Has President Barack Obama potentially destroyed Iran’s chances for regime change? With over 60% of Iran’s 78 million-person population under the age of 30, over 80% of the entire population suffering in utter poverty, and a clerical Islamic regime with a rampant record of human rights abuses–not the least of which includes death by hanging for homosexuality, amputations for crimes such as petty theft, and what has been described as one of the cruelest forms of non-physical punishment (“white torture”) in the world–the lingering fear is that the Islamic Republic of Iran may be close to solidifying a stronghold for the foreseeable future.
And it could very well arrive in the form of a $150 billion price tag.
“You cannot just fix the human rights problem with this regime without fixing the regime itself. You need to get rid of the regime,” Amir Abbas Fakhravar said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News. Fakhravar, who is the president of Iranian Freedom Institute and Founder of National Iranian Congress was a political prisoner for five-and-a-half years, during which he suffered white torture behind the bars of the sadistic Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-operated Evin prison. He is a great proponent for regime change, but he recently told Breitbart News that he fears this opportunity had come and gone.
“The Iranian problem is Obama.” Fakhravar told Breitbart News that the President is seeking to solidify his legacy. “He just wants to have it in his resume that he fixed the problem between the U.S. and Iran after 36 years. But it’s his imagination. The problem will not be fixed with this regime [because] you cannot negotiate with this regime. This regime needs to go.”
He explained that in Obama’s quest for a supreme legacy, the potential release of $150 billion in frozen foreign Iranian assets through the removal of sanctions on Iran’s central bank, would be a game-ender for the Iranian people. “It will be game over,” Fakhravar said.
By negotiating a framework deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which could release another $150 billion in frozen Iranian petro dollars to them, Obama will have helped the Mullahs and the regime to further solidify their totalitarian, dictatorial stronghold over their people, virtually deleting their citizens’ potential for true liberation, and aiding the Islamic Republic to expand their wanton hegemony throughout the region. “If Obama gives [Iran] that money, that will be the third time he will be helping the Mullahs in a huge way,” Fakhravar said. The previous two moments were in 2009 and 2012.
President Obama failed the people of Iran during the Green Revolution of 2009 when he opted not to provide U.S. support to the opposition movement after they rose up against the rigged elections where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected over his widely more popular political rival Mir-Hossein Moussavi. The revolution was ultimately crushed and the opposition left to the mercy of the Islamic dictatorship once again.
Fakhravar spoke of the six-year oil sanctions campaign (2006-2012) which directly led to the weakening of Iran’s government by blocking its ability to export oil to a host of foreign countries. “When the regime has 80-90% of their money coming from petro dollars, that’s their achilles heel.” Yet, in 2012, Obama helped the regime again by relaxing those sanctions.
He stated:
Obama had the opportunity to topple the regime by cutting their oil lifeline and cutting Iran off from an average of $100 billion annually. Instead of cutting countries off from trade with Iran completely, [in 2012, he] merely reduced the amount of oil these countries could buy from Iran to half. … Obama [had] betrayed us again.
Fast forward three years later to this past week and there is the potential for permanent damage by Obama.
“[Iran was] at the negotiating table because they want that $150 billion. Their second priority is nuclear,” Fakhravar warned. He noted that money will aid Iran in their nuclear path to making a bomb, suggesting it will continue as it has, virtually uninterrupted, and with even greater fortitude than before.
Yet with all of the administration’s failures, Fakhravar says he has not yet lost hope. He told Breitbart News that he is banking on April 14 as being “our date in Congress to vote as to whether we will impose more sanctions on Iran,” of which he is very much in favor. He praised Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) for bringing up the $150 billion issue on Fox News Sunday.
According to Fakhravar, “If Iran right now can have access to this money, they will be the richest government in Iranian history.” Even the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi did not have that much money when he was the emperor, he explained. “Imagine what a disaster that would be considering all the terrorist activities Iran supports around the globe and the amount of damage that can do.”
When asked about negotiating with Iran, he used the example of a known serial killer who just moved into the neighborhood. He then compared Senator John Kerry and President Barack Obama to the naive residents next door who believe that going over to the killer and asking him to kindly refrain from inflicting harm on them will protect them from the possibility of becoming his next victims.
“In that same way, the murderous Iranian regime is a country that we cannot speak nicely with,” Fakhravar said. Negotiations are off the table, and the only option, he suggested, is to take them down. If those funds are not released to Iran, “the next Revolution will definitely come a lot faster than we might expect.”
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz.
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