What Macron’s rendezvous with Iran 'regime change' agents revealed

By Julia Kassem

It became amply clear recently that despite his bombastic rhetoric of not campaigning for "regime change" in the Islamic Republic of Iran, French President Emmanuel Macron keeps thinking and doing just the opposite.

A series of closed-door meetings with Washington’s favorite "regime change" provocateurs in Paris recently once again demonstrated blatant duplicity in the French leader's approach to foreign policy matters

Macron on November 13 met a group of anti-Iran rabble-rousers on the sidelines of a so-called "peace forum" in the French capital, including CIA-hireling Masih Alinejad, Ladan Boroumand of the National Endowment for Democracy funded-Abdorrahman Boroumand Center and Shima Babaei.

The trio, who were in France to take part in the annual event held a not-so-secretive meeting with Macron under the banner of Justice for Kurds, a shady NGO run by American business magnate and oligarch Thomas Kaplan.

Kaplan happens to be a major bankroller to the 'United Against Nuclear' Iran lobby group. Along with the notorious Zionist business magnate, Sheldon Adelson, he takes counsel from well-known Zionist war hawks and neocons like John Bolton, as well as former American diplomats, senior policy advisors, and Ivy League departmental leads.

The organization was co-founded and run, alongside Kaplan, by Bernard Henry Levy in 2018 with a special focus on Kurdish secessionist groups under the guise of promoting “human rights”.

Kaplan is a New York-based Jewish multibillionaire with prime investments in the energy sector worldwide and heir to the world’s largest collection of Rembrandt paintings - explaining his vested interest in the oil-rich Kurdistan region.

He is known to misuse his staggering wealth by running several organizations as dual-influence and money-laundering (as well as tax evasion) campaigns and intelligence-gathering operations against Iran.

One such organization, Panthera, run under the guise of wildlife conservation, even provided funds to the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, a conversationist group.

This foundation had ties with Pantera until 2017 when Kaplan’s speech at the United Against Nuclear Iran conference made it obvious that his organization was no more than a subversive front against Iran.

Boroumand and Alinejad both had private meeting with the French president on the sidelines of the annual "peace forum", where many issues came up for discussion, including the renewed campaign for "regime change" in Iran through deadly riots, according to reports.

Farah Dodstar, speaking to Saudi-funded Iranian International, said Macron urged his guests to form a coalition. Amid recent foreign-backed riots in Iran, the West has been unsure of who to support, finding it difficult to identify credible allies in the so-called "Iranian opposition" based in the US.

It came amid intense Western anxiety over the outcome of government formation processes in Lebanon and Iraq and the realization that they are losing their hegemonic grip in the region.

A few days before Christmas, Macron not only expounded on his country’s long-standing goal of toppling Iran’s Islamic system but also carried that agenda to Lebanon. On December 23, he urged the Arab country to “rid itself” of its existing political system, despite a myriad of problems facing his government at home.

It came shortly after a conference on Iraq hosted by Jordan, another regional country where France has been attempting to exert its influence, pitting different political groups and movements against each other.

The appointment of Muhammad al-Sudani as Iraq’s new prime minister in late October helped break a nearly year-long political deadlock in the Arab country, but drew the ire of the West and Iraq’s anti-Iranian opposition due to his participation in the pro-Iran Shia Coordination framework.

After the conference in Jordan, Macron said he planned a conference with a ‘similar format’ for Lebanon.

His comments were echoed by Bechara al-Rahi on December 25, who took the opportunity during a Christmas sermon in Lebanon to endorse French demands for an UN-administered, IMF-reform-friendly government. He said such a conference would help put Lebanon in a position of “neutrality” - i.e. an anti-confrontational position vis-à-vis the Israeli regime.

It become clear that there’s no dearth of reactionary compradors that sing Macron - or greater still, Washington’s tune in enforcing Western agenda in the Middle East.

Julia Kassem is an Economics and Political Science graduate from the University of Michigan, currently working on a Masters in Urban Policy and Planning from the American University of Beirut. Julia is also a freelance writer, having contributed to Detroit's own Riverwise, Against the Current, blogs like the Establishment, and nationally syndicated outlets such as Counterpunch, Mintpressnews, and TruthOut.

(The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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