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Remarks by Former White House Official Linda Chavez at the Free Iran 2024 World Summit

Iran Freedom

Former White House Official Linda Chavez

On June 29, 2024,  at the Free Iran 2024 World Summit hosted at the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) headquarters in Paris, Linda Chavez, Chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and former Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison delivered a speech. Ms. Chavez underscored the global significance of supporting the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its President-elect Maryam Rajavi.

The full text of Linda Chavez’s speech follows:

You know, it’s been a very long day, and we have heard from some remarkable speakers. It is always difficult to go at the end of a program because so much has already been said, and it is also very difficult to follow our wonderful Ukrainian representative. But as I was sitting here, I was thinking about all of the people that are gathered here.

We come here because we support Madame Rajavi. She is an inspiration to us, she is an example of courage, and her fight is our fight. But I was thinking about it, and I was thinking, how is it that, you know, in the United States we could never get a Democrat and a Republican to sit down and agree to anything, and yet we have representatives from both parties who come here to Paris to support Madame Rajavi and her cause.

And I look around and see representatives from so many different countries, countries that are not all that friendly sometimes to each other, at least in their history, as we have heard from the Irish representatives earlier today. So why is it that we are able to come together on this?

And I thought about it, and I thought back to someone who had an enormous influence on me and my thinking, a philosopher, and that was Adam Smith. And Adam Smith taught us that altruism only gets you so far. We are good to other people because of altruism, but that only takes you so far. At the end of the day, we do things that are in our own self-interest. And I thought about that in relation to this cause.

Clearly, the suffering of the 90 million people in Iran is important. Clearly, the fact that half of that population is not even treated as full citizens and with full human rights. And we should care about that. But there’s another reason that we come together to support this cause, and that’s because Iran and its leadership are a threat to all of us.

Surely, we heard from Kira, you know, there are drones that are carrying bombs and dropping them in Ukraine and killing men, women, and children. There are also shipping lines that are being interfered with so that the supply chain in many countries, I know in the United States, is being interfered with because Iran supports the Houthis who are stopping those ships in the Red Sea.

And we don’t have to look very far to see, you know, an example of a terrible atrocity that was in part because of the Iranian regime’s support of Hamas and Hezbollah and others in the Middle East. And so, at the end of the day, one of the reasons that we are able to come together, despite our different cultures, languages, and interests, is because we have an interest in stopping Iran, which is now part of a new axis of evil.

An axis of evil that includes Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and the Supreme Leader, Khamenei. It doesn’t really matter who’s picked as the head of Iran in the election, in the follow-up election, because it isn’t really any result of an election that picks the leader. It is the Supreme Leader and the ruling mullahs.

And so, we, I think, have to be aware that what is important in trying to see regime change is not just about affecting the lives of the 90 million people in Iran. Of course, that’s important. But it is also important for the rest of us in the world to understand that if we don’t see regime change in Iran, what we are going to see is a nuclear-armed Iran.

And it won’t just be drones dropping conventional weapons in places like Ukraine. It will be nuclear threats being issued against countries. And you won’t just see the kind of export of terrorism that we see around the world. There will be the possibility of nuclear weapons being sold or given to those terrorist groups.

And so, I think it is worthwhile to remember that this struggle and what happens in Iran is absolutely crucial, not just to the Iranian people, but to all of us.

The reason we support the NCRI and Madam Rajavi is that she represents a different worldview, a worldview that believes that individual freedom and democracy are something that will, in fact, bring a more peaceful world. It will not just give rights to the people of Iran, but it will make Iran no longer a threat to the world. So, Madam Rajavi, thank you so much for all that you do.

Thank you, all of you out there, for what you do. And remember, we will prevail.

 

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