(SeaPRwire) –
By: Julian Holbrooke
UNITED NATIONS, New York — President Masoud Pezeshkian used the General Assembly to cast Iran as the victim of American and Israeli terrorism. A thousand protesters outside had a different label. They chanted that he should be arrested for being a terrorist. That split is the real story. The hall offered protocol. The street offered a verdict. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told the gathering, “The president of Iran speaks and lies over and over again. He is a murderer. He is a terrorist.” He also said, “It is useless to negotiate with them because they are terrorists, murderers, possibly in some ways insane religious maniacs. This would be like trying to reach an agreement with Hitler.” This was not a fringe sideshow. Former high-level government officials struck the same tone. They accused the radical Islamic regime of savagely oppressing and butchering the Iranian people for decades. The rally ran over a two-day period. Its message to UN diplomats stayed consistent. The regime wants recognition. Its opponents want indictment. Washington must decide which signal it amplifies.
The official text came from Pezeshkian’s UN address. He portrayed his nation as the victim of American and Israeli terrorism. The counter-text came from the crowd. “They are terrorists, they must go!” the crowd repeatedly shouted. They waved green, white and red flags of the resistance. The numbers behind that anger are stark. Estimates say upwards of 20,000 protesters who took to the streets of Iran earlier this year demanding freedom have been murdered by the government. Reports of executions of political prisoners continue each week. Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the rally’s sponsor, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said in a video message, “The people of Iran have rejected every form of dictatorship, whether religious or monarchical.” She added, “The voice of protest from Iran’s oppressed people is being heard. The voice rejects the continued occupation of Iran’s seat by religious fanatics.” That language turns a diplomatic dispute into a credentials fight. If the regime cannot claim popular consent, its UN seat is not just contested. It is vulnerable. The rally tried to make that vulnerability visible to every diplomat in New York. It did not need to storm the hall. It needed to change the frame.
The policy machinery behind the rally is more concrete than the speeches. Ret. Lt. General Keith Kellogg, who served in both Trump administrations, told the gathering, “It is time now to free Iran from the Mullahs.” He said there is a road map to a secular, non-nuclear Republic of Iran. That republic would rejoin the free world as a friend. Former US Ambassador Marc Ginsberg urged Congress to pass the “Maximum Support Act.” That measure would crack down on Iran’s resources. It would confiscate assets of the government. It would support internet freedom so the Iranian people could organize and have a voice. Ginsberg appealed directly to President Trump. “All you have to do, President Trump, is to provide the funding and the support that we need, the tools the Iranian people need,” he said. He called this an exit ramp from war. He said it would accelerate the United States as “Iran’s arsenal of democracy.” Alireza Jafarzadeh, Deputy Director of the NCRI Washington, D.C. office, framed the theory plainly. “The regime only responds to firmness and decisiveness,” he said. Sanctions and pressure have been the only solution in terms of external pressure. He argued the regime is incapable of reform and change. If it were able, it would have done it long ago. The real solution for Iran is change by the people of Iran. Talks and concessions will not change the regime’s behavior. “The real Iran is represented by the people of Iran,” he said. “The real change has to come from within.”
That is the geopolitical pendulum now. The UN calendar invites speeches, credentials, and negotiated language. The street clock counts executions each week. It counts the murdered protesters. It counts a two-day rally outside the hall. The rally did not change the UN agenda by force. It changed the pressure around Iran policy. The demand is not another vague statement. It is funding, asset confiscation, internet freedom, and support for internal organizing. The “Maximum Support Act” gives Congress a concrete vehicle. It also forces the Trump administration to choose between treating Iran as a negotiating partner and treating it as a regime to be pressured through its own people. The White House can keep the old split. Talk in New York. Sanction in Washington. But the NCRI and its allies are pushing a different sequence. They want Washington to fund the tools first. Then let Iranians change the regime. That bet may fail. But the rally made it harder to ignore. The pendulum has not fully swung. The street outside the UN made the cost of the old approach clearer. The next move belongs to Washington. If it funds the tools, the internal opposition gains capacity. If it does not, the UN podium keeps doing what it did this week. It lets a regime speak as a victim while its opponents are left outside, chanting for its arrest.
Author bio: Julian Holbrooke, an overseas international relations analyst who frequently contributes to major European daily newspapers.