Statement by Reza Pahlavi of Iran - Democracy & Security Conference

Democracy & Security Conference
Prague, Czech Republic

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I have come to Prague to ask for your solidarity with the people of Iran against a common enemy: Islamist preachers of intolerance who turn young men and women into walking bombs, shouting death to America, death to Israel, death to whosoever resists their murderous ideology.

To the realpolitik cynics who say Islamist theocracy is a reality we have to live with, I respond: funny – they never said they can live with YOU! To those who say the theocrats can reform if we are nice to them, I say you do not know the difference between Islamist revolution and secular ones. Those who believe they speak with the absolute authority of Allah demand absolute submission.

As the Islamist regime of Iran develops nuclear weapons, to neutralize Western conventional superiority, to have a free hand to use low-intensity violence in support of exporting Islamist revolution, remember this: good strategy is not fighting the enemy’s strengths, at the nuclear negotiations table where they hold the cards, or on the streets of neighboring countries where they find sympathy. Good strategy aims at their weakness: Inside Iran, where the people know the theocrats' wretched reality, rather than neighbors who only hear their divine promise.

Islamist theocrats' incompetence in delivering a minimal level of welfare and freedom is driving Iran's women, youth, teachers, workers, ethnic groups and many others to resist Hizbullahi stormtroopers in Iranian cities everyday. All those courageous Iranians want is to join the Free World. The Free World must respond.

Four years of diplomatic jostling, of economic carrots and sticks, have proven the insensitivity of theocrats to external pressures. What has not been tried is tying external pressures to human rights in Iran, to boosting the morale of Iranians in their everyday resistance, to encouraging internal pressures that Islamists can feel.

From Iran's different faiths, ethnic groups and social sectors, from the left to the right of the political spectrum, from my brave countrymen and women struggling for human dignity and freedom, this is the message I carry to you: As you face our oppressors, do not turn your back to us. We are your best friends in the struggle against a common enemy, the enemy of peace on earth.