On January 11, 2025, former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss delivered a compelling speech at an international conference in Paris, condemning the Iranian regime and advocating for robust international measures. Truss underscored the regime’s vulnerability due to regional setbacks and internal dissent but cautioned that inaction could pave the way for dire outcomes, including a nuclear-armed Iran destabilizing the Middle East and beyond.
She criticized the European Union’s policies of appeasement, including attempts to revive the JCPOA nuclear deal, asserting that such strategies embolden Tehran. “Appeasement has only served to strengthen the regime and its allies,” Truss stated, highlighting the dangers of Western indecision in the face of authoritarian threats.
Truss called for “maximum pressure sanctions” to cripple Iran’s economy, urging Western nations to reduce dependence on oil and gas imports from oppressive regimes. She also advocated for designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization and dismantling Iranian influence networks in Europe.
“2025 is a pivotal moment,” she concluded, stressing that achieving a free, non-nuclear Iran is critical for global peace, stability, and democracy.
Excerpts of Liz Truss’s speech follow below:
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here at what is an absolutely vital time for the world. I believe that 2025 is going to be a critical year in our history.
First of all, in only a matter of days’ time, President Trump will be back at the helm in the United States and I believe that will mean a strong United States again, but also a strong free world again.
But at the same time, we have an Iran that is seriously weakened by the fall of the Assad regime in Syria but also because of internal pressure and also because of their failure and their failure of their proxies.
This is a real opportunity for change. And what does that mean? Well, first of all, it means a brighter future for the people of Iran without the appalling despotic leadership of this country that we have now.
Secondly, it means a more stable Middle East and an end to the existential threat that Israel is under.
But for the world, what it means is a weakening of the alliance of authoritarian regimes, the axis of aggression, China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran that have brought so much damage and so much fear to the world.
And if we think about what the alternative looks like, if we think about what the alternative of not acting in 2025 is, it really is terrible. We know that Iran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. We know it is very close.
And if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, it would mean that if all of the four states of the axis of authoritarianism had a nuclear weapon and my fear is that Iran would potentially be the most likely to use a nuclear weapon of those four states.
We’d also see Iran continue to export their model of terrorism around the world and we know what it’s like now on the streets of Britain because of the malign influence of Iran, the malign influence of Islamism on our streets. We can see the impact of that already and things will only get worse if we do not act now.
Instead of taking action against authoritarian regimes, instead of defending the freedom of democracy. Too many in the West benefited from the cheap oil and the cheap gas and we did not take action soon enough or early enough.
And when we saw the signs that these regimes were threatening not just their own people but their neighbors and world security, they were appeased rather than taken on. And this is particularly what we have seen in recent years with Iran. When President Joe Biden came into office, he took away maximum pressure on Iran. He made it easier for them to export their oil and their gas.
He made it easier for them to ally with China, with Russia, with North Korea to supply weapons that are now being used in the field in Ukraine, to supply oil and gas that are now being used to build up Iran’s military, to build up their proxy forces.
And what was said, and I was sitting around the table at the time as Foreign Secretary, what was said was we need to give Iran another chance to sign the nuclear deal. We need to give them a chance to sign the JCPOA. Now, this was a bad deal in the first place, but it was an even worse deal when Iran almost had a nuclear weapon and showed absolutely no signs of coming to the table.
And it was an even worse deal when the other signatories that we were relying on were Russia and China, the allies of Iran in trying to take down the democratic free world.
But too many, and it wasn’t just the politicians, it wasn’t just President Biden and President Macron, it was also the bureaucrats who didn’t want to have a fight, who didn’t want to have a row. But what we know through history is if you don’t take on an aggressor early, you end up paying more later. And that is the terrible consequence of those failed policies, and I fear the terrible attacks that we saw on Israel on October 7th were a direct result of failing to do enough early enough to limit the terrible the terrible military aspirations of Iran.
The other pressure has come from the people of Iran themselves and I congratulate Mrs. Rajavi and her movement on what they have done to put pressure internally on the appalling, oppressive regime in Iran.
We had the uprising in 2022. We had more protests last year. Our screens are full of brave Iranian people standing up against one of the most repressive regimes in the world. And Iran now faces a much more difficult path because of the fall of Assad. They are a weakened regime. And it’s vital that we don’t just assume that that weakness is going to take its course.
We, in Europe and America, have to do all we can to follow through, to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, to stop Iran from destabilizing the Middle East, and to do all we can to back the people of Iran in their quest for freedom and democracy.
Now, of course, we would all love to see the despotic regime of Iran go, but this pressure cannot come from outside. We can support it outside, but it has to come from the people of Iran themselves.
And what is important is that the West, Europe, and the United States don’t see the regime as inevitable. They don’t see the regime as a fact of life. They understand that we should prepare for a world where the regime is no longer there, and we should not fear the end of the regime. We should want the same for the people of Iran that we have in Europe and America, which is freedom and democracy.
So what has to happen in order for pressure to be put on the Iranian regime from the outside? And by that, I mean pressure that will stop them from acquiring a nuclear weapon, I mean pressure that will stop them with their ambitions to destabilize the Middle East, and I mean pressure that we’ll do all we can to back those who want a free and democratic Iran.
Well, first of all, maximum pressure sanctions have to go on Iran. The Iranian economy has to be destabilized. I’m a supporter of the oil and gas industry, of the mantra of “drill, baby, drill.” And we don’t just want to see drilling, in the United States of America, we want to see it in Canada and we need to see it across Europe. It is time that we stop relying on oil and gas from despotic regimes, and that is the biggest thing that will kill off Iran’s economy and enable change to happen in Iran.
We need to do what we can to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. We also need to take on the forces within our country that do too much to side with Iran and appease Iran. And what am I talking about there? I am talking about some of our media. I’m talking about some of our bureaucracy. I have direct experience of myself of seeing what happens inside the foreign office.
I’ve also seen what happens with the American State Department, and we need to take on those who want to appease the regimes who are within our own systems.
And I know we have some of our American friends here today. I would like to see the US put pressure on Europe. What do I mean by that? I believe that the UK should prescribe the IRGC.
I believe that European countries should be doing more to take on Iranian influence and Islamism within our own countries which are doing so much to destabilize our countries, and I believe more pressure needs to be put on European governments to do that.
That is the only way that we will succeed in restoring freedom and democracy. We have to root out the anti-freedom, anti-democratic tendencies within our own societies and expose them to full sunlight.
Too often, many people in Western societies have tried to say there’s some kind of moral equivalence, that all of these systems are equal. They’re not equal.
We know that freedom and democracy are what people want. When people are free to choose, they choose freedom and that is what we should be proud of representing and that’s what we should be standing up for in our own societies.
Let’s be honest, for the past 25 years, freedom and democracy have been on the retreat. We have seen the advance of the axis of aggression. We have seen those countries becoming more economically powerful, more militarily powerful, and more aggressive.
I believe that 2025 represents the turning point and I believe at the heart of that turning point is what happens in Iran.
There are two choices we have, a nuclear-aided Iran, a close ally of Russia, China, and North Korea, able to wreak havoc, not just inside Iran, but also in the wider Middle East and destabilize the world.
The other choice is a non-nuclear, free, and democratic Iran with a positive future for its people and reduced authoritarian access that is no longer able to expand its influence around the world.
President Reagan talked about the idea of peace through strength. That is what we now need to demonstrate, that we are prepared to take strong action using our economic levers, that we are prepared to spend on our defense, and that we are prepared to promote our values of freedom and democracy.
And that is how we will back the people of Iran but in doing so, we will also back freedom and democracy across the world.
Thank you.