"By Their Fruits You Will Know Them: What Kind of Iran Does the Region Want?"

"Between threats to Gulf security, the weaponization of sea lanes, and executions on one side, and the project of a democratic Iran based on good neighborly relations on the other, the question imposes itself: which tree bears the fruit of the future?"

The Gospel contains a deeply meaningful phrase: "By their fruits you will know them." A tree is not known by what it says about itself, but by the fruit it gives to others. Political systems are no different. They are not measured by slogans or speeches, but by the outcome of their actions: what have they done to their people? What have they offered their neighbors? And what have they left behind — security or fear, stability or chaos?

For the Arab region, especially the Gulf, this question has become more urgent than ever: what has the regime of Velayat-e Faqih produced?

For more than four decades, Gulf states have not dealt with Iran merely as a geographical neighbor, but with a regime carrying a cross-border political and security project. Since the clerical regime came to power, the region has paid the price of Iranian interference — through militias, the export of crises, and the use of affiliated groups as tools of political and security pressure.

From Bahrain to the UAE and Kuwait, from security penetration attempts and networks linked to the IRGC, to tensions that have even touched Qatar despite its efforts to maintain a less confrontational relationship with Tehran, the same truth repeats itself: the problem is not the level of closeness or distance from the Iranian regime; the problem lies in the very nature of the regime itself.

Then there is the Strait of Hormuz — a vital artery for the global economy and energy security. Instead of turning this geography into an opportunity for cooperation and prosperity, the regime has repeatedly turned it into a card of threat and political blackmail. Almost every regional crisis carries with it the threat of closing the strait or disrupting international navigation, endangering the economies of the region and the world.

These are the regional fruits of the tree of Velayat-e Faqih: permanent anxiety, arms races, threats to maritime routes, and the erosion of trust among neighbors.

But if these are the fruits tasted by the region, what about the Iranian people themselves?

Inside Iran, the picture is even more painful. The fruit has been executions, prisons, poverty, and the erosion of daily life. Since the establishment of this regime, tens of thousands of political prisoners have been executed, while repression has become not an exception, but a method of rule.

Recently, the execution of six members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, including Vahid Bani-Amerian and his comrades, became a painful but revealing moment. Through the gallows, the regime sought to plant fear. But the result was the opposite. Their steadfastness in prison, their final messages, and the reactions that followed their executions showed that the fruit of repression is not stability, but a deeper determination for change.

Here, the Gospel phrase returns with full force: "By their fruits you will know them."

If the fruit of Velayat-e Faqih is execution, poverty, and the export of crises, what about the alternative?

On the other side, the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its declared provisional government offer a different vision for Iran’s future, based on Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan: free elections, separation of religion and state, equality between women and men, abolition of the death penalty, independence of the judiciary, respect for ethnic and religious diversity, and a non-nuclear Iran whose foreign relations are based on good neighborly relations and non-interference in the affairs of others.

This is not merely a set of political slogans. It is a project for an Iran that is not known by missiles and militias, but by law, stability, and regional cooperation. An Iran that does not threaten the Gulf, does not use straits as tools of blackmail, and does not export militias to its neighbors, but lives as a normal state that respects their sovereignty.

Therefore, the real question before the international and Arab communities is no longer whether this regime can be reformed. The question is: what kind of Iran does the world and the region want?

Do they want an Iran that produces fear, executions, and threats to Gulf security? Or an Iran that produces stability, freedom, and good neighborly relations?

That is why the major Iranian demonstration in Paris on June 20 carries exceptional significance. It is not merely a protest against executions or repression, but a political and moral declaration that there is a people rejecting tyranny, and an organized democratic alternative presenting a different path for Iran and the region.

In the end, perhaps the simplest question is the truest one:

If we want to know the future of Iran and the region, let us look at the fruits.

"By their fruits you will know them."