Iran Freedom

Remarks by Former US National Security Advisor General James Jones at the Free Iran 2024 World Summit

Iran Freedom

General James Jones Former US National Security Advisor

On June 29, 2024,  at the Free Iran 2024 World Summit hosted at the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) headquarters in Paris, former US National Security Advisor General James Jones delivered a powerful speech. General Jones highlighted the significant threat the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) poses to the Iranian regime. Jones emphasized the regime’s desperate attempts to delay its downfall by fueling wars and promoting violence through its proxies, directed by the IRGC.

The full text of General James Jones’s speech follows:

Thank you very much for that kind introduction, and it’s a great honor and a privilege to be back here once again with so many friends and so many people I’ve spent many wonderful years in both military office and private office.

Madame Rajavi, thank you very much for your leadership, and to our friends in France, thank you for your hospitality in this wonderful country. It means an awful lot to all of us.

As I was listening to all of the previous speakers, I was completely inspired by their theme, and it reminded me that a lot of the things I wanted to talk about were the same things, so I don’t want to repeat too many things, but just maybe a couple of opening thoughts. One is that we live in a very messy, complicated, and dangerous world.

One way to look at it is we are subject to a struggle between autocracies and democracies around the world, not in any one region in particular, but the struggle between autocracies and democracies is alive on just about every continent. That is worrisome because it will affect how we live, how it comes out will affect the behavior of many governments, and it will affect the freedom or the lack of freedom for millions of people around the world.

But we also face an opportunity here when we look at this particular struggle, which is really at the epicenter of what’s going on in the Middle East, a region beset by conflict, by terrorism, and wars, and the evidence is very clear that the epicenter of this struggle in this region is Tehran, and Tehran must be dealt with. The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei brazenly supports terrorist groups across the region.

The regime’s proxies, directed by the IRGC, continue their destructive campaigns, creating extraordinary circumstances that challenge all freedom-loving people almost everywhere around the world. By fueling wars and promoting violence, Tehran seeks an escape from the crisis instigated by the Iranian people’s uprisings. The Supreme Leader’s facade of power in the region is a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable downfall of the Mullahs’ regime. What is often perceived as the power of the Iranian regime is actually a consequence of the international community’s failure to hold the regime fully accountable for its rogue behavior.

Today the world recognizes that the root of the Middle Eastern conflict is the clerical regime in Tehran, now on the brink of possibly acquiring a nuclear weapon, as Ambassador Bolton just pointed out. For peace and stability in the region, our focus must be on a viable solution. And for the international posture, could we all once and for all proclaim that appeasement is not a winning strategy that the regime respects?

That has been pointed out by all of the previous speakers. And so that much is clear. It is time for clarity, and it is time for restated determination across the international community. And may I say that, with the exception of the Americans who are here, that we need to do a lot more work on that in Washington. We have never really come to grips with the truth of the history of the MEK. In our own media, that falsehood is perpetuated even today. And I think one of the things that we must do, all of us here, particularly the Americans, we must overcome that false history that led to the MEK being listed as a terrorist organization and triggered years of work to try to get that designation reversed.

We must do more than that. We must convince our elected officials, our media in particular, that that history is false. And I would commend to you a monograph that will soon be released by Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, who’s here and who you all know very well. He has authored the definitive history of the MEK since the fall of the Shah to today.

People like John Bolton and others have written extensively on this. We need to do a lot more in Washington to make sure that that history is the one that prevails, not the one that seems to pop up whenever it’s convenient.

As we meet here today, Tehran needs to know that the swelling masses yearning for a free Iran will not be silenced either inside Iran or outside Iran. Voices will grow larger, louder, and more committed until the inevitable triumph for freedom and human rights is won. The regime must know that every beating of a peaceful protester, every jailing of a dissident, every murder of an innocent, and every terrorist act it commits directly or by proxy amplifies the movement’s strength and momentum and its moral imperative.

The regime knows and intensely fears what we all understand. The spirit of Mahsa Amini is alive in the youth of Iran and the work of their advocates here and across the world, rising up for an end to the regime’s corruption of Islam to perpetuate its stolen power and privilege, an end to its brutal suppression of freedom and human rights at home, and to its sponsorship of terror and conflict across the region and the world, an end to its desecration of a once-proud culture known for great poets, great artists, great thinkers, turning Iran into a pariah nation whose contribution to civilization under the Mullah rule is violence, hate, and human suffering.

And hear this clearly, an absolute end to the regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons to intimidate and threaten its neighbors at home and the world at large and to strengthen its chokehold at home. To no one’s surprise, Iran’s rulers, as they had likely planned from the beginning, have brazenly ignored their obligations under the JCPOA. The ongoing expansion of Iran’s nuclear program, including the illicit enriching of uranium and installation of advanced centrifuges, moved it to the brink of a nuclear weapons capability it must never obtain.

Imagine how much more perilous the regional and global security situation would be and would be if the regime, the root of the Middle Eastern conflict, were armed with weapons of mass destruction. In my view, there is no greater threat to the future of mankind, and that must never be.

Ladies and gentlemen, this maxim, attributed to Edmund Burke, holds that, and I quote, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is for good men to do nothing,” end quote. The spirit of these words is alive in this room and animates the work of NCRI and so many here to create a better future for the people of Iran and a more peaceful world.

But if Burke will pardon me, I think his principle is slightly off. It’s not quite right that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. My friends, evil triumphs when good people don’t do enough, and that is what we should take from that message.

The global community must be far, far more in support of the future envisioned by Mrs. Rajavi and the NCRI set forth in the Ten-Point Plan that has been discussed already. The manifesto articulates the irrepressible hopes and aspirations of the Iranian people and all of those who have laid down their lives in protest of that tyranny.

In fact, so fearful is the regime by the power of ideas and ideals for which the NCRI and organized resistance stands. It has relentlessly terrorized and attacked them and their supporters. What is the crime in the eyes of the regime?

The offense of working for a democratic Iran so the great country’s great people can claim the right to self-determination set forth in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Repeat: universal. For an Iran governed by the rule of law that recognizes and protects a full spectrum of basic human liberties, freedom of speech, assembly, protest, and religion. For an Iran in which women have equality. For a non-nuclear state that lives in peace with its neighbors and is a responsible member of the global community.

I’m happy to share that a resolution before the U.S. House of Representatives was recently presented. I emphasize the responsibility of the international community to support these ambitions and to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its actions that incite violence, terror, and instability.

I’m happy to say the measure enjoys broad bipartisan support. Thank you to the members of Congress for doing that. From an American perspective, the Ten-Point Plan is truly Jeffersonian. From a global perspective, it is enlightened and visionary and worthy of support by all good men and women committed to the triumph of tolerance over hate, the triumph of self-determination and democracy over religious fascism, and indeed the triumph of good over evil.

Iran has gifted humanity with scores of cherished poets. One of its greatest, Rumi, wrote, quote, “If the light is in your heart, you will find your way home,” unquote.

Ladies and gentlemen, the light is in our hearts here and in the hearts of millions of Iranians thirsting and working for a better future. By that light, I know those striving tirelessly in a great sacrifice every day for this cause will truly find their way home.

Thank you.

 

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