- Wednesday, June 17, 2015

The ayatollah must go. Gone. He and Rouhani and Ahmadinejad and all the rest of them should be put on trial for crimes against humanity for the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people they have killed, and it is about time we stop ignoring it.

Where is our decency? Where is our morality? We have allowed this for years and years and years, thousands of people killed, hundreds of thousands of Iranians slaughtered, more being slaughtered today than before. American soldiers killed by the Quds Force. For how much longer are we going to allow this? A country and an ayatollah who dedicates himself to the destruction of one of our strongest allies, the state of Israel, who almost every week says destruction to the state of Israel.

I say destruction to the ayatollah.

Where are our principles? Where are our values? What happened to the America that supports democracy? What happened to the America that supports freedom? What happened to the America that intervenes when horrible killings are occurring, like in Syria, where 200,000 people are slaughtered and we draw red lines and like cowards step back.

That’s not my America. That’s not their America. That’s not what our fathers and grandfathers fought for when they fought for freedom in Europe twice, when they pursued the Cold War to liberate Eastern Europe from communism. It was an America you could count on. When Solidarity arose in Poland, like your movement a few years ago in Iran, our president then supported Solidarity. Where is Ronald Reagan when we need him?

We unequivocally support a non-nuclear Iran. Now what does a non-nuclear Iran mean? It doesn’t mean two months away from being able to have a nuclear missile. It doesn’t mean one year away from having a nuclear missile. It doesn’t mean an Iran that will become a nuclear power in 10 years. What it means is, Iran should have no, none, zero nuclear capacity because the regime in Iran can’t be trusted with it. You do not put weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a psychopathic, homicidal murderer.

I hear this all the time: “There is no alternative. We have to make this agreement. There is no alternative.”

Wake up. How many people are here today? A hundred thousand? A hundred and ten thousand? How often have you come here? There is an alternative. Maryam Rajavi, the National Resistance movement, all of you and all of the people inside Iran that you know better than I do who yearn for what all human beings yearn for: freedom, respect, dignity, an ability to live with the religion of their choice, and a country that respects the rights of women. How could you make that point more clear than by having a woman who is running this organization?

So as I have told you on many occasions, I am extremely embarrassed. I am humiliated by the fact that my country has broken its promise to your people who are now in the concentration camp called Liberty. What a horrible name for it, Liberty. A concentration camp, a killing field and another broken promise to us, not just to you, but to us and to many of the people that you see up here. A promise made to us in Paris three years ago. They lied to us. They broke their promise to us, just like every single day when those people remain in Liberty in fear for their lives, they have a piece of paper signed by an official of the United States promising them asylum in the United States. Each and every day, that promise is being broken by my country. I am embarrassed, I am ashamed and I’m here to apologize. And I’m also here to say that we will do everything we can, everything within our power to make good on that promise.

To the people of Camp Liberty, you bear the biggest burden here. It’s coming. Please have hope. We are working very, very hard to liberate you. You are working very, very hard to create a situation that gets world attention. You are conducting yourselves with dignity, with strength, with patriotism. You show us what the future of Iran can be, the character of the people of Iran. Not these mullahs, not these ayatollahs, not these dictators. You show us the character of the people of Iran. And we will elect a president, and I will guarantee you when the ayatollah falls, he’s going to fall the way the Berlin Wall fell. He’s going to fall the way the Soviet Union fell. It’s going to happen like this. And then we will be able to go to Tehran and have a free and democratic Iran, and you will be able to pursue your dreams and the great legacy of your country.

• Mr. Giuliani is a former mayor of New York City and a 2008 Republican candidate for president. The above are excerpts from the speech he gave in Paris on June 13 in which he summarized the sentiments of a bipartisan letter from Americans calling for regime change in Iran.

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