Reza Pahlavi@PahlaviReza
We will Make Iran Great Again.
"I begin today in the memory of my fallen compatriots.
The heroes of my country who have fought, bled, and died not only for their own freedom and for the liberation of Iran from the clutches of an evil, depraved regime that has held us each hostage for 47 years, but for the freedom, peace, and security of the world.
When I speak to these heroes, as they come off the streets from protests or as they prepare for the final battle, they often ask me: “Tell the world, we are not just fighting for ourselves. We are fighting for them, too.” So it is in that spirit and in their honor that I ask you to close your eyes for a moment and imagine a free Iran.
No more nuclear threats;
No more terrorism;
No more hostage taking;
No more closing of the Strait of Hormuz;
No more blackmailing of the global economy.
Imagine an Iran that—instead of exporting terrorism—is promoting freedom:
Freedom to its people;
Stability to its neighbors;
National security and economic opportunity for the United States and the free world.
Can you imagine Iran going from “Death to America” to “God Bless America”?
I can.
Because I have seen the true soul of my people. On 9/11—one of America’s darkest hours—when your enemies, and even some who claimed to be your friends, celebrated those horrific attacks, the Iranian people did something the world wasn’t supposed to see. They risked their lives to hold candlelight vigils in the heart of Tehran.
They didn’t do it for a camera. They did it for a friend in pain.
That is the true face of Iran. Unlike the regime that worships death and destruction, the Iranian people celebrate life and liberty.
That’s why I can imagine an Iran that exports engineers instead of extremists.
Startups instead of suicide bombers.
Energy instead of hatred...
I can imagine a Middle East where Iran is no longer a source of chaos… but an anchor of stability.
An Iran that does not fear its people, doesn’t threaten its neighbors, doesn’t isolate itself from the world.
Imagining this is not difficult, because this is exactly what Iran once was. And what it can be again.
When Iran is free, the Middle East changes.
When Iran is free, America regains a great friend.
A free Iran represents the single largest untapped economic opportunity of the 21st century.
A nation of 93 million people—highly educated, entrepreneurial, and pro-West—finally unleashed.
Over the next decade alone, a strategic U.S.–Iran partnership could generate more than $1 trillion for the American economy.
Imagine a new Middle East where Iran is a friend of Israel. Where the Abraham Accords are extended into the Cyrus Accords, named for Cyrus the Great, the Iranian king who issued the first charter of human rights, and whose vision of religious tolerance inspired Thomas Jefferson.
Today the Islamic Republic tramples upon Iran’s millennia-old legacy of tolerance for religious minorities, and wages a war on them. In a country with the fastest rate of growth of Christianity in the world, the regime and its IRGC storm into and ransack underground house churches, detain and torture pastors, and persecute and execute evangelists and Christian converts. This is the Islamic Republic. Not the true Iran. Not the vision we have for the future.
Under this vision, Iran, the United States, Israel, and our Arab neighbors are bound together in peace and prosperity rather than conflict and terror.
A Middle East where we will be able to handle our own affairs and manage our own backyard– where we can put an end to the endless wars and allow our American friends to bring back their sons and daughters in uniform and focus where they want to: back home.
A free Iran is not a fantasy.
A free Iran is within reach—right now.
But as we all know, freedom never comes free. My compatriots have shown this. They are not asking for a handout, and they do not expect their freedom to be handed to them on a silver platter. The Iranian people have already paid an unimaginable price for their liberty.
In January of this year, I called on my compatriots to go out and protest against the regime that has oppressed them for 47 years. Millions of them responded, igniting the largest wave of protests in Iran’s modern history—sweeping every single one of our 31 provinces.
On January 8th at 8 o’clock, they took their lives in their own hands and took to the streets to fight against the occupying regime. At that exact moment, Khamenei, Larijani, Ghalibaf, and the rest of their mafia shut off the Internet.
Under the cover of darkness, and with a depravity that shocked the world, they massacred more than 40,000 Iranians, and injured over 300,000. They did not stop their terror on the streets.
Wounded protesters were hunted down in hospital beds and shot in cold blood. Men and women were raped in secret prisons. Even nurses, ambulance medics, and doctors who dared to help protesters were tortured, raped, and killed.
Families were forced to search through thousands of unmarked body bags, and the regime even charged grieving parents for the bullets used to kill their own children. To this day, mothers still search for their sons, and daughters still ask when their fathers will come home.
To this day, 29 days to be exact, Iranians have been cut off from the world with almost no access to the Internet. Fearful of my courageous compatriots, Khamenei Junior and his cabal of criminals, have dragged Iran from the 21st century to the Dark Ages. They are afraid that when they do, the world will again see the defiant will of a nation united and determined to topple it.
Life can never go back to normal. There is a sea of blood between the people and the regime. After all the massacres, after all they have sacrificed, they will never agree to swap one tyrant for another.
And another anti-American tyrant will not serve American interests either. The only thing that the remnants of this regime can be relied on to do is to buy time, to cheat, and to steal. They will never be honest or true partners for peace. President Trump was right when he said, “We don’t want to come back every two years.”
But if a faction of the regime is left in power, that is exactly what will happen. It will buy time. It will pretend to negotiate. And then, it will return to its old, jihadist ways of threatening America, its security, and its interests.
They might promise a short period of artificial calm. But it would inevitably be followed by the same terrorism, the same nuclear blackmail, and the same cries of “Death to America.”
Because the truth is simple: The Islamic Republic cannot reform itself. You cannot reform a snake. Venom is in its DNA.
This extends to the corrupt and brutal thugs of the IRGC. Because the IRGC is not Iran’s national army. Indeed, it does not even have the word Iran in its name! It is the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. It serves its own poisonous ideology of terror, not Iran’s national interests. So it can certainly never be a partner to serve America’s interests.
The only path to lasting peace and stability runs through a clean break with this regime.
For the first time in 47 years, President Trump’s strategy has given us a real chance to achieve that outcome. For decades, every American president since Carter chose to try to manage this looming threat rather than resolve it. Each of them has failed. They have only made the problem worse. The result has been more dead Iranians and more dead Americans.
So the mullahs operated on the assumption that America didn’t have the stomach to confront them decisively.
That assumption began to collapse when President Trump ordered the strike on Qasem Soleimani.
And once the myth of the regime’s invincibility was shattered, possibilities began to move in a different direction.
Operations Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury have done something extraordinary. The killing of Khamenei and many of his henchmen, the destruction of more than 80% of the regime’s ballistic missile arsenal, and the obliteration of the nuclear sites have leveled the playing field.
This did not happen by accident. It happened because of President Trump’s resolve and the courage of American troops. On behalf of millions of Iranians, we thank them.
Their sacrifice was not in vain. For the first time in nearly half a century, the Iranian people have a fighting chance to end this regime’s terror and chaos. The regime’s repressive machine has been degraded, its terror network cut off, and its leadership decimated.
But for this all to be worth it — the sacrifices of both Americans and Iranians— for the goodwill between our two peoples which you see on vibrant display here today, to continue — we must finish the job. This regime, in its entirety must go.
If we do not finish the job and leave a rump of the regime in place, the threat posed by this Islamic Republic will not be solved. It will only be made worse. Those who have spent 47 years sewing chaos, cannot be trusted to bring about stability. Terrorists cannot be trusted to bring peace. If they are left in place, they will bring only more of the instability, chaos, and destruction they have brought for 47 years.
They are not pragmatists. They are thugs. They are not deal makers. They are agents of chaos.
But the other path, the path which finishes the job once and for all, will leave a legacy of peace and prosperity that historians and scriptwriters could only dream of.
That legacy will belong to the heroic people of Iran and to the only President of the Untied States who had the courage and the character to see the mission through. Today, that is the precipice on which we stand. The precipice of true greatness. Iranians are ready to play their part.
The final blow will be delivered by the people of Iran themselves. They are already on the ground, and they have already demonstrated their extraordinary courage. They are ready to fight again But they must be given the chance to do so.
As President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and myself have urged, they are taking shelter while the bombs are falling. But when the right moment arrives—as in January—I will call on them to rise up again. And when they do, I have no doubt they will put an end to the dark chapter of the Islamic Republic once and for all and reclaim their homeland, their dignity, and their future.
But bringing down a regime is only the beginning. What matters next is whether the nation can unite around a leader with broad legitimacy.
Across Iran and throughout the diaspora, millions of Iranians have called on me to lead the transition to democracy. I have accepted that call not to serve myself, but to serve my nation and my people.
In recent years I have unified a broad coalition of dissidents—republican and monarchist, left and right, men and women of all ages, religions, and ethnicities. Even people who were former political opponents, have joined the movement to free Iran under my leadership.
Equally important: Iran’s armed forces and bureaucracy will follow me. Thousands of the regime’s military officials—some very senior—have signaled their readiness to join me through a digital defections platform my team established several months ago.
Many of these officials have refused to obey the orders to kill civilians during the January uprising. That’s why the IRGC had to import thugs from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon to do the dirty work. With my leadership, they and others who don’t have blood on their hands will play a role in stabilizing the country during the transition.
Iran is not Iraq. We will not repeat the catastrophic mistake of de-Baathification. There will be no dissolution of bureaucratic institutions, no power vacuum, no chaos.
The transition will be orderly. My team of experts produced a detailed plan called the Iran Prosperity Project, or IPP. This is a roadmap for national recovery, including the first 100 days after the regime’s collapse and the longer-term reconstruction and stabilization of our country.
What we ask of America now is simple: stay the course. Do not throw this crumbling regime a lifeline. Pave the way for the Iranian people to finish the job.
Because freedom is not an American story alone. It is the story of all people who refuse to live on their knees. It is the story America wrote in 1776. And today, it is the story the Iranian people are writing with their courage and their sacrifice. We prefer to die standing than to live kneeling.
2026 marks the 250th birthday of the United States. It is my hope and my belief that history will also remember 2026 as the year of Iran’s rebirth. What my people are fighting for is the rebirth of our 2,500 year old civilization. When the black page of the illegitimate Islamic regime is turned, that is the tradition and the heritage to which Iran will return.
So in 2026, our two nations are reaching for a new chapter, both determined to be great.
President Trump rightly observed that the Iranian people are the Iranian regime’s longest-suffering victims. He told them: the hour of your freedom is at hand. And they are ready to meet this moment.
The Iran story is not yet finished. Great civilizations outlast even their most vicious occupiers. With your help and with the courage, sacrifice, and heroism of Iran’s greatest youth, our best, latest chapter is being written right now. When it is done, a free and democratic Iran will stand alongside the United States as a partner, an ally, and a friend.
President Trump is making America great again. I intend to make Iran great again. Together, with my brave compatriots, that is exactly what we will do.
Thank you. God bless America. Long live Iran."
Remarks at CPAC 2026 in Dallas, Texas
