Back to Brief on Iran
The NCR issued a statement on Thursday saying that simultaneous with the final session of the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the NCR President, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, pointed out that the holding of the conference in Tehran will not produce any change in the policies of the mullahs' regime. Mr. Rajavi said that the summit will only encourage the mullahs to export terrorism and fundamentalism and foment discord and conflict among Muslims.
The NCR quoted Mr. Rajavi as saying that while Iran's ruling theocracy had made every effort to take advantage of the OIC summit in order to conceal its internal feuding, the summit practically turned into a staging ground for the power struggle among the troika leadership of the regime. Mr. Rajavi added that the summit will only lead to deepening divisions and infighting among the various factions of the ruling clique.
Referring to the conference's draft resolution to counter terrorism, Mr. Rajavi said: If the mullahs are true to their words, they must hand over murderers of their victims, including Professor Kazem Rajavi, the NCR representative in Switzerland, Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, the NCR representative in Italy, and Ms. Zahra Rajabi in Turkey, to the judiciary of the relevant countries to stand trial.
Muslim leaders at the Islamic Summit in Tehran would do well to remember a historic precedent. In 1936, Adolph Hitler, seeking to establish Germany's world leadership, hosted the Olympic Games in Munich. But soon the world found out what that leadership meant, and Nazi Germany's hosting of the 1936 Games remains a stain on the Olympic movement.
It is ironic that the host country to the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been sowing discord among Muslims for almost two decades. At the OIC, Iran's religious leaders have been eager to step to the fore of the Islamic world. Tehran's mullahs need the banner of Islam to legitimize their repressive, belligerent policies in the eyes of more than 1 billion Muslims…. The Tehran regime is based on the concept of velayat-e faqih, formulated by the Ayatollah Khomeini during his exile in Iraq in the 1960s. I attended his lectures with many other theological students who are now members of the ruling clique. According to this doctrine, the vali-e faqih (supreme leader) acts as God's vice regent on earth. His authority is absolute. The constitution puts all key organs and institutions under the direct or indirect control of the vali-e faqih, among them the armed forces, security and intelligence agencies, judiciary, radio and television networks, powerful state-run conglomerates, mosques and the bazaar.
Such a regime is by nature intolerant of any divergence of views. In March 1989, Khomeini sacked Hossein Ali Montazeri, his heir apparent, because Montazeri questioned the massacre of more than 15,000 Mujaheddin political prisoners. The clerical regime's principal opposition, the Mujaheddin, are Muslim, but their version of Islam preaches tolerance and coexistence….
When Khomeini died in 1989, no one within the ruling clique was qualified to wear the mantle of the vali-e faqih, so they hastily settled for a third-rate mullah, Ali Khamenei. For eight years, Khamenei ruled in a power-sharing arrangement with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, another student of Khomeini. That arrangement ended in May, when Rafsanjani was forced to step down as president and Khamenei's faction lost at the polls.
The West has little understood the gravity of what has taken place in Iran in the past few weeks. For the first time in 19 years, the very foundation of the regime is crumbling. The escalating power struggle spilled over into the Islamic Conference on the very first day, when "moderate" Khatami, scheduled to inaugurate the session, was replaced by Khamenei.
Under the circumstances, Tehran represents anything but unity among Muslims. Indeed, it has been the number one enemy of Islam…. The mullahs simply want to use religion to legitimize their totalitarian ways. Expectations that somehow they will change someday are naive at best.
Leaders of Islamic countries concerned about Islam's image and about unity among Muslims must draw a clear line between themselves and Tehran's rulers….
But it should not stop there. They must raise their voices against rights abuses and export of terrorism under the banner of Islam. They must reject the "global Islamic caliphate" proposed by Khamenei. Otherwise, the stain of Khomeinism on the OIC will spread.