Speaking at an The Second Free Iran 2025 Conference on May 31, 2025, focused on shaping a firm policy toward Iran and recognizing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), former Scottish MEP Struan Stevenson delivered a forceful speech. He declared that the Tehran regime is facing its greatest vulnerability since the 1979 revolution, strained by sanctions, internal corruption, mismanagement, and external military pressure.
Stevenson pointed to growing domestic unrest and argued that the regime’s escalating use of executions signals its desperation in the face of a rising and organized Resistance. He praised the rapid expansion of Resistance Units throughout Iran, led by Maryam Rajavi, and credited the PMOI/MEK with forming a credible “government-in-waiting” that enjoys growing international support.
Rejecting any role for Reza Pahlavi in Iran’s future, Stevenson labeled him a “phony” disconnected from the people. He insisted that Iranians seek neither a monarchy nor a theocracy, but a democratic, secular republic as envisioned in Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan.
In closing, Stevenson urged Western governments, particularly the United States, to formally recognize the NCRI as a legitimate force for democratic change in Iran.
.@StruanStevenson: Since the Shah fled in 1979, his son Reza Pahlavi has lived in luxury abroad. Yet whenever the mullahs’ rule is threatened, he resurfaces—trying to reclaim the Peacock Throne. Iran’s future lies in democracy, not monarchy. #FreeIran2025https://t.co/QVIcnr4H6R
— Iran Freedom (@4FreedominIran) May 31, 2025
Excerpts of Struan Stevenson’s speech follows.
The Mullahs are at their weakest point since the 1979 revolution. There is no question. And with their economy in a state of collapse, after decades of sanctions, mismanagement, corruption, the Iranian people are restless.
They are ready to explode. Predictably, as we have heard, the mullahs’ response has been to ramp up executions to try and terrify the population into submission.
But the Mullahs know there has been an exponential rise in the number of resistance units spreading right across the country under the inspirational leadership of Mrs. Mariam Rajavi.
The PMOI/MEK has garnered a massive international reputation, as we see here today with diplomats, academics, parliamentarians, decision makers backing them.
They’re recognized as a government in waiting, ready to step in when the theocratic regime is overthrown. But ladies and gentlemen, let me add a cautionary tale.
Since the Shah fled the country during the 1979 revolution that overthrew his tyrannical regime. Reza Pahlavi, his 65-year-old son, has lived in affluence and luxury in America.
But each time the ruling autocracy of the mullahs appears to be under threat, he breaks the surface to trumpet his claim to the peacock throne, you know, it has echoes of the classic fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.
He’s like the naked emperor trotting around the capitals of the world, saying, please allow me to be the king again. He even recently said, if the mullahs are overthrown and he is made king, he has no intention of returning to Iran.
He’s too frightened and he’s living in such luxury on the back of the billions of dollars, billions that his father looted from the Iranian people, which has never been accounted for. Reza Pahlavi is a phony.
The Iranian people don’t want him. You know, ludicrously, he has said that he’s in communication with the IRGC, the regime’s Gestapo. He says they will be needed to maintain order after the overthrow of the millers.
You couldn’t make it up. The PMOI/MEK reject the mullahs’ dictatorship, their religious dictatorship, and they seek to replace it with a democratic and independent republic based on the separation of church and state.
President Trump and Western leaders now have to move to consult with Mrs. Rajavi and the PMOI/MEK to achieve regime change and to relieve 95,000,000 Iranians from their oppression and suffering.
Thank you.
