That's great. I should ask her what happened to money because I'm taking her to Japan early May.
So you need to spend your own money.
Right.
I am recording so whenever you're ready to see.
Okay. Again, we're not live.
It's good to introduce yourself and with the organization name.
Yeah, my name is Ali Sultani. I am from Iranian American Community of Wisconsin.
We have different chapters in different cities.
I think about 40 some states. We have chapters.
We're 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 Makhishamawaki 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 into a university in Iran and that was right before the revolution.
So we had a lot of demonstrations.
I spent two years in the university in Iran.
I passed like 26 credits because the classes would cancel 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 before the war?
You might not believe, but we were watching the same 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 we tried to make the country like United States in a sense.
So we were watching the same shows.
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.
What was your reaction when the 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 appeasement, no war helped the Iranian people and their opposition to defeat this regime.
The result, the war was basically the result of this 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 the United States, appeased them, helped them to a point that they made a beast out of 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 a war because they were fed up.
You heard a couple of months ago that they attacked, they killed a lot of people in the streets during the demonstrations,
they shot and killed, some estimates go 30, 40,000 people, they killed, and more than 50,000 they arrested, some of the executions.
It's a very brutal regime.
Some people, because they were fed up, they said, oh, the United States, come and attack, that kind of mentality.
But for interference, we'll 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, that people of Iran, it happens.
We now want whoever is involved, US, 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 cross just one second?
Yep.
Okay.
Is that your phone there?
Yeah, someone's phone there.
I'm going to run out of my sight.
I'm sorry.
Sure.
You're in the water.
There's just a moment in it.
I'm going to stick it on my...
Okay.
All right.
Are we ready?
Yeah.
Okay.
What are the discussions you're having with other Iranian-Americans about the war?
Well, just this Saturday.
A bunch of us, we ran to the 15th passenger van, a bunch of us, drove to Washington, D.C.
in front of the capital.
We had a demonstration.
And obviously, 14-hour drive, we're talking about everything.
Again, 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 former government.
We want a non-nuclear secular republic based on rule of law.
And there have been talk of the son of the Shah coming.
Absolutely not.
I mean, the Iranian people, it's been 120 years since we have the constitutional revolution.
And since then, we have 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 created.
So we don't want that.
We want actually the Iranian opposition, National Council of Resistance of Iran, which the leader is a woman called Mariam Rajavi.
She has a 10-point plan.
February 28 of this year, she announced a formation of a provisional government that will take over after the fall of this regime.
That provisional government's task is to have a constituent assembly which will write a, you know,
which will actually based on the free and fair election.
We'll have that and then we'll write a new constitution for a republic.
Her 10-point plan is about freedom of press, gender equality, non-nuclear Iran, and 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 want to 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 in a position 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's what we're worried about that 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 parliament and all that.
Okay. 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 was a voicemail.
And then my nieces are one in California, one in Michigan.
My brothers in Florida, so they all have talked to them in some way.
They all have moved to smaller cities.
So, they're not in Tehran anymore.
Because most of the bombardment has been in Tehran.
So, they've moved in smaller cities in Iran.
For their safety.
They're safe.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, the internet has been cut off.
They can call out.
I've heard, right?
They call with landline, not through internet.
Because before we were using WhatsApp, 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 had talked to her mom.
They, even in the small cities, a couple places where these are the garrisons and security forces, a place that's 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.
But, yeah, 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.
Okay.
You need people on the ground to fight these Basijis and militias and the IRGC and all the members of the suppressive forces.
In the US, either what happens is that either US 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 US attacked the compound of Khamenei and killed the supreme leader.
This armed opposition, 250 members of the armed opposition of the MEK, Mujahedin Khal, they attacked that compound.
150 of them, 100 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 Basis.
What I'm saying is that there is an organized resistance armed in Iran.
We should help them rather than try to bring US or Israeli troops on the ground.
It would be very hard.
It would be 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 know, and they can fight them.
So that would be the best solution for us.
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.
But again, the aerial bombardment is not going to do it.
I'm hoping that US doesn't put boots on the ground because if that happens, it's going to be a lot of...
It's not going to be messy, I should say.
It's not going to be that clean regardless of what they do.
Again, they have some estimates of one million Basiji forces.
Basiji are the militia, plainclothes people that killed a lot of people a couple 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 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, the United Arab Emirates, these people have been the ones that have been appeasing them all of them, helped them all of them.
Every way you can imagine, yet they attacked them with missiles.
So this is a regime that has brought this on to itself by, they have been saying from the very beginning, death to America, death to Israel.
And then they also say death to Monaf again, which is their name they give to our 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 on to the international community.
I wouldn't think there was any other choice except again for them, because our opposition, a few years ago or many, I think it was 90 or something around that time,
U.S. disarmed all our opposition movement in Iraq, we 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 on to 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 being put yourself in the shoes of the United States and Israel, this regime does not hesitate to kill its own people by the thousands.
They imagine what happens to it, 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 the 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, sort of having conspiracy theories about expansion of the United States or Israel or this stuff.
Short term, I think that is a very legitimate reasoning, in a sense that if our opposition had not revealed in 2002, Natanz and Iraq,
the sites of nuclear 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, apparently they were doing all this stuff, because they see nuclear weapons as they're guaranteed for their survival.
They see that as if I, like North Korea, if he had nuclear weapons, nobody could have attacked us, that kind of mentality.
So, and once they do it, they have proxy forces, Hamas, Hezbollah, you know, Houthis in Yemen, Shashro Shabi and other proxy forces in Iraq.
And even in Venezuela, the Irish, you see, had, you know, a lot of posts there and a lot of places that they were there.
So, it's, it is true. I mean, they have even states that nuclear weapon and also their missile, you know, capabilities.
Because if they would have had long-range intercontinental missiles to the United States, they would have 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 another, one of their missiles.
So, they don't hesitate to attack any country that they see hostile to them.
Okay. 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.
Right.
Tell me about that. What, what happened in those situations?
I, for that special incident you were talking about?
Yeah.
I saw, that was 1993, I believe.
I saw that they had somebody had scratched my car and rode some graffiti on my car the first day.
And then two days, three days later I was out with a friend.
And it was in a, it was his birthday, so it went to a bar.
And then all of a sudden somebody came and told the bartender, the security in the bar, that I have stolen the wallet.
Now we just got in that bar, nothing. This guy is big, black dude.
And I was like telling the guy, no, I didn't. I was like, punch 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 in Pizza Man in North Avenue, and they wouldn't let me call the police either.
I got out, once I got out, two people from the car, parked on the side of the street, came with the brass knuckles, started hitting me on the street.
So they left and I 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 that was it, the police came and said, who was it?
I said, I have no idea. It's two big black guys, you know, they were hired, gone obviously.
And then I got a call, and next time you won't be the 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 an anger.
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 is always a danger 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, when I told you, I was in Madison. It was a hostage crisis.
I personally, that was even worse, because there were a lot of people that supported that regime at a time.
He just had come, people thought home, and he 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 line, person to person, they are the same.
You can always find zealous 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.
80, 90 percent of the people oppose this regime.
That's why some of them, as I said, are happy that you are 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 of people do realize that.
Okay. We've covered a lot of ground. Is there anything that I didn't ask that's important?
No, I just, I wanted to, again, once more, I wanted to emphasize that we want the U.S., 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 want to go to one man rule. We want no clergy. We don't want no clergy. We don't 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 out, right?
Just like U.S., just like France, just like many democratic countries. And this is what we want.
We want U.S. 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 1979 if you really would have had a democratic country.
None of this would have happened in the Middle East.
Iran would have been part of the international community. It's a very rich country with a long heritage.
We have relatively smart people, so it would have been a good country to have in the Middle East,
like many countries, progressive countries in the Middle East.
Thank you so much for your time.
Do we need the room tone, do you think?
No, it's okay.
Thank you so much.