I have been privileged to serve my country, the United States of America, in many, many capacities over my lifetime. The country that l love, the country that I cherish, made promises to the men and women at Ashraf and Liberty and for a decade has ignored those promises. I’m with you yesterday, today and tomorrow until my country keeps its promise.
As we all know the fight for human progress, the fight for freedom and justice, for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is not without struggle, it’s not without sacrifice, it’s not without death, without pain. We have assembled today to acknowledge the martyrdom of 52 men and women. Let’s not forget the 7 hostages that are still unaccounted for, 7 individuals that were kidnapped. At the same time we honor those over 100,000 men and women who have been imprisoned and tortured and killed by the mullahs, and we honor those that continue to fight with their very presence at Liberty for the cause of a free Iran.
From time to time at gatherings like this I suppose that some of you in your hearts feel disappointed or frustrated. But we don’t have the luxury of feeling those kinds of emotions, we must take our inspiration from the men and women at Liberty who have refused, refused to bow to terror, refused to bow to the path of these resistance.
By the way I don’t know if you noticed but Rouhani the other day suggested that the United States of America, my country, is responsible for ISIS.  This is the same individual who said and bragged publicly I have kept the Western governments talking but oh, we can build more centrifuges. This is a leader along with Khamenei who have killed Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a leader who has supported Assad. And so let me say to my president, my president, and he is my president, and I respect the office, but he said the other day he has no strategy to deal with that region, well I’ll give you a couple of ideas Mr. President. The first thing you need to do is to keep the promises you made to the MEK, and you never, never, ever, ever make a pact with the devil. We can get involved in that region, but we cannot do so in concert collaboration or cooperation with the mullahs in Iran. No Iran.
It is the central banker for terrorism, it is probably at the heart of the problem of the entire region, it cannot possibly be part of the solution. The recommendation I have for the new leader, if he ever takes charge, if Maliki finally moves into the sunset and perhaps on his way to the international court to be tried for the repression of the Sunnis and the Kurds and the tribal chiefs, to al-Abadi, I suggest to you if you want to demonstrate new leadership, independent leadership, you break the strangle hold on Camp Liberty. You allow the food and energy to move without restriction for ever more. And more importantly I say to al-Abadi if you truly believe and you need American support, and you do, and we need to use the leverage, we have pilots in the skies, we have boots on the ground, we spent a trillion dollars, we lost 4,000 people, you leave Iraq for Iraqis, get Iran out of there, and at the same time, you must go the UN we will accept Liberty as a refugee camp and all the protection escorted with it. Demonstrate your leadership, Liberty must be a refugee camp.
Ladies and gentlemen, you hear from quite a few Americans at these different events and we’ll continue to be with you, but you should know that not only as our support of you is public, but on a regular basis we interact with our government. Mr. President, your administration made promises, Mr. President, it’s your responsibility to keep them.
Ladies and gentlemen, in a memorial service yesterday in Washington, DC, a young man spoke eloquently, as some of these family members did, of his father who died as a martyr in Ashraf. At the conclusion of his very powerful remarks, talking about his father, his loved one, someone he cherished, he reminded all of us in attendance, although you need reminded, I think I will repeat his words to you: We are all Liberty. We are all Ashraf. We are all one.