Read Online Self-Sacrifice by Struan Stevenson - Free Book Online
Authors: Struan Stevenson
Ads: Link
Americans, in a continuation of their wrong-headed policy that led to the invasion of Iraq, kept the doors open for Iran. Between 2003 and 2011, the PMOI published over 4,500 information packs on this issue or gave them to relevant officials. One of these packs included a list of the names of 32,000 people who were on the payroll of the IRGC in Iraq, an amazing and top-secret document. This list was obtained from within the IRGC in Tehran, and at least one of the sources was executed for leaking the information. An interesting point was that many senior officials in Nouri al-Maliki’s government in Baghdad were on the list! Among other information, it included full names, bank account numbers, bank codes and amount of salary paid by the IRGC, for all of those listed.
Iran, moreover, had repeatedly thumbed its nose at the West’s compromise offers, forcing Javier Solana, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, to concede in a speech in January 2005, ‘There has been no progress. Iran continues to ignore us.’ Even so, in the same debate, he and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the Austrian Commissioner for External Affairs, again and again emphasised the need for ongoing discussion, debate and negotiation. ‘People to people’ contact is what is needed, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner assured the European Parliament, outlining the EU’s strategy of opening our universities to Iranian students of nuclear physics and pouring Euros into a ‘poverty alleviation fund’! In a speech before a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg and in front of Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, I said: ‘It almost beggars belief that EU taxpayers are helping to relieve poverty in one of the world’s richest oil-exporting nations, whose leaders have corruptly embezzled billions and who choose to squander their cash on building weapons of mass destruction. Worse still, it is astounding that the European Commission boasts that we are training Iranian students in nuclear technology!’
In Washington, George W. Bush had placed the IRGC on the US list of terrorist organizations. This had, of course, infuriated Tehran and its apologists in the West, but it enabled the US to freeze the vast foreign financial assets of the IRGC and to target foreign companies doing business with them.
The IRGC have always comprised the backbone of the Iranian regime’s system of oppression. In 2004 more than fifty former IRGC members sat in the 290-seat parliament, with others serving as mayors and provincial governors. Former IRGC commanders made up about two-thirds of the cabinet, including the president, Ahmadinejad, and the foreign minister, Monouchehr Mottaki, who was expelled as Ambassador to Turkey because of his involvement in assassination and torture. Former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and many other high-ranking officials were also ex-members of the IRGC.
The IRGC also supplied Tehran’s key economic needs, enabling the fundamentalist regime to spread terrorism throughout the Middle East and even Europe. It controlled, and still controls, over 30 per cent of Iran’s non-oil exports and more than 57 per cent of its imports. Its commercial annual revenue in 2004 was around $4.8 billion.
The Qods (Jerusalem) Force, the main terrorist apparatus of the IRGC, has to this day more than 21,000 Iranian members and tens of thousands of non-Iranian mercenaries, including in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and many European countries. The Qods Force has dozens of garrisons across Iran in which it trains its non-Iranian operatives. In 2004 it boasted that at least 7,000 suicide bombers had enlisted for volunteer operations with the Qods Force; an IRGC general said they would be unleashed in waves across Israel and the Middle East if anyone attempted to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.
When President George W. Bush unveiled his new strategy for dealing with the spiralling insurgency in Iraq following the 2003
Iran, moreover, had repeatedly thumbed its nose at the West’s compromise offers, forcing Javier Solana, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, to concede in a speech in January 2005, ‘There has been no progress. Iran continues to ignore us.’ Even so, in the same debate, he and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the Austrian Commissioner for External Affairs, again and again emphasised the need for ongoing discussion, debate and negotiation. ‘People to people’ contact is what is needed, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner assured the European Parliament, outlining the EU’s strategy of opening our universities to Iranian students of nuclear physics and pouring Euros into a ‘poverty alleviation fund’! In a speech before a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg and in front of Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, I said: ‘It almost beggars belief that EU taxpayers are helping to relieve poverty in one of the world’s richest oil-exporting nations, whose leaders have corruptly embezzled billions and who choose to squander their cash on building weapons of mass destruction. Worse still, it is astounding that the European Commission boasts that we are training Iranian students in nuclear technology!’
In Washington, George W. Bush had placed the IRGC on the US list of terrorist organizations. This had, of course, infuriated Tehran and its apologists in the West, but it enabled the US to freeze the vast foreign financial assets of the IRGC and to target foreign companies doing business with them.
The IRGC have always comprised the backbone of the Iranian regime’s system of oppression. In 2004 more than fifty former IRGC members sat in the 290-seat parliament, with others serving as mayors and provincial governors. Former IRGC commanders made up about two-thirds of the cabinet, including the president, Ahmadinejad, and the foreign minister, Monouchehr Mottaki, who was expelled as Ambassador to Turkey because of his involvement in assassination and torture. Former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and many other high-ranking officials were also ex-members of the IRGC.
The IRGC also supplied Tehran’s key economic needs, enabling the fundamentalist regime to spread terrorism throughout the Middle East and even Europe. It controlled, and still controls, over 30 per cent of Iran’s non-oil exports and more than 57 per cent of its imports. Its commercial annual revenue in 2004 was around $4.8 billion.
The Qods (Jerusalem) Force, the main terrorist apparatus of the IRGC, has to this day more than 21,000 Iranian members and tens of thousands of non-Iranian mercenaries, including in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and many European countries. The Qods Force has dozens of garrisons across Iran in which it trains its non-Iranian operatives. In 2004 it boasted that at least 7,000 suicide bombers had enlisted for volunteer operations with the Qods Force; an IRGC general said they would be unleashed in waves across Israel and the Middle East if anyone attempted to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.
When President George W. Bush unveiled his new strategy for dealing with the spiralling insurgency in Iraq following the 2003
Similar Books
