Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six other people died on May 19 in a helicopter crash while visiting the northern region of the country.
Many would like to believe that this might be the start of a new era of freedom for the Iranian people, who have had to endure 45 years under an oppressive, authoritarian theocracy.
Although the helicopter had been flying over heavily forested, mountainous terrain in heavy fog, this did not prevent former Iranian Foreign Minister Javid Zarif from blaming “The Great Satan,” the United States. Ayatollah Ali Khomeini has vowed that “there will be no disruptions to the operations of the country” and plans to appoint the First Vice President Mohammad Mokhiber as acting president.
What can the United States and the international community do, at this point, to assist the millions of Iranians who passionately resent this evil regime?
Vahid Beheshti helps us navigate through this sensitive juncture, to finally be able to assist the muted voices of millions upon millions of oppressed Iranians who deeply despise their regime.
About the Speaker: Vahid Beheshti is a former Iranian political prisoner and former member of the opposition party of Iran who has dedicated the past 18 years to fighting the Iranian regime. He currently resides in London, where the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hamas supporters have tried to attack him.
Beheshti risked his life twice in the past year to overthrow the regime, camping out in front of the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office. He has engaged in a 72-day hunger strike with the goal of having the IRGC designated as a terrorist organization, for which he has had to be hospitalized.
Because he had displayed an Israeli flag during a Palestinian protest in London, he was chased by a mob of Hamas supporters, and one knife-wielding Hamas supporter (who has been apprehended by the British police) threatened to behead him.
Beheshti is the first member of the Iranian opposition to have spoken at the Israeli Knesset, and has repeatedly spoken of the Jewish state as “the only democracy in the Middle East.”
Beheshti is convinced that Iran has been waging a continuous and systemic war to eliminate the State of Israel since the Islamic Revolution of 1979; that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the prime destabilizing force in the Mideast; that it has hegemonic designs for Europe and America; and that domestically the Islamic Republic in a very weak position with “18 million Iranians on the ground who are thirsty for freedom.”