Howard Dean: "I do not know how America sleeps with itself if cannot stand up for everybody’s human rights. Human rights are not a matter of convenience

At the Grand Gathering of the Iranian people in Paris, Howard Dean, former US presidential candidate, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former Governor of Vermont addressed more than 100,000 jubilant and cheerful Iranians in support of regime change in Iran under the leadership of Maryam Rajavi . Mr. Dean said: Thank you Madame Rajavi for doing all this and thank you for that great speech about democracy, freedom and women’s rights. I wish that our governments back home could see this speech that Madame Rajavi just gave so they would understand that it’s not the MEK that should have been on the terrorist list, it’s the Iranian mullahs that should have been on the terrorist list. So, I’m here for two reasons. The first is the reason I have been here for five or six years, and that is I think that if a government and a country wants to lead in a positive direction, they have to have moral force on their side. And the only the United States can have moral force on its side is that we keep our word, and there are approximately 2,400 Iranian dissidents in what amounts to a prison camp near the Baghdad airport because America did not keep its promises. If America wants to be great first we should keep our promises. 
And I would be remised one little political thing. I want to thank Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State for removing the MEK from the terrorist list. Now, that was going to happen because of the court, but she did the right thing when confronted with the fact and overcame the pro-Iranian in the State Department.
Secondly, I have not spoken out about how I feel this treaty or this agreement that may or may not come up, and I am not going to give a final verdict today. But there are some observations I would like to make about the negotiations. I am for negotiations even with your enemies, because you have to talk to your enemies because talking is better than war. But I am not for negotiations that give the mullahs $150 billion to spend spreading terrorism, not just to all the places that have been mentioned before, but for example, blowing up the Jewish center in Argentina and killing innocent people. They have spread terror all over the world, not just the Middle East, and we should not enable terrorism. And I guarantee you that the Revolutionary Guard will get their hands on a big piece of that $150 billion of sanctions and Americans will die as a result.
So we should under no circumstances end the sanctions until we are satisfied that the mullahs are keeping their word which they have never done in the past.
Secondly, we are not going to spend $150 billion enabling terrorist if we don’t get them to give up their capacity, which means that any agreement must completely eliminate the possibility of the mullahs possessing the atomic bomb, and any agreement must allow and complete and verifiable inspection in every facility contained in Iran, and if those conditions are not met, I cannot support an agreement. 
We must not have an agreement for an agreement’s sake. A bad agreement does not contribute to anybody’s legacy. It makes their legacy worse. So I will be watching very carefully to see what happens in the next few weeks and the next few months. And I don’t know if I’ll support an agreement. But I will not support an agreement unless it eliminates the nuclear capacity for the mullahs, and I will not support an agreement unless there are guaranteed inspections. And anybody who does support such an agreement somehow believes that the negotiations are going to fundamentally transform the character of the mullahs. And while they are busy hanging publicly a thousand people a year, I do not think whatsoever that the character of the mullahs has been transformed.
Finally, I am going to conclude the way I started. I think all Americans of every party are proud of our country and proud of the role we have played in trying to increase human rights across the globe. And we have not always been perfect, but we have always believed that it was part of our mission as a nation to improve human rights for all people, including those who are not American. I would have liked it if our government had raised the issue of human rights with the mullahs, the second worse after the North Korea regime on the face of the Earth in the way they treat, murder and torture their own people. And we did not say a word. I do not know how America sleeps with itself if cannot stand up for everybody’s human rights. Human rights are not a matter of convenience. They must not be traded away to murderous regimes for any purpose.