Staff Writer
Brenda Shaffer, research director of the Caspian Studies Program at Harvard University in Arms Control Association:
“An interesting aspect of this year’s revelations on Iran’s nuclear program is the fact that the information provided by the NCRI has been astonishingly accurate. In many political settings, oppositions abroad tend to exaggerate information in order to gain support for their causes against ruling regimes. The NCRI has shown restraint in its reporting on the nuclear program.”
New York Times senior science writer and Pulitzer Prize winner William J. Broad:
“Frank Pabian, a senior adviser on nuclear nonproliferation at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, strongly disagreed. ‘They (NCRI) are right 90 percent of the time,’ he said of the council’s disclosures about Iran’s clandestine sites. ‘That doesn’t mean they’re perfect, but 90 percent is a pretty good record’.”
Congressional Research Service, Iran’s Nuclear Program: Status Updated December 20, 2019:
“Prior to the NCRI’s revelations, the IAEA had expressed concerns that Iran had not been providing the agency with all relevant information about its nuclear programs, but the IAEA had never found Iran in violation of its safeguards agreement.”
Foreword:
For over three decades, the ruling clerics in Tehran, who continue to harbor ambitions of inaugurating a regional Islamic Caliphate to this day, have been desperately trying to join the Nuclear Club. The mullahs view nuclear weapons as an insurance policy that grants them perpetual international impunity while reinforcing their illegitimate rule of terror at home and in the Middle East.
But throughout these complicated years, the regime’s nuclear designs have been seriously frustrated by the organized opposition. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and its main constituent body the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), have been going the extra mile to uncover and raise awareness about the regime’s illicit activities. The MEK’s sizeable social network has penetrated some of the most secretive enterprises of the regime, laboriously unearthing top secret information that has triggered global action. The resistance movement has thus shed the spotlight on troubling developments that could have otherwise morphed into some of the most enduring and serious threats against regional stability and global peace and security.
According to Massoud Rajavi, the Chairman of the NCRI, “Were it not for the Iranian Resistance’s efforts, today, nuclear-armed mullahs would have been anchored at the Horn of Africa.” Indeed, had it not been for the Resistance’s countless groundbreaking revelations, today’s regional security architecture and strategic calculus would have looked considerably different.
Clearly, the Iranian Resistance lacks the cutting-edge or ultramodern technologies commanded by familiar Western intelligence agencies. But, its position as an indigenous opposition has afforded it the singular opening to make up for that deficiency by leveraging human intelligence sources on the ground. Of course, if and when these sources’ identities are exposed, state retribution would be swift and ruthless. The opposition’s sources are thus not simply bribed or enticed through other means to divulge such intelligence. Literally risking their lives, these daring individuals undoubtedly sympathize with the NCRI’s broader aims to establish a non-nuclear Iran that prioritizes democracy and prosperity for generations over the failed policies of a theocracy that have brought ruin to multiple generations of Iranians since 1979.
Despite the opposition’s notably impressive track record when it comes to divulging intelligence about the Iranian regime’s nuclear activities, including the very first revelation in June 1991, that was followed by the major revelation about the Natanz enrichment facility and Arak heavy water site in August 2002, which triggered the involvement of the International Atomic Energy Organizations (IAEA), detractors have on many occasions cast doubt on the NCRI’s underlying intentions or the information’s authenticity. At every turn, however, those doubts have been shown to be unwarranted, not least because most if not all of the information has thus far been corroborated by Western intelligence agencies and/or formed the basis for steps taken by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Perhaps the most flattering substantiation has been produced by Tehran itself, as it orchestrates a well-funded demonization campaign against the NCRI/MEK and their increasingly popular political agenda.
The mullahs routinely besmirch these organizations as a Fifth Column and “traitors” who have unleashed sanctions “against the Iranian people” by betraying “national secrets.” By all indications, however, the ruling regime, which monopolizes the free flow of information domestically, has failed to persuade the general population of the merits of its most strategic arguments, including the need for a nuclear program. As demonstrated in multiple nationwide uprisings in recent years, the Iranian people openly and vehemently decry the diversion of their national resources toward theocratic projects like the nuclear weapons program or meddling in regional politics instead of investing in the tanking national economy. In this way, the Iranian people regard the Resistance’s revelations as a patriotic duty that would hasten the downfall of the despised theocracy, a persistent nationwide demand that has gained serious momentum in recent years. That explains the Resistance’s competitive advantage for obtaining intelligence through human elements, intelligence that would otherwise be largely inaccessible to the international community.
