Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani claps his hands at the start of a day-long conference on human rights organized by the Iranian exile opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran on Saturday, March 7, 2015. Giuliani was one of the main speakers. (AP Photo/Frank Jordans)[/caption]BERLIN (AP) -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Saturday that the U.S. should take a stronger stance against Iran - or risk appeasing what he called an "insane" regime.
Giuliani spoke at a rally in Berlin organized by the exiled opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran. The organization is associated with the People's Mujahedin of Iran, an armed resistance group that was taken off U.S. terror lists in 2012.
Giuliani claimed that the government in Tehran, which is seeking to reach a deal with world powers to lift crippling international sanctions, "has proven to us that it shouldn't be trusted with any kind of nuclear capacity."
Anyone who thought otherwise was "stupid" or risking the kind of appeasement that Britain tried with Nazi Germany in 1938, he said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has recently said Washington will endorse only an agreement with Iran that seriously and verifiably crimps Tehran's ability to make atomic arms.
After his speech, Giuliani told The Associated Press that he believed President Barack Obama's actions on Iran were reckless.
"What he (Obama) is doing with Iran right now is extremely reckless and it's going to create an Iranian-controlled northern Middle East," Giuliani said. He cited Tehran's growing influence in Syria and Iraq, which he said could prompt a dangerous reaction from Iran's Sunni rival Saudi Arabia.
To cheers from several hundred Iranian exiles at Berlin's Velodrom cycling arena, Giuliani spoke strongly in favor of giving refuge to about 2,700 members of the People's Mujahedin of Iran living at Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base in Iraq.
The 10,000-seat Velodrom was filled mostly with students from neighboring Poland and the Czech Republic. Several whom the AP spoke to said they had been offered a return journey and hotel in the German capital if they attended the conference.
By The Associated Press
