U.S. lawmakers join Iranian dissidents in France for giant regime change rally

 By Guy Taylor - The Washington Times - Saturday, June 13, 2015

Tens of thousands of Iranian opposition protesters gathered in France on Saturday for an annual rally calling for regime change in Iran, and condemning Western powers for pursing a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.

The gathering, led by the a controversial, albeit influential Iranian exile organization — the National Council of Resistance of Iran — featured speeches and appearances by dozens of current and former officials from the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, all of whom joined in the call for Iran’s Shiite Islamist government to be overthrown.
Among the more high-profile was Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who told the massive crowd in a pre-recorded video message that “the Iranian regime [is] the true epicenter of Islamic extremism in the world.”
Despite participating in nuclear negotiations with Western powers, Mr. McCain said, Iran’s leadership “continues to fund terror and incite chaos and in its campaign for domination in the vacuum of American withdrawal.”
Event organizers claimed more than 100,000 supporters were on hand, with hundreds of buses ferrying in attendees from across France and beyond to fill a fairground and convention center in the town of Villepinte, just north of Paris.
Several U.S. lawmakers were there in person. Among them, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, drew large cheers by declaring that he wanted to “remind the brutal mullahs in Iran that their day is coming and it will come soon!”

“I see a day coming when thugs riding motorcycles will not beat people up in the streets in order to silence them in Iran,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. “I see a day when women asking for rights will no longer be thrown in jail and beaten and raped in Iran. I see a day when the mullahs will not be choosing the candidates.”

He also slammed the nuclear negotiations with Iran, claiming they distract from what should be a Western policy backing the Iranian government’s overthrow.

Cult-like following

The rally was organized by the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — an umbrella organization that members claim includes more than 300 opposition groups peppered across 24 nations.

While the group does have critics in Washington and in Europe, its leader, Maryam Rajavi enjoys a kind of cult-like following from the NCRI’s core members.

Hundreds waived blue flags emblazoned with her photo and chanted her name as she took the stage dressed in an Islamic blue outfit and headscarf on Saturday afternoon.

A large screen behind her broadcast the slogans: “Regime Change in Iran” and, “We can and we must.”

“Look at today’s Iran, do you see any Iranians not longing for change? All of them feel the same pain and demand for change,” she told the crowd, asserting that her organization stands for “freedom, democracy and equality.”

Ahead of Saturday’s rally, Mrs. Rajavi claimed in an interview with The Washington Times that the “circumstances are ripe for regime change” in Tehran, and blamed Washington and other Western governments for standing in the way by legitimizing the regime of Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei through the pursuit of a nuclear deal.