A Shared Fight Against Oppression and a Nuclear Threat

The fight against a nuclear Iran and support for the self-determination of the Iranian people go hand in hand, as Mehdi Khalaji, a scholar with the Washington Institute, pointed out in testimony before Congress last week.

Peace in the region and democracy in Iran now seem to be inseparable, because the same forces that threaten the peace are the same powers in Iran who threaten democracy and run the repressive machinery against the Iranian people. The threat to regional peace and Iranian democracy are the same: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is not only the main body in charge of the Iranian nuclear program, but also is the most effective means for political suppression in the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's leader and commander-in-chief.

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Democracy and peace can be achieved through weakening the military government in Tehran and pressuring the IRGC. The two parallel tracks -- the international community's effort for peace and the Iranian people's democratic movement -- naturally reinforce each other, because they fight with the same enemy.

Among some of the solutions Khalaji suggests are weakening the IRGC, which also threatens U.S. interests by weakening Sunni-Muslim allies of the West, sabotaging the middle-East peace process, and by trying to sabotage the positive developments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

J. Scott Carpenter, who testified with Khalaji, talked about sanctions as another vital tool to address the threat. These include sanctions influencing the IRGC's political and business interests. Khalaji pointed out that the IRGC and its affiliates “control one third of Iran’s income, dominating construction, oil field services, and telecommunications, among other industries.” Targeted sanctions could also include the threat of gasoline embargo against a regime dependent on other countries to refine the oil it produces.

We can help strengthen the democratic movement by helping the Iranian people connect with the outside world, in the face of a regime which spends billions of dollars trying to prevent this.

The major internet companies in the West could work with activists to find ways to bypass Iran's internet censors. Companies that provide Iran with the technology of surveillance and suppression should be named and shamed; consumers should shy away from these companies' products, and governments should urge these companies to reconsider their practices… New measures and mechanisms are needed to stop Iran from breaking international law.

As citizens we can contact our Congressmen to push for sanctions on groups like the IRGC, we can work together to develop boycotts against groups aiding the regime’s oppression of its citizens, and we can give support to the Iranian people, to help inform the world of what is happening inside and build global support for their struggle.

By doing so, we help fight for the universal human rights of the Iranian people, at the same time as we fight for the security of all other nations—including our own—threatened by this regime.

You can read the testimony of Mehdi Khalaji and J. Scott Carpenter here.