Iran Provoking U.S. to Distract from Domestic Crisis

A leading Iranian resistance group urges President Trump to demonstrate strength and resolve in confronting Iran over its provocative actions against the U.S. and others in the region, insisting that such pressure will assist the Iranian people in toppling their own government.Alireza Jafarzadeh is deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is the Iranian parliament in exile.  He urges Trump to keep the pressure on Tehran."The last thing you want to show is indecisiveness, to give them concessions, to give the ayatollahs what they want," said Jafarzadeh, who says he is not suggesting Trump's decision to call off an attack qualifies as indecisive.Critics of a hawkish policy towards Iran suggest it could spark a brutal war in the region.  Jafarzadeh says those people are too late because Iran has been waging war for the past four decades."The rest of the world looks at 40 years of the regime's terror and hostage-taking and creating proxies in the whole Middle East," said Jafarzadeh, pointing to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran sponsoring deadly aggression in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.He says Iran's unrelenting aggression in the region is now seen as "part and parcel" of the reality in the Middle East but it doesn't have to be that way.So why is Iran continuing to provoke the United States by attacking tankers, flouting uranium enrichment limits and even shooting down an American drone?  Jafarzadeh says the mullahs in Iran are desperate to change the subject with their own people."The Iranian regime is facing a lot of domestic problems, first in terms of the uprisings that began a year-and-a-half ago that has continued.  There is a huge amount of corruption going on that has translated to political unrest because the people of Iran hold the people responsible for their misery and hardship for the mismanagement and how the resources of the country are being plundered," said Jafarzadeh.Listen to the full podcast to hear Jafarzadeh detail the depth of the frustration by the Iranian people toward their own government and what the U.S. can do to best facilitate the people taking back the power in Tehran.