"You are certainly aware of today's news reports, the most important of which is this strange but not unexpected sudden about-face in the Islamic Republic's overall policies after 26 years of Iran's occupation by this regime, and that is this regime's announcement that it is ready for talks with America. Talks with America have always been one of the taboos for this regime. Of course contrary to what this regime says, it always tries to show that every withdrawal, every compromise and every submission is a victory, but those are knowledgable can easily see how much the Islamic Republic is lying. This is the first thing.
"Second, they said that these talks are limited to discussions with Iraq in the presence of the Americans. Yet the Americans (meaning the government of America and all governments in the East and West of the world) always say that the door to talks about any problem they have with others is open; and since the day the Islamic Republic, do not forget that the American government was the one who ended its relationship with the government of the Islamic Republic after the American diplomats were taken hostage early in the revolution by the same ones, the firers of the fatal gunshots who are now governing Iran. Before that the American government in the time of President Carter played a big part in bringing the Islamic Republic to power and bringing down the monarchy in Iran, and also after the fall of the monarchy it gave much assistance to the Islamic Republic so that it could remain in power, and the American government was one of the first governments to recognize the Islamic Republic officially; it sold a large amount of gasoline in the early days so the wheels of this regime could turn. This was a good relationship until the Tudeh people and the leftists, who were the real owners of the revolution before it became Islamic with these Islamic Marxists and the like, these people came and in reality took the hostages under Musavi Khoeiniha, the one who really directed this program and who is a communist preacher. Those who know something about this revolution know who he is, what he has done and what role he has played.
"In any case, after the relationship of the American government with the government of the Islamic Republic was cut on the initiative of the American government, at that time of course the Americans announced that they were willing to negotiate with the Islamic Republic. Of course these talks were even held several times. The first time was the talks where representing the Khomeini government this very Behzad Nabavi--the fellow who has now become a conditional opponent and supporter of the regime and is unhappy that power is no longer in his hands and those of his group--this very gentleman went to Algeria and held talks with the Americans for the release of the hostages, in truth he gave billions of dollars of Iranian money to the Americans and the outcome was the Algiers Accord, on the basis of which the American courts again paid billions of dollars from our revenues to American companies and persons who had complained about the new regime in Iran who were also Iranian Americans and brought this political and diplomatic damage to us and the damage brought to our honor by the taking of the American hostages, which remains for us until now. If like the Islamic Republic we want to evaluate everything with money, this has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars until now, and it will also cost us hundreds of billions of dollars more in the future.
"If there was a war between Iran and Iraq, it was not an imposed war. This war was the result of this very hostage-taking and other things that the Islamic Republic did, the border provocations with Iraq and the fact the accounts on Khomeini and his group came out incorrectly and Saddam Hussein attacked Iran. The war began with attacks by Saddam Hussein's aircraft on Mehrabad Airport. After two years our compatriots were able to drive the Iraqis off the soil of most of our territory they had occupied; then six years later Rafsanjani, Rafiqdust, Seyyed Ahmad Khomeini and the rest of the ones who are now in power including Rezai and others, came and continued the war until they became billionaires through the purchase of weapons and then collecting percentages; then they formed the mafia government that exists in Iran now.
"After the Islamic Republic was not willing--that is it said it was not willing--to negotiate with America, there were negotiations one or two more times. The Islamic Republic negotiated with America. When Kharrazi, the Islamic Republic's foreign minister, went to New York and had talks with Ms. Albright, the Secretary of State in the Clinton government; when they went to Berlin they had talks about Afghanistan with America and the other nations who were involved in Afghanistan and then they went and had talks about this very Iraq. These talks were either confidential, or like these talks about Afghanistan and America, they were not just between the Tehran regime and the Washington regime and were not regarded as direct talks.
"Today the Islamic Republic has backed down and has in reality admitted the failure of the Khomeini foreign policies from day one until now along with the falseness of all these "death to America" slogans. It is possible that they will continue doing and saying these things but this was not America doing something new, as they are suggesting by saying that the American ambassador insisted on it. I will show you a film about this. For some time even the American ambassador has been holding talks in Baghdad with the ambassador of this same Islamic Republic and this was not something hidden. They kept saying that they wanted to sit down and solve the problems.
"It was this Islamic Republic regime that had involved itself with this rhetoric about fighting America, when it was not the least bit beneficial to Iran's interest! It was in the interest of the Islamic Republic's mafia insiders not to have political or trade relations with America. It was harmful to the nation of Iran! In any case today the regime of the Islamic Republic has rolled up the scroll of Khomeini's foreign policy after trying for a period of time to hold these talks with the American government, and it has officially announced that this fellow Ali Larijani will begin relations with America in the form of talks about the Iraq issue. Permit me to show you a film they had today on Islamic Republic television and the remarks by this Mr. Larijani, which are rather long because when they want to tell a lie they wrap it in seven layers; this is the reason they talk for a very long time.
"However in any case from the content of what he says you will understand what is going on and how it is that today the Islamic Republic has become obliged, due to fear of the Security Council, due to fear of its condemnation, due to its effort to acquire nuclear weapons, to announce officially that it has submitted to talks with America. We will see this film together and then I will tell you what has happened behind the scenes so that the Islamic Republic has publicly, officially and defeatedly but with a righteous face said that it has accepted and begun."
[clip begins; Ali Larijani, chairman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, is speaking to the press]: "...the Americans have made this request and the American ambassador has announced several times: 'we have problems in Iraq that we cannot solve and we need to talk with Iran' but we do not trust these statements. Whenever they need Iran they say these things and then when their problems are solved they say something else. The leaders of Iraq, the president of Iraq, Mr. Hakim and others, have said to us repeatedly in private meetings, you are our place of refuge and we need you to hold talks so that we can make use of your capacity and Iraq can acquire stability and complete security and the lives of the people and democracy can take shape. They have said this repeatedly in private meetings. This time also Mr. al-Hakim, who is one of Iraq's principal leaders, and you know that his entire family was martyred working for Iraq's independence, has announced this and made this request, and in view of the fact that Mr. al-Hakim has made this request publicly, we agree to thie apart from all the previous issues that they raised in the private meetings, for the purpose of resolving the problems in Iraq because there is a place there for a truly credible and free government rather than one that is under pressure from the occupiers and we will designate individuals who will undertake these negotiations and who can help the future goverment of Iraq, and who have good potential to solve the problems."
[Souresrafil]: "You noticed that the Islamic Republic announced officially and publicly that it is willing to negotiate with America, but contrary to what he [Larijani] said that it was the American ambassador Mr. Khalilzad who said officially several days ago 'I am ready and have spoken with the various Iraqi factions and it has been arrange that I should go and speak with the officials of the Islamic Republic about Iraq'. Do not forget that these remarks by Mr. Khalilzad were made shortly after Mr. Donald Rumsfeld and General Pace, chairman of the United States Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, both said that the Islamic Republic has also sent explosives and bombs to Iraq as well as individuals from the Revolutionary Guards.
"Therefore Mr. Khalilzad's remarks were nothing new and were expected; it is natural that the Americans would want to talk to the Islamic Republic because it had become clear--and they did not say this but it was clear from the context of the remarks, and I say this but I have said it to you repeatedly--that the Islamic Republic, the members of the Badr Corps, the members of the Supreme Islamic Revolutionary Council and this Mr. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim are agents of the Islamic Republic in Iraq, and this Mr. Jabr, Iraq's minister of the interior, went and formed this corps to bomb the Samarra shrine, which is the burial place of the 10th and 11th Shi'ite imams. It soon became clear, although not to the mass media, but to those who observe these things, that this deed was the work of the Islamic Republic and their Iraqi cohorts.
"Perhaps it was for this reason that Mr. Rumsfeld said for the first time that elements of the Revolutionary Guards in Iraq are engaged in activities that are harmful for the future of Iraq. It was after this that the Islamic Republic understood that things did not bode well, after the nuclear case was turned over to the Security Council and after it also became clear in Iraq the provocations this regime was making and that the Islamic Republic wanted to instigate civil war; they had even said previously that if their nuclear case were turned over to the Security Council they would make provocations both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and they have done this. In Afghanistan the provocations carried out jointly by the Islamic Republic and Al-Qaeda have increased, and they have also started doing new things in Iraq with the joint forces of the Revolutionary Guards, the Badr Corps and elements from al-Zarqawi and Talabi, all of whom work together on terrorism, one of which was the bombing of what the Americans call the Golden Mosque, that very Asghari Mosque, which led to what was in truth the beginning of a civil war in Iraq.
"However this was part of the programs of the Islamic Republic to persuade the Americans to open talks with the Islamic Republic in some way so it could find a pretext to say 'yes, the Americans came and said let's talk about Iraq'.
"In any case I said to you repeatedly several days ago that the brother of Mr. 'Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, chairman of the Council for the Discernment of Expediency, sent his brother Mr. Ahmad Hashemi-Rafsanjani, through a gentleman I will soon introduce to you with all the details who lives in New Jersey, to America. They went to America and tried to negotiate with the American government and ask them to come and talk with the Islamic Republic, and the American government was not very receptive to them. In any case this was part of the effort by the Islamic Republic regime to get talks started.
"However the next intermediary was this very Abdul Azia al-Hakim, the agent of the Islamic Republic and the chairman of the Supreme Islamic Revolutionary Council of Iraq in Baghdad, Iraq and in Najaf, who pleaded with the Americans to come and hold talks with the Islamic Republic to solve the nuclear issue, not the Iraq issue! The Iraq issue is also on the agenda for these talks but the most important negotiation that the Islamic Republic is holding with America is about the nuclear issue, not the Iraq issue, and it does not want to say publicly that it wants to back down on the nuclear issue, which it has done. They have to say that they are only talking about the Iraq issue.
"The ball in these talks is in the court of the Islamic Republic. Even the Russians have said to the Islamic Republic: 'you can negotiate with us and it is even possible that we will come to an agreement, but an agreement between us is of no use. Your problems will not be solved until you resolve the issues with America, either with respect to your nuclear case or with respect to other issues, including the survival and longevity of the Islamic Republic itself'. However the Islamic Republic does not act like ordinary people, like the American ambassador who said 'I want to sit down and talk with them about the Iraq issues and tell them to stop interfering in Iraq'.
"Let us not forget that if the American government wanted to negotiate with the Islamic Republic and ask them to permit it to do more work in Iraq, negotiations would not be necessary. Iraq is now controlled by the Islamic Republic! Unfortunately America's great mistake in attacking Iraq was that it did not get the Islamic Republic out of the way at the same time and as a result both in Iran and in Afghanistan elements of the Islamic Republic unfortunately have the upper hand. This Iraq mistake will not be corrected and this danger will not be overcome in the region or the world without regime change in Iran and without the destruction of the Islamic Republic, which is on the agenda of practically every nation in the world today. Even Russia and China have given up hope that the Islamic Republic will be their future. Indeed they are mostly seeking regime change in Iran hoping that the next government will be able to meet their overall economic interest and will recognize and permit continued economic relations with the Islamic Republic.
"I will show you another brief film clip even though it is not related so you can see how it is that that even today, to deceive the people of Iran and just for domestic consumption the Islamic Republic is saying publicly and without the least hesitation (because everyone knows this is a lie) that the Americans bombed the shrine in Samarra. Watch this brief film clip and then I will talk about it:"
[clip begins with video of Iraqi shrine while IRINN announcer speaks] "...and efforts to create clashes among ethnic religious groups are among the plots that are in the way of the groups that won in the elections. Now concurrent with the new Iraqi parliament beginning its work, more than at any other time the people of the country are hoping that with the formation of an elected government that is a reflection of the demands of the people and reflects their views, the way will be blocked for the occupiers and that the coming government, with the management of affairs will be able to direct its attention to lasting security and construction."
[Souresrafil]: "Dear viewers you saw that in this brief clip, which did not start at the beginning, it is stated exactly that the bombing of the shrine was done by the occupation forces in Iraq. However, today you heard something that is again related to the fact that the Americans want to know where they stand with the Islamic Republic and to warn the Islamic Republic in their talks to pack up and leave Iraq, stop the provocations and stop thinking it has turned Iraq into a colony. These talks will be held, but two things have happened today that are directly related to this very issue.
"One is, so the Islamic Republic will not think that Iraq's destiny is really in its hands, America has launched the biggest assault since the coalition first entered Iraq three years ago, right in that same area of Samarra, with hundreds of American soldiers, with aircraft, with tanks and I don't know what. This assault has just begun and will continue. They want to guard the region and purge it of the elements of the Islamic Republic, of the stashes of armaments that the Islamic Republic has created there and in short they even have to purge the Iraqi army and its security forces of the elements of the Islamic Republic that have penetrated there.
"The next issue is the very thing that you saw in this film, meaning the first session of the Iraqi parliament met today three months after Iraq's elections were held and the results were announced, and you know that these results went to the advantage of Abdul Aziz Hakim's group and the Islamic Revolution Council of IRaq thanks to the Islamic Republic sending people and forging identification papers and ballots and to the detriment of the other Iraqi factions, whether Shi'ite or Sunni.
"Today after three months the Iraqi parliament went to work but the session lasted no longer than 30 minutes because this very Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Islamic Republic's mercenary, disrupted the session. Mr. Adnan Pachachi, a very prominent Iraqi diplomat and official, Sunni of course, who is today also the oldest of the Iraqi Majles deputies, began the session and spoke there about these same issues and these same provocations by this apparatus of the Islamic Republic. He warned that Iraq might be getting into a civil war and called upon everyone to put an end to foreign intervention in Iraq and to replace it with a kind of national unity. This very Abdul Aziz al-Hakim stood up, disrupted the session and protested these remarks. Therefore Iraq's first session of parliament since the elections lasted no more than 30 minutes, but in this very 30 minutes everyone understood and all of the Iraqi factions, Shi'ite, Sunni, Kurdish, Torkoman, communist and what-have-you, said officialy and insisted, 'we will not permit the Islamic Republic to turn Iraq into one of its own provinces the way it has done now'.
Ibrahim Ja'fari
"That [Ibrahim] Ja'fari, who draws a salary officially from the Islamic Republic, is an official lackey of the Islamic Republic and is prime minister in the interim government, was obliged to say today that he will resign and will no longer hold the position of Iraq's prime minister. Now the Kurds are drawing close to the Shi'ites, that is the ones who are not lackeys of the Islamic Republic, or in other words the ones who are not members of the Badr Corps or the Supreme Islamic Revolution Council of Iraq, because they see that the Islamic Republic has deceived them all, and this very Mr. Barezani, Iraq's president of the republic, asked that his prerogatives be increased and that the apparatus of the Islamic Republic, of which this very Mr. Ja'fari is an example and a symbol, should pack up and get out of Iraq's government.
"Therefore the talks that the Islamic Republic has audaciously agreed today to begin with America are talks the Islamic Republic has decided to submit to, to see if it can solve with America its own energy problem and the problem with its effort to build an atomic bomb, in such a way that it will not lose face too much among the people of Iran, and to see if it can find a refuge in these talks.
Look how precisely the Islamic Republic calculates! Tomorrow is the day the UN Security Council will meet officially in New York to consider the Islamic Republic regime's nuclear case. Both Russia and China, despite all their opposition, and despite the fact that they have been an obstacle to agreement on international resolve to fight the Islamic Republic, have let the Islamic Republic know that they will not sacrifice their own interest to the Islamic Republic's ambitions and disruptions. Therefore, exactly 24 hours before the beginning of the UN Security Council meeting, the Islamic Republic announced that it is willing to talk with America.
"However, these talks are obligatory and this backing down was truly humiliating, for the Islamic Republic to come and hold talks with America. The former Soviet Union did the same thing with various countries. These events would only become a matter of principle for a few countries with stupid governments, such as the Islamic Republic with its stupid government, as opposed to a matter for diplomacy.
"Therefore in these talks between the government of America and the Islamic Republic regime there are only two issues. With regard to nuclear energy and the building of an atomic bomb by the Islamic Republic, nothing will be done in these talks and there will be no negotiations because these in these talks the method and the result are clear. The Islamic Republic must give up its nuclear activities, and as long as that exists and as long as this regime, which we know, exists and is not replaced by another regime, the Islamic Republic must not have any more nuclear technology than what it now has, which it has acquired through Malaysian, Pakistani and Chinese smugglers --not by means of its young scientists! It has not done this through research, laboratory issues or atomic studies. It is not peaceful nuclear energy. This regime's hidden objective is to build nuclear weapons!
"Therefore these talks, contrary to the Islamic Republic's wishes, will get nowhere as talks between Tehran and Washington. There will be two issues. One is the issue of Iraq, that is true. The Islamic Republic regime is now shaken by the shooters of death shots. It is so shaken politically and in terms of security, militarily, diplomatically and otherwise that they say this is an unstable regime. All of the indications show that before long, although it is not possible to say exactly when, in some way this regime will be replaced by another regime. Therefore this is not an issue that can be negotiated in the bilateral talks between Tehran and Washington.
"What can be negotiated is that the Islamic Republic must stop interfering in Iraq's destiny and withdraw its forces. If the American and English forces and the forces from other nations that are allies with them in the same school have widely occupied Iraq in the name of fighting terrorism, the forces of the Islamic Republic along with various types of Sunni and Shi'ite terrorists in and outside of Iraq have also in truth occupied Iraq themselves, and it must end this occupation. This is something that will be discussed in these talks between the Americans and Iran and God knows where it will lead.
"At the same time there is another important matter in these talks that I have always hoped will be resolved and indications are that it will be resolved, and that is the matter of the Mojahedin-e Khalq. One of America's greatest mistakes after occupying Iraq was that it kept the Mojahedin-e Khalq. A few of these affiliates of the Pentagon advanced the theory that these people, who understand sabotage and have done it in various ways for a long time in Palestinian camps and elsewhere, have been in the camps of Saddam Hussein's army, received $50 million per month in the time of Saddam Hussein, served in Saddam Hussein's army and participated in many Iraqi army suppressions against the Kurds and Shi'ites. They paid a lot of tribute to various Iraqi Arab tribes and Saddam Hussein enlisted these tribes as agents to support and cover them.
"In short, they are now being kept in Camp Ashraf, they have been given them light weapons and some people in Washington keep saying 'let's use them; yes they are terrorists, but they are our terrorists now. They will not oppose us. Let's put them forward, let them kill themselves in operation like the one they called Mersad, the way they did before'.
"However, until the Mojahedin are destroyed and decimated as an organization and until their activities, which are recognized almost everywhere in the world as terrorist, are stopped, their offices are closed, their radio and television stations are closed and until their institutions are disrupted and until they themselves are supervised, Iraq will not be itself. The Islamic Republic itself knows this because this Mojahedin-e Khalq was once this very Islamic Republic regime, but they quarreled at the beginning and split. Khomeini told the truth about them when he said they were the ones who started the revolution, and they were the ones who wanted to bring this very disaster down on us that Khomeini brought.
"Now, in my view, in these talks the status of the Mojahedin-e Khalq will be made clear. The phenomenon known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq will be eliminated and they will be dispersed throughout the world. This will be the only tangible result of the talks between the regime in Iran and the American government. This issue must be resolved because the danger has always existed that a few people will think that the Mojahedin-e Khalq should be involved in the fight against the Islamic Republic, but the minute they do get involved the people of Iran will be forever unwilling to get into the fight because the Mojahedin-e Khalq treated the people of Iran very badly and if they get involved anywhere that will be the end of this fight by the people of Iran, as far as I am able to talk about it.
"Of course there are some people who say the people of Iran like the Mojahedin-e Khalq very much. If you watch their television you would think the people of Iran ARE the Mojahedin-e Khalq. They have said recently they have removed Mas'ud Rajavi and replaced him with Maryam Rajavi, who is not a terrorist. However these are old tricks that don't work anymore. In any case the Mojahedin-e Khalq must expect that in the talks between the Islamic Republic and the American government they will lose their advocates in the Pentagon and in Washington. These caviar-eating American senators and congressional representatives will no longer be able to continue their support and the Mojahedin will lose their foothold in Iraq, or their organizations will fall apart in some other way.
"In any case these are some of America's mistakes that must be corrected in order for change to take place in the regime of the Islamic Republic. Again I will repeat that in my view the mistakes America made in Iraq were that they put Iraq under the control of these same people from the Islamic Republic; the New York Times recently wrote an editorial about this that was quite correct, saying that with this behavior the Bush government has really made Iran into a superpower in the region because it attacked Iraq, and then people from the Islamic Republic came and made Iraq into a center for people who have had relations with the Islamic Republic for years and years.
"This is a mistake that could engulf the entire world in flames, and it can only be corrected in one way and that is by changing the regime in Iran, which is both practical and possible, has become easy in these very days and has many solutions. Therefore we must expect that in this new instance one will be able to make these transformations, but as usual, as I said, in this strategic retreat, meaning accepting the necessity for talks with the United States and submitting to America, the Islamic Republic is saying strange things.
"For example Larijani has said: 'if they do not want to respect the Iranians with psychological calm, they must expect that we also will show no respect. We will also use our capability'. The 'capability' of the Islamic Republic is merely terrorism and do not say oil cutoff. The Islamic Republic neither has the material nor the technical ability for an oil cutoff and you can see that neither in America nor in the world are very many people affected by sanctions from the Islamic Republic.
"For example on Wednesday, meaning just yesterday, the American Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted that under that law that existed previously, if American companies, American individuals, American institutions or even foreign governments invest excessively in the Islamic Republic's energy industires--and many of them,the Russians, the Chinese and the Franch, have done this--they will be subjected to severe limitations and sanctions by the American government. They emphasized this very much.
"I think with this intensification of restrictions, people, Americans or foreigners, who go and help the Islamic Republic with respect to energy, with respect to oil or with respect to other energy resources, must square accounts with two other precendents. One is the Algiers Accord between the Carter government and Khomeini's representatives--this same Behzad Nabavi and these people--which really brought about that accord where the hostages were released, exactly on the day when Mr. Reagan became president and under which on the one hand the government of the Islamic Republic came under the protection of the American government from regime change, and acquired guarantees in return for reparations paid to victims of this revolution, whether Iranian, American or other nationalities.
"This accord must be officially revoked, and also the victims of the regime of the Islamic Republic must have the right to complain to American courts to obtain their rights. Likewise the commitment the Islamic Republic obtained from the Carter government that the American government will not support any measure to overthrow this regime must also be eliminated. This meaningless and void commitment must also be revoked because the Islamic Republic effectively has put force on this accord time and again.
"In that case this bill in the American Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which of course still must be passed by the House of Representatives, will be effective and it will really do something so that the Islamic Republic regime will be overthrown with less trouble by the people of Iran themselves and with more support from the free world. This is in everyone's interest. It is in everyone's interest that the Islamic Republic should be put under major pressure and since it is also now vulnerable the people of Iran themselves, with this support, will rid themselves of this regime.
"If this is going to be done with a struggle, I prefer that the Islamic Republic not have a way to benefit from it, especially if it is not announced that regime change is America's official and principal policy."
[commercials, followed by further commentary on the 2006 statement of American national security strategy, published in Washington].