Amb. Richardson at rally.
Amb. Richardson at rally.Mark Langfan

At the sidelines to the massive anti-Rouhani demonstration held across from the UN on Monday, in an exclusive interview with Arutz Sheva, Amb. Bill Richardson, a life-long Democrat, former American Ambassador to the UN, and former Governor of Arizona, came out strongly against Obama’s Iran deal.

He also stated that Syrian strongman Bashar Assad “is the problem, not the solution – he’s a killer, he's a violator of human rights... and unless he goes, there’s not going to be peace in Syria.”

But to the thronging masses of over 3,000 Iranian-Americans and Syrian-Americans, Amb. Richardson opened by accusing Iranian President Rouhani and his regime of executing more than 2,000 political prisoners in the less-than two years of his administration.

That means Rouhani has executed an average of more three political prisoners a day in Iran since he was installed by the Ayatollah Khamenei in a sham election.

Citing Amnesty International and the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission, Richardson asserted that Rouhani has executed more than 700 political prisoners this year, including, recently, a 19-year-old boy.

Richardson explained that in addition to a lack of free elections, lack of free press, and a free parliament, Iran is massively violating human rights, and emphasized that these claims are made by “Amnesty International and the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission.”

“There’s a democratic alternative to the Mullahs and America should stand behind that democratic movement,” he argued, and opined in the face of the Obama-Iran nuclear deal, “there has to be an international effort to stop Iran’s support for international terrorism. Under the agreement, Iran is getting hundreds of billions it will use to fund international and also getting Iranian sanctions lifted on all sorts of conventional weapons. They will use the money to keep messing around in the region.” He pinned the cause of the massive refugees out of Syria squarely on “Assad’s terrorism against his own people, and Russia’s and Iran’s support for terrorism of Assad.”

Richardson then pointed to all the terror and instability Iran is causing in the region. For instance, he explained, “Iran is putting money with the Houthis in Yemen who started an armed civil war against the democratic Yemen. They’re messing with Hamas and Hezbollah. They want to destroy our ally Israel. Israel is a bulwark of strength and stability for America in the Middle East. They want to destroy Israel. They’re also messing around in Bahrain. And Lebanon. They want to foment sectarian violence in Iraq.”

The former UN envoy exclaimed: “Iran is a regime supporting international terrorism, they’re a regime violating human rights and executing people. Right and left. They want to strike fear. Their people want democracy, for women’s rights, for a democratic alternative, so these young people of Iran to have a free future.”

Amb. Richardson closed by exhorting the rally’s participants to use social media to “get out the message that: We want democracy in Iran! We want them to stop human right violations and executions. We want to stop Iran’s international terrorism. We want Assad to go down, Saudi Arabia to get stronger. We want Israel to get stronger! We want America to lead!”