Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge reacts

2012-01-28
Fox News anchor:
Welcome back everybody. Well UN and weapon inspectors are set to arrive in Tehran today to check to see just how far along Iran is producing nuclear weapons. Time is running out, the President must deal with Iran now. That’s the word from a new Op-Ed former Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge wrote this week in which he describes Iran’s leadership as quote, hateful and disdainful of Western values. Ridge says its time to act decisively and he joins us now. Thank you so much for joining us Governor, great to have you here today. By acting decisively, does that mean from what you believe is that the White House has not acted aggressively enough to embrace the opposition in Iran right now?
Ridge:
Precisely, I mean if one thinks of the relationship with Iran over the past several years, there’s a litany, and I’ll probably miss a few. They are the number one terrorist state, responsible for killing GIs and Marines in Afghanistan, threating to close the Straits of Hormuz, threating to a Saudi Ambassador in the United States, are now holding a former soldier, a US citizen, on trumped up charges of being a spy, has threatened Israel’s existence, has ignored four rounds of sanctions, and we talk. And we just keep talking about them instead of saying what we need to do, regime change. Regime change, regime change, and they’re not talking publicly about that.
Anchor:
Well why do you think this White House has been reluctant to actively embrace the opposition, the Democratic opposition in Iran?
Ridge:
Well you know its really rather remarkable, I think those of us who are supporting the MEK opposition, it’s The People’s Mojahedin of Iran, recognize there’s democratic opposition within Iran, but we think the most effective happens to be the MEK. This organization was put on the terrorist list, foreign terrorist list by President Clinton, thinking that perhaps that accommodation to the regime in 1997 might lead to negotiations. Well fifteen years, later with this litany of the death, destruction, and terror under their belt, we keep running back to the United Nations hoping that one more sanction by my view is every time you get a sanction you probably get a couple another centrifuges as they move closer and closer to nuclear capability, and they refuse to recognize the democratic opposition. They refuse to stand up publicly and say, we want a regime change, we will delist the MEK. These are 3,400 men and women who we disarmed. The military, the United States military disarmed them in 2004. We vetted them back then in 2004, we’ve had our military living with them, and if you talk to the Generals and Colonels who interacted with these people, they’ll tell you the FBI was right, the Department of Justice… They’re not terrorists, they have no inclination, no capability, they’re democrats, small d, and we need to take them off the watch list, the terrorist organization list. That doesn’t mean you’re going to have a regime change overnight but it sends a signal to the mullahs and Ahmadinejad, we’re tired of talking, we’ll keep imposing sanctions, but we’re going to recognize the legitimate democratic opposition to you, and we’re going to do it now.
Anchor:
And yet we have Iran threating about the Strait of Hormuz for example, cutting it off, and threatening oil supplies, etc., and we don’t really hear a great outcry from not just the United States but from other neighboring nations.
Ridge:
It’s really rather remarkable. When you think about what the administration has done in the Middle East, I mean we finally recognize the Arab Spring, but we’ve ignored a couple of Persian Springs. We ignored the uprising earlier in 2011, we ignored the fact that frankly the Maleki government went in and killed 36 of these Iranian citizens who were north of Baghdad, but we’ve said we want to get rid of Gaddafi and we’re worried about the people in Benghazi, but we’re not worried about the people in Camp Ashraf, we certainly didn’t do anything in support of a democratic resistance when it has risen on the streets of Tehran on two or three occasions, and we keep talking sanctions. We need to talk regime change, we need to talk about delisting, we need to delist the MEK, not that that’s going to turn things around overnight, but it sends a signal to the mullahs and Ahmadinejad. Sanctions, regime change, we’re going to recognize the opposition. There’s a Persian Spring and it’s about time we recognized it.
Anchor:
All right Governor Great to see you. Thank you very much for your insights
Ridge:
Thank you very much