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 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an inspiring speech.
2. Mike Pompeo delivered a powerful address at the Free Iran 2024 World Summit, emphasizing the importance of supporting the Iranian resistance movement and advocating for regime change in Iran. #MaryamRajavi4FreeIran #FreeIran2024 #BerlinDemo29Junehttps://t.co/VqxOqGsDO0
— Iran Freedom (@4FreedominIran) June 29, 2024
The full text of Secretary Pompeo’s speech follows:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. That’s very kind. Very kind. Thank you so much.
Thanks for that most gracious welcome. I must say that when I get that much applause before I speak, it makes me very nervous. I will try to live up to that.
Madam Rajavi, it’s wonderful to be back with you and your organization and your team and your people here in Paris today. So many people committed to a free Iran. It must be the case that we are on the cusp of that success. That’s what I want to speak to today.
There are many challenges, but I am optimistic that we are closer today than when I was last here with you all, and even when I was with you several months back in Washington, D.C. I want to take a moment, too, to say thank you to a couple of close friends, former Vice President Mike Pence, and my dear friend, Prime Minister Harper. Bless you, both for being here today and for all that you have done for the Iranian people and for the world.
You know, I hearken back to the first time Iran was something that I knew. I was born in 1963, and in 1980, I watched an Iran that had come off the rails with Ayatollah. And then I watched the President get our hostages back in 1980, even before he had taken the oath of office. They were on the way home, telling me for the first time, that I would have been 16 years old, for the first time, in a small part of my mind, the Iranian people know better, and the Iranian leadership understands strength and power and force, and not appeasement.
I saw it again during my time in office. I saw that when one takes the foot off the pedal, when one begins to allow deterrence to deteriorate, that the Iranian people suffer, and that we can never permit that. Who would have thought back in 1980, who would have thought that in 2024, I would be a criminal defendant in a trial in Tehran? Not me. You should note, that I’ve hired no legal counsel, I’m just ignoring them.
You should also note that I am confident that the Iranian people understand in the same way that each of us in this room does today, that the resistance matters, that the resistance will succeed, and that there is a deep, important, and bright future, where Iran will rejoin the peaceful nations of the world, and rejoin the set of nations that respect basic human dignity and rights. I am counting on it.
Three ideas today. First, after the death of Raisi, about whom I spoke at great length last time I spoke to you, you should know that I believe Iran is much more vulnerable today, after his death than before. Look, we all know, he was but a mere lackey. This is about the Ayatollah. But it’s important that no one celebrate his death.
I was disturbed to see the list of people who came to attend the funeral. I’ve actually seen a couple of them since then, and I told them, when someone who’s trying to kill you dies, I’m not going to their funeral. He was the butcher of Tehran. He destroyed so many lives, himself, personally. No one can hide behind anyone’s skirt. No one can pretend otherwise. It was him, this man, now perished, who took so many lives so indecently.
He was the chief executioner of mass murder, impacting so many of the family members, the people who are here with us today. His job was simple. His job was to inflict pain on people, while the Ayatollah wickedly continued to loot and plunder them. The entire world witnessed this brutality, and sadly, too many took it for granted and thought that this might well pass and that if we just gave them enough money or just did enough business with them, perhaps the regime would change. His memory proves that false, and his memory should be consigned to the darkest chapters of human history, alongside Pol Pot and the other horrendous leaders who have taken so many lives.
The flip side is this. You can see the upset. You can see the unrest. You can see the protests. You can see the widespread boycott of the election in March, and then, too, what happened just in the past few days. We know that this change is required. We know that this change that is required won’t come because we wish it to be so. It won’t come because we think, gosh, if the next guy, the gal behind us, or the person that is after us does the hard work, then this will change. No. This will come from organized resistance from the people of Iran, and I am counting on them.
For those of you watching today, or who will see this later, I am counting on you. We know this much, too. We know that there will be great costs associated with this. You all, Madam Rajavi, you all have suffered greatly.
You all continue to be persecuted and prosecuted, and frankly, Western nations aren’t doing enough to support your efforts. But I’m counting on the courageous men and women. The courageous men and women, some of whom I’ve had the chance to meet, have become a nightmare for the regime. They will force change. They will obtain change. They are forced an offer a brighter future for the people of Iran.
The people of Iran deserve to determine their own future, and they need the support of everyone in this room, and those in this room who have taken another path. It is never too late to join in the effort to help the people of Iran to overthrow this illegitimate regime.
You know, Prime Minister Harper spoke to this just a minute ago. I think sometimes, even those of us who’ve worked so hard on this, we get a little down. We say nothing happened today, nothing measurable. We didn’t make the progress that we would have hoped to achieve. I have a couple of thoughts.
I think first, I think it’s very important that we recognize that there is a clear alternative. The ruling clerics tell us otherwise, right? They tell us that there is no alternative to the existing regime. But every week in hundreds of cities and townships across Iran, we can see that there is an alternative.
Today, I spoke before the Free Iran 2024 Summit in Paris in support of a democratic, non-nuclear Republic of Iran, after the Iranian people overwhelmingly rejected the mullahs' theocracy by boycotting their sham elections. I highlighted the need to provide political support for…
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) June 29, 2024
The MEK provides a solution to so many problems, not only for Iran but for the broader Middle East as well. There is an alternative. You know, in 1988, I was a young lieutenant patrolling the then-East German border. We were pushing back against the Soviet Union and that evil regime. You know, I would get up in the morning and then we would head out to the border, we would patrol it.
Frankly, as a young 22-year-old army officer driving up and down the East German border near an M1 tank, there’s not much of a better gig in the world. There were days when my soldiers would ask me, sir, you know, the regime hasn’t changed. And I would remind them, I would remind them that regime change often comes slowly and then all at once.
And then in October of 1989, the very fence, the very fence that was across from me every day, I had departed the country two weeks earlier for my final tour there. But two weeks later, unsuspectingly, unknowingly, and to the surprise, I believe, of everyone, the regime changed.
I’m convinced that you all, in your lifetime, will get to celebrate that very moment when the regime in Iran collapses. Madam Rajavi, the Ten-Point Plan you have put forward is the solution. It is the answer. That day will come when it will shatter the theocracy. It will break them to the very core. And the very leaders who are inflicting so much pain on the Iranian people today will be held accountable for all that they have done.
This platform is grounded in this self-evident truth upon which American democracy was founded. It rings true to those of us who were raised by Ronald Reagan and who have served in a conservative government in America. You should be encouraged to, in spite of our administration’s failure to enforce sanctions, in spite of the current administration’s unwillingness to oppose the regime and help the people inside of it, in spite of the fact that billions of dollars were paid to get back a half a dozen American hostages, and now there are more American hostages held by the Iranians in Gaza today than before the $6 billion payment, in spite of all of that, you should know that the American people and the vast majority of the elected leaders in America understand that this regime in Iran must fall and are prepared to help it do so.
One of the things I loved most about serving along with Vice President Pence for four years, first as CIA Director and then as Secretary of State, one of the things I enjoyed most was the Vice President and I understood that one cannot live in a fantasy world and possibly hope for security and peace. We need to be tough. We need to be real. We need to accept risk. Those are the hallmarks of the Iranian people, you, under your leadership, that are organizing inside of Iran today, taking real risks for themselves, and will ultimately get fantastic outcomes.
I was so proud when President Trump green-lighted the effort to take out General Soleimani. This was not an easy decision. This was not an easy decision, I must say. I had the support of the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I had the support of Vice President Pence. Notwithstanding that, presidents have a unique position in America. It is they who would be blamed had the mission failed or gone awry or would have been blamed had what my State Department told me was likely to lead to World War III.
President Trump was prepared to use American power to restore deterrence and begin to make sure that the world understood that seriousness in dealing with Iran mattered and would work. The policy that Prime Minister Harper spoke of, the policy of appeasement, sadly returned not long after that. We can see the result. A world more dangerous, a region more dangerous, and the lives of the Iranian people no longer feel that they have the support of the United States of America.
But the good news is, that all of these mistakes are correctable. We know the set of policies that will help and enable the Iranian people. It is sufficient, it is simply not sufficient rather, to put sanctions in place on that matter. This will harm the Iranian economy, make them make difficult choices, force them to not give quite as much money to Hamas Hezbollah, or the Houthis, and it will force them to make hard decisions for their economy. But this, this is good. This is necessary, but not sufficient.
This is the West making clear that the uprisings that are taking place, the resistance movement inside of Iran, have our full support in every dimension. You know, the mullahs can destroy a lot, and in fact, they have, but they can’t destroy the spirit of the Iranian people. I saw this when I visited Ashraf 3, and I was reminded of it too. I was encouraged.
I never forget being shown the red-covered book. Its pages contained the names of the tens of thousands of people who had been martyred, who had been killed by this regime. No, indeed, the mullahs have done much damage. But a noble cause cannot be destroyed, and I know that none of you will let that happen. And your cause, your cause is indeed noble.
My sense is as I watch these silly little trials, and I watch the press releases and Twitter accounts of the Iranian leaders, and I watch, frankly, when the administration fails to deny them access to New York City to come speak at the United Nations and threaten the senior officials of the United States, I watch you.
I watch the work of this organization and the resistance inside of Iran, and I think you have them scared. I think they are paranoid. I think they wake up most days recognizing that their leash on power is shorter than they wish it were, and so they hold mock elections. They issue statements about things that they frankly don’t have the power to do. I think they do that because they think they can call our bluff. They may well call the bluff of leaders in Europe. They may well call the bluff of leaders elsewhere. They may call the bluff of American leaders, too. I am confident they will never call the bluff of the people of Iran and the organized resistance they’re in.
The list of once-invincible leaders is long. Let us pray that we all work diligently alongside each other to make sure that the so-called invincible leader in Iran’s days is number two, that his leash on power is shorter than he believes it, and that the freedom and glory and republic and the democratic institutions of Iran will be restored while we can all cheer the hard work that you have done.
Thanks for the chance to be here today. Know that it will happen, and I am confident with your assistance, we can hasten the day that arrives.
Thank you, and bless you all.
