At a conference held on Thursday, January 9, 2025, with the participation of former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Mrs. Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), addressed the regime’s failures in 2024 and stated, “The regime’s defeats in the region have been severe, from which it cannot recover. However, this should not lead to the false impression that [Iranian regime supreme leader Ali] Khamenei will give up the foundations of his rule. He will neither stop suppressing the Iranian people, nor abandon his nuclear weapons program, nor reconsider his regional warmongering.”
Conference in the Presence of Mike Pompeo, former US Secretary of State#FreeIran2025 pic.twitter.com/Vq3PhnXQHf
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) January 9, 2025
Mrs. Rajavi emphasized the necessity of ousting the regime from the region and adopting a firm policy against it, noting that despite the significant blows it has received, the regime continues on the same path of repression and nuclear weapons not because it is powerful but because it has relied on these strategies to break the siege of uprisings and counter the wave of demands for regime change within Iranian society. “There is only one solution for ending the regime’s influence in the region, stopping its nuclear and missile programs and forcing it to end the torture and executions of Iran’s youth. That solution is the overthrow of the religious dictatorship by the Iranian people and the Iranian Resistance,” she said.
Addressing Mrs. Rajavi in his speech at the conference, Mr. Pompeo said, “Your Ten-Point Plan includes free elections within six months, half a year of the regime’s overthrow, separation of religion and state, gender equality, and a non-nuclear Iran. This deserves every nation’s support. Mrs. Maryam Rajavi leads a democratic alternative that has demonstrated its capability over now four decades against the Mullah’s dictatorship. Your movement has shown incredible capacity and resilience to end the regime’s brutality.”
The former U.S. Secretary of State also highlighted the sacrifices and decades-long struggle of the resistance movement against the religious dictatorship and the IRGC as the regime’s principal instrument of oppression and protection, stating: “You can’t rely on the IRGC to moderate its ways. They will continue to be the repressive force which they are. No one is going to change the nature of that regime. Pretending so will only lead to the continuation of the rule of the clerics in Iran.”
He added: “Iran will be free, but only by those who have sacrificed for decades, who have paid the highest price, who have withstood massacres and imprisonments, it can only be freed by you. Bless you all for the hard work you have done and the work in front of you.”
Pompeo said: “my message today to the Iranian people who have the opportunity to hear this and the Resistance Units that are fighting on behalf of all of us: Keep up the fight. Keep your focus on the IRGC. The United States and the pressure campaign will return making the regime even more fragile. You, the Resistance, you are on the right path.”
The former U.S. Secretary of State also referred to the speech delivered by the President-elect of the Resistance last November in the European Parliament and the Resistance’s roadmap for overthrowing the regime and transferring power to the people of Iran. He said: “In her speech on November 20th in the European Parliament, Madam Rajavi, not so long ago, you explained the roadmap for the regime’s end and in the transition period. The roadmap doesn’t count on Americans. The roadmap counts on the Iranian people, the organized resistance network inside at its core and the Resistance Units throughout the country. These units must be and are the decisive force in the transformation that must be recognized…. This plan does not demand regime change from outside, from the United States or others. It doesn’t ask for boots on the ground or even money from outside. Mrs. Rajavi, you’ve repeatedly stated there’s only a single path, one path to the regime’s end, and that is being achieved by the Iranian people and the organized resistance inside of Iran.”