"No to the Islamic Republic" campaign seeks to unite Iranian opposition

Maryam Memar Sadeghi, a political analyst and activist and one of the founders and former directors of "Tavana: The Iranian Civil Society Training Institute," wrote in a note in the online publication "Bulwark" that the power of this campaign comes from recognizing the fact that the Islamic Republic's regime cannot be reformed.

Memar Sadeghi says that since a totalitarian Islamist regime came to power in Iran in 1979, the Iranian people have endured many hardships, but they have failed to come together as a united opposition. The ruling plotters exploited ideological differences, rivalries, and distrust to create the mythical prospect of “reform” by assassinating opposition leaders and spreading disinformation. The goal was to confuse, intimidate, demoralize, isolate, and disempower Iranians inside and outside Iran.

The emergence of a coordinated, people-powered campaign to peacefully overthrow the Islamic Republic and transition to a liberal democracy is a testament to the fact that the Iranian people are no longer willing to play by the rules of their oppressors. The “No to the Islamic Republic” campaign is a call to action for anyone who opposes the regime, whose evils have left no family unscathed.

This is a revolutionary call, but it is completely different from the approach of 1979: there is no anti-Western ideology, no fanatical leadership, no call to arms, and no promise of a utopia. “No to the Islamic Republic” is in fact a peaceful, rational, secular, and humane call for the realization of democratic freedom in the future for all Iranians of all backgrounds and beliefs.

This is an invitation to join the world.

At the forefront of this campaign are the mothers and fathers of peaceful protesters who were killed in more than 200 cities in November 2019 during protests. The mothers and fathers of countless other victims of the regime’s wave of terror and repression and of Iranians around the world have also joined the campaign. Prince Reza Pahlavi has also joined the campaign, seeing the results of his calls for unity for a nonviolent overthrow.

One consequence of the campaign is the call to boycott Iran’s next presidential election in June. The Iranian regime, like all authoritarian regimes, relies on voter turnout. The Iranian people, seeing that no promises of reform have been fulfilled, accuse reformist politicians of being complicit in some of the regime’s biggest lies, corruption, and the leader of the Islamic Republic’s call to kill protesters.

Iranians have realized that the Islamic Republic is neither capable nor willing to make gradual changes. It is not reformable and must end.

People are angry about the economic hardship and corruption that existed before the Trump administration's "maximum pressure."

People have made it clear in various ways, through labor strikes, street protests, open letters, and their slogans, that their enemy is the regime, not America.

The campaign has faced a U.S. administration that appears intent on preserving the Islamic Republic as a legitimate regional power. Iranian dissidents have written to President Biden urging him to lift sanctions on the regime. The sooner the United States and the rest of the free world understand the extent of the Iranian people’s capacity to achieve victory, the sooner they can secure lasting peace for the entire Middle East. 

Source: Voice of America