Understanding and undermining the threat of Iran's fake opposition - opinion
Iranians are distrustful of the fake opposition and sick and tired of treasonous acts that they represent and support.
Iranian opposition groups gather to protest in Paris, February 2025.(photo credit: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)ByMARZIYEH AMIRIZADEHSince coming to America, I have never stopped warning my fellow Americans about the danger of Iran’s Islamic Republic regime and its agenda to infiltrate and destroy our country’s values and principles. By way of background, despite growing up in Iran and under the heel of the Islamic regime which seized control of Iran in 1979, I understood that the regime was evil at its core, that misogyny was central to the regime maintaining control, and that the “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” chants that we were forced to repeat as children were the cornerstone of their lies.
Successive US governments and some of our politicians foolishly keep appeasing the ayatollahs and support the fake Iranian opposition for their own interests. There are three groups of fake opposition: two which work systematically outside Iran, and one inside Iran. The first fake opposition outside Iran are those who supported, worked for, and cooperated with the regime since the beginning of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Some of them were trained and supported by alleged reformists and were exported outside Iran for different missions. The second fake opposition outside Iran are radical armed Islamic terrorists such the National Council of Resistance of Iran, known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and other ethnic groups that seek the division of Iran into small independent countries.
The third fake opposition are those who are trained by reformists inside the country and play the role of misleading Iranians and Western people from inside prisons. We see this in the staged elections (which I call “selections”) where a hardline Islamist always runs against a fake “reformist” who is hand-picked by the Supreme Leader.
The fake opposition outside Iran are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They don’t look like ayatollahs with long beards, strange clothes, and forced Islamic hijabs for women. They wear Western clothes, and some of them speak English better than their mother tongue. Recognizing these people as fake opposition is complicated but critical. They are lobbyists, journalists, and political advisers. They appear and are celebrated throughout secular media.
One prominent example is Iranian-American journalist, author, and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad. Her real name is Masoumeh, the name of one of the Islamic imam’s daughters, whose shrine is Qom, Iran’s Shi’ite holy city. The shortened version of Masoumeh is Masi, and adding an “H” to Masi changes it to Masih (“Christ” in Farsi), which is the title of Jesus and is not an Iranian woman’s name. She may be a feminist, possibly an Islamic version of an atheist, but she is not a Christian as her new name would have one believe. Most Iranians don’t know who she is, but those who do, ridicule her as nothing but a puppet of the regime, and they use #Masihalinejad_blood_dealer to document this.
View of the entrance of Evin prison in Tehran. (credit: MAJID ASGARIPOUR/WANA (WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY) VIA REUTERS)The fake opposition group outside Iran includes groups such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). They opposed the Shah of Iran, Mohamad Reza Pahlavi, and supported the Muslim extremist Ayatollah Khomeini, who seized power and control of Iran in 1979, which was 46 years ago this month. Because of disagreement over sharing power, MEK leaders were forced to flee Iran and created an opposition army against the Islamic regime. Iranians know the truth about this group and share this widely using #MEKterrorists.
Iranians are distrustful of the fake opposition and sick and tired of treasonous acts that they represent and support. Iranians know they represent and try to influence policies in the countries in which they develop influence, policies that are not only wrong but will perpetuate the suffering of Iranians under the heels of extremist Islamists. What’s needed are politicians and policies that represent and facilitate the vision of liberating Iran from these evil influences and can be the cornerstone for a free and democratic Iran, and put an end to its being the biggest supporter of terror in the world.
Part 2
As we mark the 46th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power and has kept Iran and Iranians hostage for nearly five decades, it’s time to look to the future of an Iran and a world without this evil influence. One can only wonder what the world would look like today if president Jimmy Carter had strengthened US ally Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1978, and how Iran could have become a world leader and global exporter of innovation and not death and bloodshed through extremist Islam.
To do so, we must look at and learn from the past and see how that’s playing out in the present. Otherwise, we will be doomed to repeat past mistakes and not change the future. For instance, the recent fall of Bashar al-Assad and the Baathist regime in Syria, which began with his father and continued for five decades, is something to celebrate.
However, succeeding Assad with the support and influence of Turkey’s Islamist regime, Syria now has a new dictator who is nothing more than a radical jihadi terrorist in a suit. Today, Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Shara, who took over after Assad fled the country, is being revered. Even the US has removed a $10 million bounty on his head. Unfortunately, world leaders are tripping over one another to welcome Shara, also known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, which is foolish, dangerous, and very concerning.
Previously I mentioned the fake opposition and its agents outside Iran. But we also must understand and expose the fake opposition inside Iran, which Iranians loathe and know too well. These are the ones trained by the Islamic regime to be sent to Iranian prisons as spies among political prisoners, to infiltrate and brainwash dissidents inside Iran and mislead the real opposition groups.
With the calculated help of alleged “reformists” who have infiltrated and have strong connections in Western countries, this fake domestic opposition draws international recognition, even winning a Nobel Peace Prize. This was not the first time the Nobel Committee awarded a prize that was foolish if not fraudulent. Through ignorance or just plain stupidity, their voices are given wide exposure through secular media in America and around the world, allegedly representing bad actors and influential people from inside Iranian prisons. But it’s all a fraud perpetrated on the Iranian people and the rest of the world.
Narges Mohammadi is a prominent example of fake opposition inside prison. She is a close friend of Faezeh Rafsanjani, daughter of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the mastermind of reformists who was able to deceive Iranians for so many years. Faezeh is sent to prison occasionally through a fake arrest in order to control the opposition from inside. I know her and her family very well, as they are from the same city in which I was born. Mohammadi’s husband is antisemitic and a supporter of Sharia law. There is much evidence about them and people like them, proving what Iranians call treason. Iranians know the truth and document that using #NargesMohammadi.
Through this, the regime misleads and manipulates the West to believe that the “reformists” are truly against the regime, rather than the reality that its leaders, including current President Masoud Pezeshkian, are hand selected by the Supreme Leader.
The West does not understand that Iranians are fighting against two Islamic Republic regimes: one inside Iran and the other outside Iran. The Islamic Republic regime and its supporters outside is no less dangerous than the one in Iran. With the 46th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution that has caused so much death and destruction, let us pray and commit to work together that this will be the last such anniversary under the heels of the ayatollahs.■
Marziyeh (Marzi) Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death by hanging in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity. She is a published author, public speaker, and president of the New Persia NGO. https://www.marzisjourney.com
