Iran Tried To Assassinate Me Because I Support Pressure Against It

In July, Americans watched Donald Trump providentially survive an assassin’s bullet when he turned his head at the last second. Less than a year prior, the same thing had happened to me.

It was Nov. 9 of 2023 at 11:30 a.m. I was 30 meters from my home, just back from a walk in the park. A man in a motorcycle helmet walked up to me and said the words “Hello, sir.” What happened next was a blur.

He raised a gun towards my head and pulled the trigger, firing a 9mm bullet which ripped into my jaw. I couldn’t see his face. He tried to shoot again. His gun jammed.

My would-be assassin got away on a motorbike.

I was severely injured and had to fight for my life.

For many reasons, surviving this attack was a miracle. I had bent my head very slightly as I turned to speak to the assailant. He aimed for my neck, but the bullet went through my jawline instead.

Spanish police have since arrested eight individuals, including the assailant, in several countries in connection with the crime, which points to the sophisticated planning and financing of a state.

Supporting Democratic Opposition in Iran

As I was being taken to hospital, I took the mobile phone of a first respondent and typed, “IRAN.” I wanted to make it clear that the Iranian regime was to blame. As I later clarified, I have no enemy but the regime, which has made no secret of its intent to silence me ever since it placed me and the nonprofit organization International Committee in Search of Justice on the top of its official blacklist in October 2022. As president of that committee, I have supported the democratic opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). I have dedicated 23 years of my life to exposing the regime’s crimes against humanity and urging Western governments to adopt policies that prioritize holding it accountable, including designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group.

If the goal of the assassin’s bullet was to silence me and to end my work to bring democracy and freedom to the people of Iran, then it failed. Today, I am more determined than ever to continue that work.

The attempt on my life is part of a pattern that has seen Iranian operatives target a wide range of expatriate dissidents and their political supporters, sometimes on a large scale. In 2018, a diplomat from the regime’s embassy in Vienna, Assadollah Assadi, was arrested after handing over a professionally made bomb to a regime sleeper cell with instructions to detonate it at a major rally organized by the NCRI near Paris. The main target was Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s president-elect. With tens of thousands of people in attendance, the bomb would have certainly killed hundreds, including Western dignitaries. Luckily, the plot was thwarted at the last minute and Assadi and his three accomplices were arrested. 

Few Consequences

Assadi was sentenced to 20 years in a Belgian prison. The mullahs seized a young Belgian aid worker and sentenced him to 40 years, plus 74 lashes. This, too, is part of a larger pattern, with Tehran routinely taking hostages to gain concessions from Western governments. Sadly, in this case, the tactic worked, and Assadi was released after serving less than five years.

At the time, I was one of many critics of Western policy toward Iran who warned that Assadi’s release would only embolden such hostage-taking, as well as the regime’s various underlying malign activities. With each new terrorist plot, proxy attack in the Middle East, and crackdown on its own territory, the regime demonstrates that it has no fear of serious consequences on the international stage.

The unfortunate reality is that appeasement has been the defining trend in Iran policy in various countries over a period of decades.

It reflects an apparent commitment to keeping the regime in power and clinging to the illusion of its internal moderation.

Instead, this policy has emboldened the regime’s most hardline impulses, stepping up its drive to acquire nuclear weapons, and encouraging more terrorism, hostage-taking, and regional conflict throughout the Middle East.

Trump’s Policy

In the face of these mounting challenges to regional and global peace and security, President Trump has correctly adopted the maximum pressure policy. The United Kingdom, the European Union, and its member states should follow suit.

The Iranian regime has never been any weaker in light of several uprisings and growing dissent at home and devastating blows in the region.

I will be visiting Washington, D.C., next week (for the first time since the attempt on my life) to meet members of Congress. I would emphasize that maximum pressure is the right approach, and the West should be backing the millions of Iranians who have taken to the streets in repeated nationwide uprisings, led by grassroots networks known as Resistance Units affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the main group within the NCRI, to demand regime change.

The U.K. and the EU should be designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity (as the U.S. did during the first Trump administration), should activate the UN Security Council snapback mechanism and reimpose sanctions due to Iran’s development of its nuclear program, and should recognize the right of the Iranian people in general and the Resistance Units in particular to stand up against the regime and the IRGC.

The West should heed the words of the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats: “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot but make it hot by striking.” Now is the time for tough action against this evil regime and to be on the right side of history.

Professor Alejo Vidal-Quadras was a vice president of the European Parliament from Spain (1999–2014) and is the first European politician to be targeted by Iranian terrorism in Europe.