By Kayhan Life Staff
Leading Iran experts, activists, and policymakers gathered in Washington, D.C., for a two-day conference organized by the National Union for Democracy (NUFDI) in Iran. The conference, which took place on Sept. 26th and 27th, focused on strategies for promoting human rights and secular democracy in Iran.
NUFDI’s President, Dr. Saeed Ganji, opened the conference and underscored the urgent need to support the Iranian people’s demand for regime change. He emphasized that the strategy of both Democratic and Republican administrations during the past four decades of changing regime behavior through concessions had failed, making the need for action more pressing.
Elaheh Tavakolian, who was shot in the right eye with pellets by security guards during the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ uprising in 2022, concurred with Dr. Ganji: “For 45 years, we, the people of Iran, have been facing a sect that is against civilization, against Iranian history, against democratic countries, and the modern world. “
She said Iranians “have one great hope: ourselves. Relying on our cultural and historical heritage and national assets,” she added, referring to Prince Reza Pahlavi and Empress Farah Pahlavi, “we will use every opportunity to fight this regime.”
Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi delivered the conference’s keynote address. He unveiled the “Iran’s Prosperity Project (IPP),” a roadmap to revive Iran’s economy after the fall of the Islamic Republic.
He said:’”Unlike Khomeini, I do not promise free water, electricity, and buses. I promise you a vision shaped by ongoing consultations with leading economists and successful business leaders.”
HIH Reza Pahlavi | Keynote Address, The Iran Conference
One business leader advising the “Iran’s Prosperity Project” is Iranian-American entrepreneur Shervin Pishevar, co-founder of Sherpa Capital, a venture capital firm supporting companies like Airbnb and Uber. He noted that Iranian Americans have helped build American startups worth $6.7 trillion — such as eBay, Paypal, Facebook, Dropbox, Google, SpaceX, and Tesla.
The Iran Conference | Iran Prosperity Project
Pishevar compared the Iranian spirit, which “has been around for 4,000 years,” with “the Islamic regime that will end up being a blink in the eye of our history. Once they are gone, the diaspora will all go back and invest and help our people build Iran quickly. Once we have democracy and have the Crown Prince back helping build the future of Iran, Iran will become a major source of hope and peace and prosperity not just for Iranian people but for the world.”
A panel titled “The Ticking Time Bomb: Khamenei’s Nuclear Ambitions,” discussed the Islamic regime’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities. Dr. Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, warned that the regime in Tehran is closer than it has ever been to acquiring a nuclear weapon — and “if they do get one bomb’s worth of fissile material, the game’s over.” He cautioned that this would have grave implications for the future of democracy and human rights in Iran.
The Iran Conference | The Ticking Time Bomb: Khamenei’s Nuclear Ambitions
Pointing out that the Islamic Republic is “the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,” Behnam Taleblu, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explained that the Islamic Republic’s quest for the nuclear weapon has been a “consistent foreign and security policy for the past 45 years” and that” only consistent strength” can stop it from achieving its goal.
Taleblu recommended ending nuclear diplomacy with the regime in Tehran. He said: “Our problems with the Islamic Republic of Iran did not originate with the nuclear issue, and they will not end with the nuclear issue. The whole world is telling you that you have a whole host of other problems driving you in a very dangerous direction.”
Outlining a strategy to economically and politically challenge the regime while fostering democratic change from within, Patricia Karam of Freedom House stressed the crucial need for the United States to work more closely with its allies to enforce the sanctions. Jason Brodsky of United Against Nuclear Iran agreed with her, pointing out that the Islamic Republic had earned close to $100 billion since 2021 due to a lack of sanctions enforcement.
But Brodsky criticized U.S. policy for focusing solely on sanctions: “It is the most politically convenient and the easiest tool for policymakers to employ, but we are missing a diplomatic isolation campaign against the Islamic Republic and the development of a credible military threat.”
In the panel “A Free Iran: Aligning America’s Values and Interests,” speakers agreed that regime change in Iran was the only viable solution.
Ellie Cohanim, Former U.S. Deputy Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism under President Trump, revealed that since October 7, 2023, the Iranian regime’s agents have attacked U.S. assets more than 75 times.
“The level of nerve that it takes for the Islamic Republic to be actively trying to assassinate a former U.S. president,” she said. “They are also interfering with our elections, again unprecedented to the extent that they have hacked the Trump campaign and tried to give that information over to the Harris campaign.”
Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute stressed that the “Islamic Republic is an anomaly, not the norm, and that it’s overdue for a hard landing because their ideology is now delegitimized in the eyes of the people of the region.”
He said: “If the United States doesn’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, we shouldn’t get in the way of the Iranian people and people more broadly throughout the region putting an end to this odious regime.”
Emphasizing the need for a democratic and secular government that respects human rights, Navid Mohebbi, a former political prisoner in Iran, highlighted that since 2017, more than 3,000 Iranians have lost their lives. He recommended that Western countries and Israel “show the same kind of commitment and dedication to the Iranian opposition that the Iranian regime is showing to its proxies .”
The prospect for regional peace in the Middle East was addressed in a panel entitled “The Path to Peace: From Abraham to Cyrus Accords.” The Abraham Accords consist of a declaration and a series of agreements to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and three Arab states: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Morocco. The proposed Cyrus Accords, named after the ancient Persian king known for his tolerance and respect for different cultures, is a peace initiative that envisions a similar normalization of relations between Iran and Israel.
The Iran Conference | The Path to Peace: From Abraham to Cyrus Accords
Victoria Coates, Vice President of the Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation and deputy national security adviser to President Donald Trump, emphasized that “regional peace would require a secular democratic Iran.” She said, “Such an agreement could transform the entire Middle East as well as the cooperation between Israel, Iran, and other Arab Nations.”
Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, who played a key role in U.S. China strategy as Acting Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights between 2017 and 2021, recommended a coalition of like-minded nations and civil society organizations to put maximum pressure on the regime and maximum support for the Iranian people. Currently a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, he said, “Remember, the first victims of the Iranian regime are the Iranian people themselves. They need our support. They need our moral support, but they need more than that. Why is Starlink not operating in Iran yet? If anybody has Elon Musk’s phone number, you might suggest that to him!”
The Iran Conference | Faith Under Fire: The Battle for Religious Freedom in Iran
Cameron Khansarinia, NUFDI Vice President, explained that none of the panelists received an honorarium to speak at the two-day conference. “They are standing on the right side of history, telling the truth; they are doing it because they support the people of Iran.”
The Iran Conference | Cameron Khansarinia Closing Remarks
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