Mike Pence: "I speak on behalf of tens of millions of Americans of both political parties I say from my heart that the American people support your goal."

PARIS, FRANCE, March 13, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- WASHINGTON, DC - Summit in Support of Iran Uprising– As Iran’s nationwide uprising continues in its sixth month, on Saturday, March 11, 2023, a bipartisan summit, featuring prominent politicians and former senior military commanders, convened to offer recommendations for new US policy on Iran.

The conference came following the bipartisan congressional majority, H. Res 100 announced on March 9, 2023, in support of a non-nuclear, secular, republic of Iran. Hundreds of Iranian American community leaders from across the United States attended the policy summit in solidarity with the Iranian people and their enduring uprising. The summit was followed by a rally toward an expansive photo exhibition honoring the victims of the uprising on US Capitol Grounds.

The keynote speaker of the event is Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Among the other speakers is Mike Pence, the former Vice President of the United States, who reiterated the importance of standing with the people of Iran and supporting their aspirations for democracy.

Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

I salute you all.
With special greetings to the distinguished figures of the United States who support the noble struggle of the Iranian people to overthrow the regime and establish freedom and democracy.

It has been nearly six months since Iran’s nationwide uprising began. Despite the regime’s widespread crackdown on the protest movement, Iran’s uprising remains the most significant threat to the existence of the regime.

Despite this brutal suppression, the regime has failed to uproot the uprising. Because:

First, this uprising has roots in the explosive state of society, poverty, unemployment, and above all the catastrophic situation of women.

Second, the Resistance Units and a nationwide network of organized resistance inside the country play a serious role in the uprising. For this reason, the situation in Iran will never return to before the beginning of this uprising. The cries of death to Khamenei have spread across Iran. People have no fear and nothing to lose.

The regime has become weaker and faces more defections. It cannot prevent the explosive situation, because that needs fundamental reforms, which will in turn lead to the regime’s overthrow.

But, the explosive situation of society, does not lead to the regime’s overthrow itself. Without the presence of an organized force ready to make sacrifices, this situation will not have resulted in favor of people. To set the great social engine in motion, an organized and dedicated force is inevitable.

Today, we are witnessing the work of that engine all over the country. Despite the regime’s extensive arrests, an increasing number of people joined the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK), Resistance Units during the uprising. Recently the Resistance Units undertook dozens of anti-regime operations daily, including burning regime symbols.

As a result, the regime is making every effort to eliminate the MEK, resorting to demonization campaigns in addition to suppression.
The regime has never hesitated to use its so-called opponents to confront its primary enemy, the MEK. This is because the regime sees the MEK as the engine of the uprising and overthrow.

In this context, the regime seeks to overshadow the democratic alternative by promoting remnants of the previous regime, which is nothing but a “transition” from the current regime to the former regime.

The Iranian people fully understand that the monarchy in Iran has always been a manifestation of fascism. During Shah, all freedom fighters were either imprisoned or executed, which enabled the mullahs to hijack the leadership of the revolution. The people strongly reject any kind of dictatorship, including the return to monarchy. One of the most widely chanted slogans has become “death to the oppressor, be it the Shah or the mullahs.”

Today, young boys and girls are shouting “we will fight, we will die, we will take back Iran” in the streets of our country. These chants echo over four decades of resistance and the sacrifices of 120,000 martyrs on the path to freedom.

The missing link in western policy is its exclusion of the Iranian people and the Resistance from the equation in Iran. This has harmful effects not only on the people of Iran but also on the region and the world.

House Resolution 100, entitled “Expressing support for the Iranian people’s desire for a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Republic of Iran” provides a framework for a principled policy. The resolution affirms that Congress “stands with the people of Iran who are legitimately defending their rights for freedom against repression.”

The National Council of Resistance of Iran(NCRI), is the most long-lasting political coalition in Iran’s modern history.

The (NCRI) is fighting for the establishment of a democratic republic in Iran, which guarantees free elections, freedom of speech and assembly, the separation of religion and state, gender equality, autonomy for nationalities, and a non-nuclear Iran.

On behalf of the Iranian people’s Resistance, I call on the United States to:

– declare the Iranian people’s struggle to overthrow the regime as just, necessary, and legitimate;
– recognize the right of the rebellious youth to defend themselves against the terrorist Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Mike Pence, 48th Vice President of the United States of America

It’s an honor to address the Organization of Iranian American Communities and to share this podium today with a distinguished group of Americans that I deeply admire and who represent a cross-section of support in the United States for this cause. Let me be clear I am here, and they are here because we share a common cause: the liberation of the Iranian people from decades of tyranny and the rebirth of a free, peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Iran.

I know I speak on behalf of tens of millions of Americans of both political parties and every political philosophy when I say from my heart that the American people support your goal of establishing a secular, democratic, non-nuclear Iranian republic that derives its powers from the consent of the governed.
What the Iranian people have endured since 1979 will be recorded by history as one of the great tragedies of the modern era.

I can see in your eyes, in the countenance and confidence; in your face I can see in the faces of the people that we met at Ashraf 3, when my wife and I traveled there not long ago, the people of Iran will someday be free.

I’m proud that under the Trump-Pence administration, America did not turn a deaf ear to the pleas of the Iranian people. We did not remain silent in the face of the Iranian regime’s countless atrocities sowing violence across the region. We stood with the freedom-loving people in Iran, we canceled the Iran nuclear deal which had flooded the regime’s coffers with tens of billions of dollars, money that it used to repress its own people and support deadly terror attacks around the world.

We imposed crippling new sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. We launched a campaign of maximum pressure punishing the regime for its belligerent behavior and assault on its own citizens. We vigorously enforced sanctions to bring Iran’s exports of oil to nearly zero and deny the regime its principal source of revenue. And we called on the free nations of the world to stand with us and with the Iranian people. We encouraged world leaders to condemn Iran’s unelected dictators and defend the Iranian people’s unalienable right to determine their own destiny in no uncertain terms.

Q & A of Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff Marc Short

What is the significance of laying out a vision for a pro-freedom future in Iran?
I think the importance of the ten-point plan is what I believe is evidence that growing support for the resolution in Congress gives structure to a vision for the post-dictatorship of the ayatollahs or its past.

Before 1979 when the Ayatollah went to Paris, he spoke in vague terms about what the future would look like. And when the Shah fell, and [the mullahs’ regime] came in, the world was horrified at what took over this great nation. And I believe the ten-point plan gives evidence to the fact that this movement is different from any movement in the past. It’s a movement that is grounded in democratic principles and a commitment to stability and peace.

What responsibility does the current administration have to make sure that the world stays concerned about the growing threat in Iran?
We cannot let the world forget that the greatest source of terrorism in the world is Iran and the mullahs.

Do not be discouraged by changing American administrations because the American people’s commitment to freedom does not change.
The atrocity of the poisoning of girls in schools around Iran, the other atrocities, the jailing of thousands by the regime, and the attempt to suppress a movement that continues to break out across Iran, it’s a story that needs to be told.

The regime in Tehran wants to trick the world into believing that the Iranian protesters want to return to the dictatorship of the Shah. But we’re not confused by their lies. The Iranian people do not want to replace one dictator with another. The Iranian people want to be free.

Gen. Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe

What a powerful statement this organization is making today. And I agree that it is in support of Iran’s uprising because that’s what we need.
Iran has always been a central concern for the United States. And today, we’re living in historic times. Times of potentially great changes in Iran is going to become even more important for the United States.

After 1979 there was hope, hope for a democratic transition in Iran. And then it all collapsed as a radical cleric returned from France and seized control with a fundamentalist agenda, and for the past 44 years has waged a strongly anti-American campaign for regional hegemony built on tyrannical repression at home and terrorism abroad. That has to be ended. For the people of Iran, who longed for freedom and democratic rule, there’s been no relief.

For years the MEK resisted the Ayatollah from bases in Iraq, and then you got caught in the conflict between Saddam and the United States, and it took more years to clarify this. Now you’re established in Albania, safely established there, and you’re a vital force for freedom and democracy. And not only in Iran. You’re an example, a living example around the world.

Governor Gary Locke, 36th United States Secretary of Commerce

I’m truly humbled to be here to speak to you today and to express my support as you continue your unrelenting fight for a free and democratic Iran. And it’s a special honor to follow Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has put forth a ten-point plan for a democratic Iran, which includes being governed by the rule of law so fundamental to a free and just society. And this plan has been endorsed by 224 members of both political parties in the new 118th Congress.

And thank you, Mrs. Rajavi, for your steadfast leadership and dedication to a democratic and free Iran.
The people in the government of the United States of America stand in full solidarity with the people of Iran and fully support their desire to be a free people, and you are waging a heroic uprising against a corrupt and brutal terrorist regime.

Senator Sam Brownback, former United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom
Haven’t we had enough of dictators? Aren’t we finished with this yet? The Iranian people, just want a normal life. That’s one of the chants on the street. I just want a normal life. Dictators aren’t letting them have it. No more hyperinflation, no more enslavement. Just allow me to live a normal life! The Iranian regime has already lost the hearts of its own people. They are now losing control of their own country.

The Iranian people can and will throw off their rulers. They are doing so now. I pray for the success of the people of Iran to end this night of tyranny and to be free.

This is the most sustained protest in the history of this illegitimate regime that is taking place right now. We need to remind Europe that it’s the Iranian mullahs who are arming Russia against Ukraine and against Europe and against democracy. Iran needs to be heavily sanctioned by the West.

Senator Robert Torricelli

Something is fundamentally different. We meet this day in this room and you know something has changed. The pot has been boiling. Pressure has been building, it has been coming for years and it is about to boil over in a new revolution in Iran. You can feel it.

Thinking about the students who’ve left their classrooms. The mothers who have watched their sons and daughters leave home to take to the streets. The workers that closed their shops. It is mounting like a tide. And the day will come, as General Clark has suggested, that among them will be the soldiers who take off their uniforms and stand not with the mullahs, but with the people. That is the final day of this revolution.

But even without the regime has fallen, we are close enough to have an honest conversation. Because we did not fight all these years. All the young Iranians did not lose their lives, people have not languished in jail, and people have not been tortured to be denied again. The Iranian people had a revolution. And it was stolen. It will not be stolen again by anyone.

I’ve seen this act before. The train starts leaving the station, headed to victory. And as it’s leaving, people try to grab on board. I got it. I got it. Be careful of it. Everyone is welcome to this cause everyone, Iranians and non-Iranians. The past is the past. We’re moving forward. But we are not exchanging a theocracy for another kleptocracy.

To our friends who have lived the good life behind the gilded gates of their Beverly Hills homes, and those who have enjoyed the good life and the hills of Switzerland, we welcome you to the cause, but we have not fought, we have not died, we have not struggled to replace one dictatorship with another dictatorship. It will not happen this time.

There are so many heroes in this struggle, even as it goes on. But some are worth noting. I take nothing from those who stand at the barricades and who will put everything on the line. But the fact is, revolutions don’t happen by chance. There are leaders. There are always some who had it a little bit above the crowd.

Shahin Gobadi
NCRI
+33 6 61 65 32 31
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Washington Summit in Support of Iran Uprising for a Democratic and Free Iran Mar 11, 2023