U.S. Should Turn Up The Heat On Iran

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the support of "elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of" power. He made the comments in a hearing on State Department budget for next year before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Secretary Tillerson’s testimony on Iran, coupled with that of near unanimous Senate vote on “Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017” bill condemning mullahs’ missile proliferation program, human rights record and destabilizing role in the Middle East, was received in Tehran as a recipe for disaster.

It is for the first time in nearly four decades of mullahs’ rule that a U.S. Secretary of State clearly calls for regime change. It might be a coincidence that at the same time the strongest Senate vote to date against Iran’s religious dictatorship is passed with 98 votes out of 100.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson holds a press conference on Iran in the Treaty Room of the State Department in Washington, DC on April 19, 2017. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

The bill is also unique because while it targets the most important issues involving the Iranian regime’s provocative actions, it has not violated the nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) struck by the Obama administration. It is an important reminder since the deal is often used as an excuse to give the regime in Tehran a free pass.

Some in the West were falsely led to believe that Hassan Rouhani’s second term would reign in Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ambiguous missile proliferation program. In the weeks after the sham election and before his official inauguration it became abundantly clear that no such change is in Iranian political horizons.

“They are taken by mistake if the new U.S. rulers think they can pressurize Iran with bills … in the Senate and Congress,” Rouhani said in reference to a new Senate move, IRNA news agency reported. Earlier in his second term victory speech Rouhani vowed to continue with mullahs’ missile program.

On June 21, the Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the whistle-blower of the mullahs’ nuclear and missile programs, held a press conference in its Washington office to give newly obtained information on the regime missile program from sources inside Iran. Its largest affiliate, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (POMI/MEK), first obtained the information that IRGC with the help of North Korean engineers are developing and testing a variety of medium and long range missiles.

It is no secret that since the 2015 nuclear deal the Iranian regime has stepped up production and testing of ballistic missiles. It has been playing permanent host to scientists from North Korea, which has the know-how to build and launch atomic weapons. The mullahs’ regime sees North Korean’s help and knowledge so crucial to its missile program that it has housed their scientists and technicians in Tehran.

NCRI says that IRGC is working in 42 missile sites. The regime is busy in "development, manufacture, and testing of missiles by the IRGC. It also determined that at least one such center, located in Semnan Province, 52 miles southeast of Tehran, was actively collaborating with the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (Persian abbreviation: SPND), which had previously been identified as the institution in charge of nuclear weapons-related work in the Islamic Republic."

“On the basis of specific intelligence, the IRGC’s missile sites have been created based on North Korean models and blueprints,” the NCRI said. “North Korean experts have helped the Iranian regime to build them. Underground facilities and tunnels to produce, store, and maintain missiles have also been modeled after North Korean sites and were created with the collaboration of the North Korean experts.”