Iran's opposition says there's only one way to stop rogue state - and it's not war

Antonio López-Istúriz White, a Spanish politician and Member of the European Parliament, warned Europeans had become soft after 80 years of peace and refused to see clear and present dangers coming down the tracks.

At a special meeting at the Parliament in Strasbourg today, convened to allow leader of Iran’s de facto opposition Maryam Rajavi address delegates, Mr López-Istúriz White said: “I have stated in the European Parliament to colleagues who are a little lost that after Israel the next target would be Europe.

“I hope one day everyone will come to this realisation. The Europeans have been without war for 80 years and we have become complacent and do not see the dangers coming.

“Putin was coming for us and we didn’t see it. I think something like Putin had to happen to get us to wake up and defend not our nationalism but our democracies and our way of doing things.

“We are in a fight for survival for our democracy and our freedom.”

Mrs Rajavi is the President Elect and lead member of the National Council for Resistance in Iran - a movement dedicated to ridding Iran of its theocractic dicatator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and installing Western-style democracy.

She warned that the West’s 40 year policy of appeasing the mullahs had been disastrous and added: “Twenty-one years ago, I stood in this very parliament and declared that the solution for Iran lies neither in appeasement nor in war, but in a third option: regime change by the people of Iran and the organised resistance.

“I warned that 'the policy of appeasement' encourages the clerical regime to persist in its policies and, ultimately, imposes war upon Western nations.” I said: “Let us not allow the Munich experience to be repeated—with clerics armed with nuclear bombs.

“An alternative cannot be imposed from above, as was done a century ago when Britain installed a monarch by appointment. Nor can it be forced upon the people like the 1953 coup d’état by the United States against the nationalist government of Dr. Mossadegh and through repression, executions, and torture. Had there been a legitimate nationalist and democratic government in place, the course of Iran’s history — and indeed the fate of this region — would have been profoundly different. Khomeini and the mullahs would have never seized power.”

She was joined on the platform by senior MEPs backing her 10-point plan for a free Iran - which would see her installed as leader for six months until proper multi-party elections could be arranged.

Mr López-Istúriz White, however, issued a note of caution warning that although, thanks to Israel’s military strikes, regime changed felt imminent it could not be taken for granted.

He said: “These are the days we have to be careful, because we feel the future is already with us. But when it feels the enemy is disappearing over the horizon that is the most dangerous moment.”

He added the EU should offer unequivocal support in any post-Ayatollah Iran and said: “The big question is what happens after? This is the question we have to be ready for. We have to offer solutions to the Iranian people - it is going to be very tough and they will need quick solutions after the change.”