Giuliani at major Iran rally in Paris suggests Trump favors regime change

by WorldTribune Staff, July 1, 2018

When it came to North Korea, President Donald Trump was willing to meet with its leaders to defuse a potential threat to U.S. national security. But he appears to be viewing another rogue state differently.

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and current personal lawyer to U.S. President Donald Trump, hinted on June 30 that the president favors regime change in Iran.

Rudy Giuliani speaks at the National Council of Resistance of Iran meeting on June 30. / Reuters

In an address to a conference of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) which drew a reported 100,000 people, Giuliani said Trump will suffocate Iran’s “dictatorial ayatollahs.”

“I can’t speak for the president, but it sure sounds like he doesn’t think there is much of a chance of a change in behavior unless there is a change in people and philosophy,” Giuliani told Reuters in an interview.

“We are the strongest economy in the world … and if we cut you off then you collapse,” Giuliani added, pointing to recent protests in Iran.

As for sanctions, they  “will become greater, greater and greater,” he said.

NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi stated: “For the past six months the Iranian people have waged an uprising and a protest movement despite maximum suppression. The signs of change in Iran and the regime’s overthrow have appeared. The prospects for the victory of Iran’s democratic revolution, devoid of the mullahs and the Shah, are looming.”

The NCRI added that “Internationally, the mullahs have lost the most important backer of the policy of appeasement, namely the U.S. The international shield safeguarding the regime has fallen off.”

Giuliani also said Europe should be “ashamed” of itself for continuing to support the nuclear deal with Iran that the U.S. withdrew from in May.

“Anybody who thinks the Ayatollahs are honest people is a fool. They are crooks and that’s what Europe is propping up … murderers and sponsors of terrorism. Instead of taking an opportunity to topple them they are now left propping them up,” he told Reuters.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told the rally that “the only way to safety in the region is to replace the dictatorship with a democracy and that has to be our goal.”

The NCRI, which billed the event as the “world’s largest gathering of those who advocate regime change in Iran,” is an umbrella bloc of opposition groups in exile that seek an end to Shi’ite Muslim clerical rule in Iran. The group includes the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI).

“For many, the significance of such event is that there exists a powerful and organized institution (NCRI/PMOI), holding the largest number of Iranian oppositions connected with people inside Iran, that can be a critical platform for facilitating a fundamental change in the Iranian government and its political establishment by the Iranian people themselves, and without the need for foreign or military intervention,” the NCRI said.

According to the NCRI’s program, following the regime’s overthrow, a provisional six-month government will be formed, whose primary task is to form a constituent assembly through free elections with the general, direct, equal and secret ballot.

“After the regime’s downfall, the first step is to transfer sovereignty to the people of Iran,” the NCRI said. “By relying on the Iranian people and a popular base one can avert chaos and insecurity, and safeguard the integrity of Iran and Iranians, rendering it a proud nation.”


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