Mohsen Sazegara knows a lot about Iran’s Islamic Revolution. As a founder of the Revolutionary Guard in 1979 who later became disillusioned with the direction of Iran’s politics, he is in a unique position to talk both about the current Iranian regime and the nation that is increasingly rising up to resist it. His personal website has become a core destination for the protest movement and he contributes to that movement from his suburban Washington home.
In an interview Monday with The Cable, the former revolutionary and political prisoner spoke about what he sees as the looming tipping point in the struggle between the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and an increasing part of the Iranian population. The upcoming protests this Thursday, Feb. 11, will bring that tipping point ever closer, according to Sazegara. Here’s how he says the West should think about what’s going on inside Iran and how that should inform U.S. thinking on the nuclear issue.
JR: What do you make of the news that Iran will increase its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent?
MS: I think that they are not able to get to 20 percent enriched uranium very easily… This is just something to show the world that they intend to go for higher enriched uranium. Inside Iran, President Ahmadinejad himself, he thinks that if he could have a deal that would be helpful for him inside Iran. But the other factions of power in Iran, including the leader and especially the Revolutionary … >>>
