Democracy and stability in Iran can come only from within

OPINION:

The solution to the Iranian crisis that has influenced the Middle East and the world for nearly half a century lies in regime change and organized resistance by the Iranian people.

This is the “third option” I articulated 21 years ago in the European Parliament and have reiterated countless times since: Neither foreign war nor appeasement will win against this regime. The only thing that will do so is change by the people and the resistance.

I have repeatedly warned that if appeasement with Tehran continues, war in the region is destined, an unfortunate reality we have witnessed recently. The mullahs’ dictatorship survives by exporting terrorism, relentlessly pursuing nuclear weapons and relying on brutal repression.

Since 1981, the Iranian resistance has exposed these realities, especially in 2002 when the National Council of Resistance of Iran revealed secret nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak, alerting the world to the regime’s nuclear bomb-making program. If not for the NCRI, the program might have succeeded unnoticed.

U.S. leaders, including then-President George W. Bush and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, validated these disclosures, but the international response fell short. Instead of punishing the regime in Iran for its international lawlessness, Western powers chose negotiation and appeasement and even blacklisted as terrorist the very movement that had exposed the regime’s nuclear threat until European courts in 2009 and U.S. courts in 2012 overturned the decision. This grave error has only emboldened the regime.

Today, Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and regional warmongering threaten global security, recalling the bitter lessons of Munich, this time with the specter of mullahs armed with nuclear weapons. The regime’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, knows that abandoning the nuclear bomb-making program would lead to his downfall, so he pushes Iran toward conflict, desperately hoping to preserve his fragile power.

Meanwhile, the Iranian people suffer immensely. There have been more than 1,370 executions, the highest per capita execution rate globally, since August 2024 under President Masoud Pezeshkian. Widespread protests by workers, teachers and retirees are brutally suppressed. The United Nations has termed the regime’s massacres of the 1980s crimes against humanity and genocide, yet Western governments largely overlook this barbarity.

The crisis of the mullahs’ regime has reached a turning point, as the fall of Bashar Assad in Syria in December showed us that no tyranny is eternal. The past two decades demonstrate that democracy and stability in Iran can come only from an indigenous movement for regime change. The international community can support this movement by recognizing those who are fighting the religious dictatorship from inside Iran.

Imposed solutions have historically failed. Britain’s installation of a king a century ago and the U.S.-backed 1953 coup against nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, which consolidated the shah’s dark dictatorship for 25 years, paved the way for the clerics’ theocracy. Had the shah’s dictatorship not been imposed on the Iranian people, and had a nationalist, democratic government existed instead, Iran’s history and the region’s fate would have been completely different, preventing fanatical religious fundamentalism from raging to such an extent.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, established 44 years ago, rejects the clerical theocracy and the monarchical dictatorship. It advocates a democratic republic based on the separation of religion and state, gender equality, autonomy for ethnic nationalities, an independent judiciary, abolition of the death penalty and a non-nuclear state. This program, to create a democratic and pluralistic Iran, promotes peace and stability in the Middle East and beyond.

The “third option” (regime change by the Iranian people) requires no foreign troops, weapons or funding. It requires only recognition of the right of Iran’s people to fight the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards. The rebellious youths of Iran, organized into resistance units, led this fight through daily protests and actions against the regime’s repression. Their efforts illuminate a tangible path, not merely an abstract hope.

A democratic and free future for Iran is within reach. By supporting the Iranian people, the world can end this crisis and build a future of peace and freedom in the Middle East.

• Maryam Rajavi is the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Correction: A previous version of this piece incorrectly listed President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the fifth paragraph.