Massoud on Anti war activities of PMOI-prt 3
- 00:06:37
- YouTube
Massoud on Anti war activities of PMOI-prt 3
There is no doubt that the peace strategy of the PMOI agaisnt the warmongering policies of Khomein in the early 1980s, was fraught with high political risks, because the mullahs were bound to accuse the Iranian Resistance of "collaboration with the enemy" and "acting as the Fifth Column." The resistance's logic, however, was that if the war was illegitimate and only benefited the mullahs' regime, and if it was against the best interests of the Iranian people, the clerics' propaganda would be thwarted in time and truth would ultimately prevail. As Abraham Lincoln once remarked, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.Within months after Rajavi's move to Iraq, the soundness of the Resistance's logic seemed to prevail. Anti-war sentiments rose as Iranians grew weary of the exorbitant human and material cost of war.The anti-war movement received a boost in June 1987 with the formation of the National Liberation Army of Iran. The army became a magnet for disaffected youths who did not want to serve in the clerical regime's war machine. Drawing on the expertise of many officers of the Shah's or mullahs' armed forces who joined its ranks, the NLA rapidly established itself as a force to reckon with.The clerical leaders clearly sensed the imminent threat posed by the NLA. After eight years of conflict, both the Iranian and the Iraqi regimes knew that neither side could pose an existential threat to the other one at that stage of the warfare.on July 18, 1988,Khomeini announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to implement UN Security Council Resolution 598, adopted a year earlier to bring about a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq conflict.He stressed that it was not possible at the time to reveal the reason why the Iranian regime had to end the war, but in the following years, particularly after Khomeini's death in June 1989, several senior officials divulged that the clerical leadership was fearful of the Mojahedin and the NLA being part of a wider conspiracy to topple the religious regime in Tehran. Finally, the Iranian Resistance's peace strategy had prevailed and defeated the clerical regime's warmongering policy and expansionist goals.Days after the clerical regime's acceptance of Resolution 598, the NLA launched its biggest operation, codenamed the Eternal Light. The offensive began on July 20 and NLA forces thrust 180 kilometres deep into Iranian territory, seizing the cities of Kerend and Islam-Abad and a large swath of strategic territory, cutting off the vital road link between the mullahs' armed forces in western and south-western Iran.The clerical regime has conducted a virulent campaign over the years to portray the NCRI and the PMOI as traitors for joining forces with Iran's enemy in a patriotic war.The Iranian Resistance's peace strategy in the 1980s has been vindicated by later developments. After the cease-fire, all the leading clerical figures distanced themselves from the war policy and implicitly blamed Khomeini for the decision to prolong the war
YouTube | July 24, 2008
