A former Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer who worked for nearly a decade and a half as a CIA spy has advice for the incoming Republican majority in the House: Help the people of Iran overthrow the tyrannical regime ruling their country or face a catastrophic war fought on Tehran’s terms.
“It is essential for us to understand that the establishment ruling Iran is truly committed to belief in the end of times and the reappearance of Imam Mahdi, the 12th Shiite Imam,” said Reza Kahlili, who uses that pseudonym and recently penned “A Time to Betray,” a memoir of his days as a CIA Spy.
When that happens, “Iran’s rulers believe Islam will conquer the world and kill all the remaining nonbelievers,” he says.
If the Iranian regime is allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, it will initiate a worldwide conflagration, Kahlili believes.
“Millions will die and millions of others will suffer unimaginable horrors. We will witness one of the greatest depressions and greatest destructions in human history. It is time that we take action and help the Iranians free themselves before it’s too late for all of us.”
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax this week, Kahlili urged Congress and U.S. allies in Europe to intensify pressure to isolate the Iranian regime, prosecute its leaders for crimes against humanity, and open a “channel of communication” with the Iranian people to help them organize a nationwide revolt.
“Once the loyalists see that the West is serious, they are going to abandon ship,” he says. “As you saw during the uprising, many Iranian diplomats and others defected, thinking it was the end of the regime. So if we can emphasize that, there will be many more high-level Iranian officials who will defect, which would further weaken the government and embolden the opposition.”
During the past 18 months, dissent has reached the inner circles of the regime in unprecedented ways, Kahlili says.
On Wednesday, Kahlili appeared, wearing a surgical mask and speaking through a voice modulator, at a forum on Iran policy that Freedom Watch and the Foundation for Democracy in Iran sponsored at the National Press Club.
Freedom Watch founder and President Larry Klayman, said, “The policy of the Obama administration and the European Union has simply not worked. We are calling on the new Congress to push the administration and the European Union to pursue a more rational approach toward Iran, toward removing the regime.”
Appearing with them, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey compared the state of Iran’s military power with Hitler’s military buildup in the years before he invaded Poland and started World War II.
“By 1936, when Germany moved into the Rhineland, it still would have been possible with strong British and French support for there to have been a coup in Germany, probably led by the Junkers, the Prussian aristocrats,” Woolsey said.
“But the world stood by. The world was in a terrible depression. The economies of Britain and France were such that they felt they couldn’t take a strong stand. And so appeasement was what there was.”
Kahlili had some concrete suggestions for the 112th Congress:
