so much pain, suffering, and death for so long, there can be no support for alleged reformists who do not truly seek change, but just shuffling the deck of who will control Iran under the appearance of a kinder and gentler Islam. Iranians know that is a lie. The world needs to help make true reform in Iran a reality.
Supporting a different Islamic terrorist group or a radical Muslim is not a solution for the future Iran and Middle East. Western leaders must stop leading their nations down the same wrong path, repeating the same mistakes that have plagued the Middle East. They must listen to the true victims of the regime, and discern between fake regime-supported opposition and real opposition, if they want to bring a good change in Iran that benefits all Iranians, the Middle East and the world on the whole.
The West does not understand that Iranians are fighting against two Islamic Republic regimes: one inside Iran and the other outside Iran. The Islamic Republic regime and its supporters outside is no less dangerous than the one in Iran. With this week’s 46th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that has caused so much death and destruction, let us pray and commit to work together that this will be the last such anniversary under the heels of the ayatollahs.
Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity. She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.
Marzi also is the founder and president of NEW PERSIA whose mission is to be the voice of persecuted Christians and oppressed women under Islam, expose the lies of the Iranian Islamic regime, and restore the relationships between Persians, Jews, and Christians. www.NewPersia.org.