To people who are serving the United States of America today or in the past, I salute all of you. Thank you for your service. Welcome to our diplomatic friends, Ambassador Stašek. Nice to see you. Thank you for coming.

I’ll try to be quick and summarize what I see, and I hope that this will be helpful to you. History is moving very fast right now. The future is being shaped. It’s being shaped here at home, abroad, and it’s being shaped in Iran.

This clerical regime in Iran has stayed in power through the ruthless use of force, but also the deceptive use of information. For forty-six years, it’s tried very hard to send three different messages to three different audiences:

First, inside Iran, to those who have refused to accept this clerical dictatorship after the revolution, particularly the young, educated, male and female Muslims following Masoud Rajavi, people who believe that Iran was ready for rights-based democracy after the fall of the Shah.

The regime has tried to silence them all and intimidate them through brutal repression and by falsely calling them terrorists and a cult. They don’t want the massive Iranian people to hear what the NCRI says. They’re trying to extinguish that message at home.

Second, to the men who carry the guns for this regime, who stage the international acts of terror, who operate Iran’s prisons. I’m talking about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, frankly, the diplomatic service of the Iranian regime.

The Supreme Leader has tried to convince them that they are part of a glorious religious project, that the Shiite shrines from Iraq to Syria and ultimately Jerusalem need to be saved.

Ayatollah Khomeini talked about leading a Shia religious kingdom from Karbala in Iraq to Quds, which is Jerusalem. He and his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, have continuously pledged death to Israel. That’s the project.

The third message, finally, Iran has made a monumental effort to convince the United States and Western audiences, including governments, the media, think tanks, and academia, that it’s a normal country simply trying to help protect its people from various dangers. The clerics, for years, have concealed their worst crimes and demonized the organized Resistance.

They’re hoping to convince Washington that our military is the one causing instability in the Middle East, not their militias, and that the United States is the one that fails to live up to international law and obligations because we withdrew from the nuclear agreement.

Let’s consider how well Iraq and Iran have done with these conflicting messages. Well, first, they succeeded for many years in hiding a reign of terror inside their country and historic atrocity crimes against their own citizens.

But today, in 2025, the truth is now fully exposed. Second, after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and all that has followed, we can say that the supreme leader will never rule over Jerusalem. All of Iran’s proxy militias, as you’ve heard today, are severely degraded. Iran’s gray war aggression, where they hide behind other militias, has exposed their own homeland to military attack.

The entire project of Khomeini to create a religious empire has failed. But somehow, the third leg of Tehran’s propaganda enterprise has not yet collapsed. We still hear people, and you do too, all around us in Washington, who have not caught up with the truth about either their regime or the organized resistance, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Remarks at April 8 Senate luncheon calling for hearings aimed at an effective bipartisan policy to guard against the malign activity by Iran’s regime: https://t.co/ksbUN767yL via @YouTube

— Lincoln Bloomfield Jr (@LBJunior) April 9, 2025

Iran’s success in promoting these contradictory messages for forty-six years is, let’s admit it, remarkable. It also means our foreign policy establishment has misunderstood many things about Iran going back half a century.

Iran’s leaders today should be facing trials for atrocity crimes, and our government, along with those of our allies, should be in direct dialogue with the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Every malignant narrative and allegation against the Resistance has been fully investigated and researched, and all are false. We have the receipts.

Some of you listening to me may take issue with my statement that the US lacks a firm grasp of the truth on this issue. Everybody thinks they know about Iran.

But imagine knowing about the prolific executions we hear so much about taking place in Iran with no due process, the highest per capita rate of executions in the world, and not knowing about the report last year issued by the United Nations Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran.

Every member of congress and senior official in the intelligence and diplomatic community should understand that in June of 1981, the regime opened fire on hundreds of thousands of pro democracy demonstrators led by Masoud Rajavi violently impeached the elected president and launched a reign of terror, killing tens of thousands of Iranians throughout the 1980s when Ali Khamenei was president of Iran.

The UN has accused Iran’s leaders of genocide because the victims, many of them supporters of the people’s mujahideen, were killed not because they’re terrorists, but because of their religious views, standing for modern Islam with full political rights.

They should be fully aware in Washington of the massacre of up to 30,000 political prisoners during the summer and fall of 1988, a historic crime against humanity that has been compared to the Bataan death march.

Bipartisan leaders came together at today’s Senate Event “IRAN POLICY: Countering Tehran’s War and Terror”

Speakers included @Maryam_Rajavi @CoryBooker @RoyBlunt @SenatorShaheen @LBJunior and General James Jones ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/fK7rVOmJOJ

— OIAC: Organization of Iranian American Communities (@OrgIAC) April 8, 2025

Imagine knowing about Iran’s designation year after year as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. We’ve all said this over and over again. Everyone knows that.

But not knowing about the two attempted bombings in Europe, in France, and Albania in 2018, organized by Iran’s Agents from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, while the nuclear JCPOA accord was still in full effect.

Many of us in this room were at a large rally in Paris, as you’ve heard already, where Iran planned a mass casualty bombing. No different from the ISIS terror attacks that launched a 52-country coalition to protect the West.

How many Iran experts in Washington followed the trial in Antwerp that convicted the senior Iranian agent, Assadollah Assadi, and the war crimes trial in Sweden that gave a life sentence to the prison official, Hamid Noury, implicated in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners?

How many American media reporters covered the hostages taken from Belgium and Sweden by the Tehran regime? Both of whom were traded to their governments to free Iran’s Criminal Agents of Terror. We don’t hear those stories.

Some members of Congress recently met with Spain’s distinguished former parliamentarian, Alejo Vidal Quadras, who barely survived an attempted murder by a gunman who fled on a motorcycle from his home in Madrid. He was shot through the jaw.

And yet you never hear anyone in Washington talking about the armed gang from North Africa called the Mokro Mafia, hired by Iranian intelligence in the Netherlands for this assassination and two previous murders in the Netherlands.

Or the two major cyberattacks recent in recent years that crippled Albania’s government as Tehran tried to gain access to the MEK residents of Ashraf 3, or the murder for hire and assassination threats on American soil against critics of the Tehran regime.

Some were sitting at our table and including former senior American officials and our current president.

Last but certainly not least, imagine knowing a lot about Iran’s buildup of Shia militias. We can all talk about Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, etc., in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza.

And then, believing that Iran was surprised by the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, against Israel, our intelligence community formally assessed that Iran was not responsible for the Hamas attack and was surprised by it. I cannot overstate how much I dispute this assessment.

Congress needs to go back and lay out the overwhelming evidence that Iran was the arsonist who set the Middle East on fire in October 2023. Then we can have an informed conversation about the threat from this malignant regime.

Today in Washington, the United States needs an effective bipartisan policy, just as Senator Shaheen and Senator Blunt laid out. The good news is that I believe this issue, Iran, is one on which Republicans and Democrats naturally can unite.

It’s also one, believe it or not, in which the Congress and the Executive Branch can naturally unite. Let me get right to the key elements of a unified American policy on Iran.

First, the nuclear issue. Iran has agreed to nuclear talks this weekend in Oman. Why? Because the President made clear to the supreme leader that the US will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Is there a single legislator on either side of the aisle going back ten years or more who has not said that Iran must not have the bomb?

This is a bipartisan position. This is an American position. Let’s see what Iran proposes, but let me offer the White House some unsolicited advice. If Iran’s representative refuses to meet directly with President Trump’s envoy, Mr. Witkoff should give them an hour to think about it and call home. And if they don’t meet directly with the American, get back on the plane and fly home.

We should not let the Supreme Leader get away with this public disrespect of the United States. If he has a message for America, then his representative should meet with America’s envoy, period.

Remember, Saudi Arabia has said for seventeen years now, it will not allow Iran to have a capability that it does not have. Iran knows full well that building a nuclear weapon means Saudi Arabia will also get the bomb.

Remember also that the entire narrative of the clerical regime is to extend its religious dominion over Jerusalem, the site of Islam’s third-holiest site, the Al Aqsa Mosque. It’s hard to see how a nuclear attack against Israel, site of the Al Aqsa Mosque, would fulfill a religious duty.

Ambassador @LBJunior slams Reza Pahlavi and Iranian monarchists for treacherous strategies and their rooting for engagement with the #IRGCterrorists on “The Untold Story” podcast.#FreeIran2024 pic.twitter.com/HOe3ZTaARM

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) June 22, 2024

Congress needs to hold policy hearings to help the administration push every lever that can expose and weaken this corrupt, brutal regime. And let me just tell Senator Booker I’m only seven and a half hours to go, sir.

Whatever the Senator has for breakfast, I’ll have that.

I’m just going to lay out six quick policy points and then yield the floor. Is that okay?

These are my thoughts for a bipartisan policy:

Number one, formally endorse the US stance that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon.

Two, protect Israel against any future October 7 attack by blocking the flow of weapons from Iran over land and sea to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, Sinai, and Gaza. A new authorization for the use of military force should be considered.

Three, announce an explicit warning against any more hostage taking. They’re still doing it. This needs to stop.

Four, close all Iranian diplomatic facilities in Western capitals. Iran has forfeited its right to all diplomatic privileges.

Five, investigate and identify Iran’s agents of influence in Western capitals, including our own. The recent Semaphore report revealed extremely disturbing ties between the regime and people influencing policy in Washington.

And sixth, work with allied capitals to bring accountability to Iranian leaders implicated in crimes against humanity. The evidence is now clear. Congress should highlight Iran’s crimes and ensure that our government policies understand who the violent aggressors are and who the victims are.

I want to just give you a parting thought about the National Council of Resistance. One result of a process.

If Congress takes up the cudgel, holds policy hearings, brings together experts, puts all of this information on the record for everyone to hear, media, think tanks, academia, officials, confirms the truth, and forms a bipartisan policy with the administration.

One result will be that the world will now recognize clearly, and Washington will recognize the National Council of Resistance, including the People’s Mojahedin living in Albania, were never terrorists. They were never Marxists. They were never a cult.

They’re a highly effective resistance movement led by women at every level, and US policy has wrongly denied their freedom and that of their relatives and friends and their rep and harmed their reputation unfairly for many years.

The rest of the world is now realizing this, and Mrs. Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan has the support, as we’ve heard, of 40 former heads of government, 80 Nobel laureates, and majorities in 34 national legislatures. The numbers are probably higher now.

Anyone in 2025 who says the NCRI has no relevance to the future of Iran, where have we heard that, is either entirely ignorant of all these facts or is willfully aiding and abetting the clerical dictatorship.

If people care about their credibility and reputation, including journalists for major news organizations, you need to abandon these discredited narratives and report the truth.

Iranian people are suffering economically while the clerics have diverted tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues for weapons, warfare, and nuclear enrichment.

The Supreme Leader is 85 years old and ailing and has had no success or after the death of Raisi.

The Resistance and its supporters have endured a lot of hardship and criticism, and now they are positioned to help the Iranian people transition to a new government after the regime collapses.

They are the one and only resistance that is pledging to let the people of Iran determine who will lead them in a process where legitimacy is measured by the ballot box.

So I repeat my call to the Congress to hold policy hearings and put the United States in a position to help Iran turn the page and open up a new era of freedom and peace.

Thanks very much for listening. Have a great afternoon.