That's great.
I should ask her what happened to
the money because I'm taking her to
Japan early May.
So you need to spend your own money.
I am recording, so whenever you're
ready, see you.
Okay, again, we're not
live.
It's good to introduce yourself and
with the organization name.
Yeah, my name is Ali Soltani.
I am from
the Iranian-American community of
Wisconsin.
We have different chapters in
different cities.
I think about 40 some
states we have chapters.
We are in Wisconsin,
so I'm the spokesperson for the
Iranian American community.
How many Iranian-Americans are...
In Wisconsin.
I think there are about 20,000
or so.
But they're scattered.
There are many students in UWM,
but then there are a lot of people
who work here and been here for
years.
There are Mouakash and Milwaukee,
and some are even Green Bay and some
other cities in Wisconsin.
When and why did you leave Iran?
I left in 1978,
right before the revolution happens.
I was going to school at a
university in Iran.
That was right before the
revolution, so we had a lot
of demonstrations.
I spent two years in university
in Iran, only passed like 26
credits because the classes would
cancel or, you
know, because of riots and stuff.
So that's what I left to continue my
education here in the U.S.
How would you describe life when
you lived in Iran and
before the war?
You might not believe, but we were
at least, we were
watching the same shows,
TV shows that you were watching
here.
Shah was kind of trying to,
you know, it was put
there by United States and stuff.
So it tried to make the country
like United States in a sense.
So we were watch the same show.
Life,
much better than it's now
economically.
But during the Shah, there were no
political freedoms.
There were a
lot of people
who were imprisoned
and tortured for
political beliefs.
He canceled all opposition
parties, and
he made one.
And he told people, if you don't
like it, either leave or
you go to jail.
So, economically, it was much better
than... Now, but obviously
it wasn't the best either,
but as far as political
freedoms, there were no political
freedoms in Iran.
Tensions had been building for
months between the united states and
iran uh...
What was your reaction military
strikes began from america
and israel
As a spokesperson for the
Iranian American community, we also
support the National Council of
Resistance of Iran, which is
an organization.
We have been saying for many years
that appeasement policy will
lead to war.
We always have been emphasizing
no appeasment, no war,
help the Iranian
people and their position
to defeat this regime.
The war was basically
the result of his appeasement.
In 2002,
the Iranian opposition revealed
the nuclear sites of the Iranian
regime.
That was 24 years ago.
Nothing was done.
Consequently, they actually revealed
the missile program and all
that stuff.
But all these years, both
Europe and United States, appeased
them all those, helped them, helped
them to a point that they made a
beast out these guys.
They started interfering,
meddling in Lebanon, in Iraq,
in Yemen, all their proxy forces.
And it made war inevitable,
in a sense.
Some people, some Iranians,
welcomed the war because they
were fed
up. You heard a couple of months ago
that they attacked, they killed a
lot of people in during the
demonstrations, they shot and
killed. Some estimates go 30,
40,000 people they killed,
and more than 50,000 they arrested.
Summary executions, this is a very
brutal regime.
So some people, because they were
fed up, they said,
oh, United States, come and attack.
That kind of mentality.
But foreign interference will never
end up well.
In the long run.
So as Iranians
that believe that we,
the people of Iran, should be able
to do something and bring about a
republic, a free, democratic
republic, we believe that
foreign interference should not be
there. But nobody asked us
whether this war should be there,
the People of Iran.
It happens. We now
want whoever is involved,
U.S., Israel, and whoever,
not to attack.
Try to minimize the
civilian casualties and also
not to attack the civilian
infrastructure because
we don't want, after this regime
falls, we need
to get up and go and if we don't
have any refineries, if we don t
have any power stations running,
it would be very hard for the
Iranian people to actually get
back up and join the international
community.
So we have always
opposed
foreign war.
But as we said, because of
the result of the appeasement
policy, it has
made it inevitable for
the international community to deal
with the Iranian regime.
Can we pause just one second?
Okay.
Is that your phone?
Yes, someone's phone.
Oh, okay, sure.
Well, there's just a moment when it
does.
Can I stick it in there?
Can you dangle it?
Yeah.
Okay.
Are we ready?
What are the discussions you're
having with other Iranian Americans
about the war?
Well,
just this
Saturday,
a bunch of us,
we rented a 15-passenger van and
a bunch of us drove to Washington,
D.C.
In front of
the Capitol.
We had a demonstration and
Obviously, 14-hour
drive, we're talking about
everything.
Again, um...
We want to make sure
that the international community
and the United States doesn't
choose a leader for us.
We should let everybody in
agreement that we want
the Iranian people to
select their own form of government.
We want a non-nuclear,
secular republic based
on rule of law.
And there had been talk of this
son of the Shah coming.
Absolutely not.
I mean, the Iranian people, after
120, it's been 120 years
since we have the constitutional
revolution.
And since then, we have had two
monarchists and now
the third clergyman.
So we are not going back
to monarchy again.
There are some people
and some entities that want to
bring him back.
But he doesn't
have any organic support.
Everything is manufactured.
It's made for TV.
And create it so
we don't want that we want uh...
Actually the uh...
Iranian opposition national council
resistance of iran which the
leader is a woman called mariam
rajavi she has a ten
point plan uh...
February twenty eight of this year
she announced the formation of
a provisional government that
will take over after the fall of
this regime that provisinal
government's task is to uh...
Have a constituent assembly which
will uh...
Right a you know which will actually
uh... Based on the uh...
Free and fair election uh...
Will have that and then will
write a uh...
Constitution new constitution for
a republic
uh...
That her ten-point plan is about
uh... Freedom of uh...
Press uh...
Gender equality uh...
Non-nuclear iran and
uh... You know, market economy,
and... Basically in separation of
church and state, or religion and
state.
It's a very democratic, we
have the majority
of U.S. Senate and Congress support
us. More than 4,000
parliamentarians from around the
world support this plan.
So all of a sudden coming, you know,
creating this so-called crown
prince, and putting
it there, it infuriates
a lot of us.
That where the heck did this come
from? This guy was sitting in exile
for 45 years, had nothing to do
with anything.
He has repeatedly said that he
doesn't wanna go back to Iran, he's
not this. All of a sudden he's
pumped and propped up by
some entities trying to
make a leader out of him.
And that kind of gets a lot of
people upset that we
have had an opposition that has
fought for 47 years,
continuously, not just showing
up at the last moment and trying to
steal, in a sense.
The revolution.
That's what our concern is right
now. That is what we are worried
about.
We don't want that.
We want the international community
to recognize the right of our people
to select our own form of
government and our own system of
government, and parliaments and all
that.
Moving to family now,
have you been in contact with
friends and family that you have in
Iran?
Yes.
Internet is cut off, right?
So my sister just
yesterday, through landline,
had called me.
I walked out of my office and there
was a voicemail.
And then my nieces are
one in California, one in Michigan.
My brother is in Florida, so they
all have talked to them in
some way. Thank you.
They all have moved to smaller
cities so they're not
in Tehran anymore uh...
Because most of the bombardments
been in Teheran so they moved
in smaller cities
in Iran so they are safe
So the internet's been cut off.
They can call out,
I've heard, right?
Call from with landline not through
internet because before we were
using WhatsApp on Telegram
or Instagram,
you know for Being in
contact, but they've used landlines
to call
Okay, what are you hearing about how
bad the war is there?
Well We
have the satellite, we watched the
satellite.
I talked to my
niece that I talked to her mom,
even in the small cities, a couple
places where these are the garrisons
and the security forces,
places that have been hit.
She knew about those, but Tehran
is really, a lot
of people hear a lot of
loud noises, the bombing,
and scare some people, of course.
Most of the bombing has been in
Tehran and big cities,
not small villages or small
towns.
Do you fear continued
military action and do you
fear troops in
Iran?
That's a good question.
You see,
this regime cannot be
overthrown by airstrikes.
You need people on
the ground to fight these Basijis
and militias and the IRGC
and all the members of the
suppressive forces.
So U.S., either
what happens is that either U.
S. Or Israel have to
put boots on the ground, which
is for a country like Iran, 90
million is a large country.
It's very hard.
Or we should rely on the people
of Iran. We have an organized armed
resistance inside Iran.
Actually a couple of weeks ago,
right before a few days, three, four
days before the attacked the
compound of Khamenei and killed
them. Supreme leader,
this armed opposition, 250 members
of the armed opposition of
the MEK, Mujahidin Khal,
they attacked that
compound, 150 of them,
hundreds of them unfortunately died
and got arrested.
Their names have been given to
United Nations Human Rights
Organization and then 150
of them turned back to
their bases.
What I'm saying is that
the organi- There
is an organized resistance
armed in Iran.
We should help them rather
than try to bring U.S.
Or Israeli troops
on the ground.
It would be very hard.
It would much easier for
the Iranian people to do it that
way because they know everything.
They know who these people are, they
know where they live, they can
fight them.
So that would be the best solution
for us.
Okay.
When the military strike is over
and has ended, what are your
hopes for the
country?
Well
Hopefully, this regime will fall
if they manage
to stay in power.
Again, our fight is not over,
right?
We're hoping that, again,
the organized opposition of Iran
will be able to overthrow this
regime and bring a
democratic, secular, non-nuclear
Iran, republic for
Iran.
If that doesn't happen shortly,
I mean, we'll continue.
Again, I don't,
the aerial bombardment is not going
to do it.
I'm hoping that U.S.
Doesn't put boots on the ground
because if that happens it's
going to be a lot of, it's not going
be, it going to be messy, I
should say.
It's not gonna be that clean,
regardless of what they do.
Again, they have some estimates
of one million Basiji
forces. As best as you are the
militia, plain-clothes people
that...
They killed a lot of people a couple
of months ago in the streets.
So it would be hard for a
small number of troops to go there
and do what they need
to do to over-
overthrow the regime.
What are your thoughts about the
anti-war protests here in the United
States and those who feel that
America shouldn't be waging this war
at all?
Well, as I said,
this regime, the war is basically
the fault of this regime.
It threatens Israel.
And you saw that they actually
attacked all the neighboring
countries that were supposedly
friends with Iran.
They were actually trying to
facilitate the talks,
Oman, Kuwait,
United Arab Emirates.
These people have been the ones that
have been appeasing the Mullahs and
helped them all those.
Every way you can imagine,
yet they attack them with missiles.
So this is a regime that has
brought this onto itself by,
they have been saying from the very
beginning, death to America, death
through Israel, and then they also
say death to Munaferin,
which is the name they give to the
opposition movement,
the mujahideen.
So this
has been brought up by the regime.
I understand that people are against
the war.
But imagine
if this regime would have had
the nuclear weapon.
Imagine one of those missiles would
have been a nuclear weapon,
armed with a nuclear weapon.
What would have happened?
So the appeasement policy,
unfortunately not
stopping this regime earlier,
has brought this up on
to the international community.
I wouldn't think there was any other
choice except, again, for
them, because our position.
Few years ago, many in 19,
I think it was 90 or something
around that time, US
disarmed all
our opposition movement in Iraq, who
were in Iraq and took
all their weapons and
armored vehicles and all that.
So it was a way for
Iranian people to go and overthrow
these people, but they
disarmed them. So that's why the
opposition actually started having
the rebel units inside Iran
organize that and have that.
A war, to
me, was inevitable because
this regime brought it onto itself.
The alternative would have been to
let this regime get
nuclear weapons,
or would have been to
help the Iranian opposition,
which it seems like some people with
the appeasement policy didn't want
to do that. So.
No, war is not good, we understand,
but sometimes it's inevitable.
Again, we don't support the
foreign wars, but
put yourself in the shoes of
United States and Israel.
This regime does not hesitate
to kill its own people
by the thousands.
Imagine what happens to Israel,
which they see as
their enemy.
So I think it's the
Iranian regime and also the
appeasement policy that has brought
this war.
The Trump administration has
said that their reason for this
war is to stop the development of
Iran from having nuclear weapons.
What do you think of that as
justification for the
military strikes?
I think that is
a fair assessment in a
sense.
I mean, short of having
conspiracy theories about, you
know, expansion of the United States
or Israel or this stuff,
short term, I think,
that is very legitimate
reasoning in
a sense that if
our opposition had not revealed
in 2002,
Natanz and Iraq,
the sites of clear, you know.
Facilities, they would have had
nuclear weapons by now.
And they have always, regardless,
even in JCPOA when they had the
agreements with during the Obama
administration, they were
cheating. They were actually,
apparently, they we're doing all
this stuff because they see
nuclear weapons as their
guarantee for their survival.
They see that as, like
North Korea, if you had a nuclear
weapon, nobody could have attacked
us, that kind of mentality.
So...
And once they do it,
they have proxy forces, Hamas,
Hezbollah, Houthis in Yemen,
Hashd al-Shabi and other
proxy forces in Iraq.
And even in Venezuela,
the IRGC had a
lot of posts
there and a lot places that they
were there.
So it's
It is true, I mean they have even
states that nuclear weapon and also
their missile
capabilities.
Because if they would have
had long-range intercontinental
missiles to the United States, they
would've used it.
Because they have bombarded every,
they have attacked every U.S.
Consulate or military bases in
the Middle East, what would have
stopped them?
They actually did one
in Cyprus.
And yesterday I heard
that Turkey actually
downed one of their missiles.
So they don't hesitate to
attack any country that they
see hostile to them.
I've seen some discussion that
the Iranian regime is
threatening
Iranians outside of the United
States. Are you concerned about
this?
As I was talking to you
earlier, I've been myself the victim
of that.
Tell me about that.
What happened in those situations?
That special incident you're talking
about?
I saw that was 1993,
I believe.
I saw somebody had
scratched my car and wrote some
graffiti on my car the
first day and then two
days, three days later I was out
with a friend.
And uh...
It was in a it was his birthday so
we went to a bar and then
all of a sudden somebody came and uh
told the bartender the
security in the bar that i have
stolen their wallet now we just got
in that bar nothing this guy
big black dude and
uh i was like telling the guy no
i didn't all of the sudden he
punched my face right then
bloody obviously the bars don't want
to have anything reported from
their bar so they kicked us out I
went across the street, Pizza Man
in North Avenue.
And they wouldn't let me call the
police either get out once I got
out two people from the car
parked on the side of street He came
with the brass knuckles started
hitting me on the street.
So they left and he broke my nose
I went to the hospital right by that
north. I don't know St. Mary's or
whatever it is I
went there and and that was it the
police came and said who was it?
I said, I have no idea these two
big black guys, you know They
were hired gone obviously and then
I got a call and next time you won't
be that lucky. I said okay That's
fine. You can do whatever you want,
but I'm not going to stop.
So, yeah, I mean, they have killed a
lot of people in Europe.
They don't... Hesitate.
That's why you can't find a
lot of people interview you.
Because there's always a danger.
They just heard that they said
that they will confiscate the
properties of anybody outside Iran
who has been in these
demonstrations.
Inside Iran, you know, their
property, whatever they have.
So yeah, there's always a dangerous
there, but there
are people that are being killed, so
this is nothing compared to that.
Are you concerned about how
attitudes towards
Iranians may change
if the war continues and American
soldiers are hurt or killed?
During 1979, as I told
you, I was in Madison, there was a
hostage crisis.
I personally, that was even
worse because there were a lot of
people that supported that regime at
the time. It just had come, people
thought Khomeini was this
godly man that is holy
and this and that and they were
fooled by this charisma
he had.
Even then, I personally did not
have any issue with anybody because
people bottom person-to-person
are the same.
You can always find zealots that
are, you know, extreme and do stuff.
But fortunately now a lot of people
know that the Iranian people are
themselves against this regime.
Eighty, ninety percent of the people
oppose this regime, they don't,
that's why some of them, as I said,
they're happy that US even attacked.
So as long as people realize
that there's a distinction between
the Iranian regime and the Iranian
People, I don't think you'll
see much of that.
And I think a lot people do realize
that. That.
Okay.
We've covered a lot of ground.
Is there anything that I didn't ask
that's important?
Um No, it's just
I wanted to, again, once more, I
wanted to emphasize that
we want the
US, the international community,
to let the Iranians, after 120
years of fighting for freedom,
we don't want to go back to another
dictatorship. Doesn't matter how you
sugarcoat it, it's a dictatorship.
We don't to go to one-man
rule. We want no clergy,
we want no shah,
we want a non-nuclear,
secular...
Democratic republic based
on rule of law that if you don't
like somebody you can vote them up
right just like us just like france
just like many democratic countries
and uh...
This is what we want we want
us and every other country
to recognize our right
to choose our own form
of government that is
what's dear to us and that's what
actually in the long run is for the
benefit.
Of iran and the international
community imagine what would have
happened in nineteen seventy nine if
you really would have had a
democratic none
of this would have happen in the
middle east you know iran would
have been part of the international
communities a very rich
country you know
long heritage we have
relatively smart people so
uh... It would have in a good
country to have in the least like
any you know, many countries,
progressive countries in the Middle
East.
Okay, thank you so much for your
time. Thank you.
Do we need to do room tone do you
think?
Um, no, it's okay.
No? Okay.
Thank you so much.