Think Iran could be a partner? Speak to Iranians first

If U.S. policymakers are having a hard time understanding why partnering with Iran over the Islamic State crisis is a bad idea, they should attend a rally near the United Nations building in New York on Sept. 25.

While the demonstration will be focused on calling attention to the continued political repression and failed domestic policies under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, the crowd is certain to be a diverse representation of the exiled Iranian community.

{mosads}Iranians at this rally are adherents of the main Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which has provided valuable insight not only into Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program but also its machinations in Iraq, including training, arming and funding the Shiite militias in that country.

In my experience, members of the Iranian resistance community have a keen understanding of a fact missed by many American pundits and politicians. They understand that Iran’s domestic policies cannot be separated from its foreign policy. During Rouhani’s first year in office, the regime worked hard to convince Western observers of that artificial and illusive separation.

Sadly, the United States appears to have been hypnotized by that false impression, so much so that it has repeatedly given up on its former positions during nuclear negotiations, all in hopes that the Rouhani administration’s charm offensive would prove to be a sign of genuine change. It hasn’t.

Quite to the contrary, Iran has only upped the ante on its demands of the P5+1, committing to strict red lines that virtually guarantee the regime will maintain or shorten its current breakout time for a nuclear weapon.

Indeed, Rouhani’s charm offensive sought to deceive some Iranians as well. Whereas many of the anticipated attendees of the upcoming rally are lifelong opponents of the regime who never believed in the promise of change, some will surely count themselves among those who believed that domestic repression would ease and that press freedom would grow once he took office.

None of that has happened, which is why a growing number of Iranians both inside and outside of the country are now eager to say “NO” to Rouhani. It is a message that speaks not only to the betrayed promises and amplified repressions experienced by Iranian citizens, including 1,000 executions in one year, but also to the dangers that a terrorist regime hiding behind a smiling president poses to the international community.

Opponents of the Iranian regime know that a government that suppresses its own people will do whatever it takes on the world stage to hold onto power and expand its regional influence. The MEK has been warning of the Iranian regime’s destructive meddling in Iraq since early in the American occupation. Those warnings proved to be prescient when the Iranian-backed government of Nouri al-Maliki began excluding and suppressing minorities, essentially empowering the Sunni militants of the Islamic State to fill the vacuum.

Washington would do well to listen to the Iranian people who have direct experience of the Iranian regime’s repressive and deceptive tactics. Those experiences can certainly help to highlight the folly of partnering with Iran in a conflict against the very crisis Tehran helped to create.

The Iranian regime intends to exploit regional circumstances, especially in Syria and Iraq, to win more concessions during nuclear negotiations and to waste more time. At the same time, it needs desperately to suppress domestic dissent and eradicate the exiled opposition. The West has an interest, therefore, to stand with the Iranian people.

Rouhani is the living embodiment of the fact that the regime can change its packaging, but can never change the essence of its policies as long as the clerics remain in charge. This is as true of foreign policy as it is of domestic policy. In fact the two are one and the same, and they are both shaped by the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

The willingness of some U.S. policymakers to work with Iran suggests that they do not understand this or that they do not take Khamenei’s virulent anti-Western rhetoric seriously. But that rhetoric will always be the guiding force in Iranian dealings with the US, even in the face of a mutual enemy.

Rouhani’s calculated oratory may mask this fact. But, on September 25, Iranians from around the world will join together to remove the mask and reveal the continuing existential threat to global security posed by the mullahs’ regime in Iran. They should be able to count on America’s support, because after all, Iran’s domestic human rights violations are intertwined with its belligerent foreign policy and nuclear designs, which would impact us all.

Kennedy, son of former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), served in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2011.