Former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg called for Washington to translate expressions of support for the Iranian people into concrete policy, addressing an NCRI supporters’ rally outside United Nations headquarters in New York on September 23, 2026, as the Iranian regime president Masoud Pezeshkian attended the UN General Assembly. Amb. Ginsberg said political change must ultimately be determined by Iranians themselves, while arguing that the United States could provide political and material assistance to democratic opposition forces.
He highlighted the NCRI’s proposed transition framework and Maryam Rajavi’s democratic program, saying they provide a mechanism for provisional authority, elections, a constituent assembly and a new constitutional order. Amb. Ginsberg also invoked the 2006 Iran Freedom Support Act, which established U.S. policy supporting peaceful pro-democracy forces and authorized assistance to qualifying organizations promoting democracy in Iran. He urged Congress and the Trump administration to make greater use of existing authorities.
Rejecting both clerical rule and restoration of hereditary monarchy, Amb. Ginsberg stressed that Americans “cannot and should not choose” Iran’s leaders. Instead, he argued, international assistance should enable Iranians and their organized opposition to determine the country’s political future themselves.
Excerpts of Amb. Ginsberg’s speech follow. This transcript has been edited for publication and clarity.
🚨 Ambassador Marc Ginsberg remarks at the rally outside UN by thousands of supporters of the NCRI and its President-elect Maryam Rajavi on Sept. 23, 2026, denouncing Iran regime's presence at the #UNGA81 and calling for a democratic republic. pic.twitter.com/sZoto5Wzxy
— NCRI-U.S. Rep Office (@NCRIUS) September 26, 2026
For decades, we have come here year after year to stand across from the United Nations and give voice to the people of Iran. And today, we come together again.
This time, we are armed with more than our protests against this regime and its illegitimate, terror-fueled dictatorship.
We gather with a solemn mission, my friends.
We gather with a solemn mission, a vital mission that cannot wait for another war, another crisis, or another president. We cannot wait.
Today, we must convert the energy that you bring here into meaningful action.
And I ask: What gives rise to this urgency? It is the voices we hear from inside Iran.
Do you hear them? I do, and so do you!
Do you hear the voices of the Rahimi sisters? Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal wrote about two wonderful young women, twin sisters, who have been imprisoned, tortured, and sexually assaulted by this regime.
And they are just two of tens of thousands of voices who are crying out for your help.
Do you hear the voices of Iranians who have risked everything for the simple right to determine their future? I do, and I know you do, too!
Do you hear the voices of families who have lost their sons and daughters on the streets of Iran’s cities — young people who sought freedom and a better life?
I do, and I know you do, too!
Former Ambassador Marc Ginsberg Calls for Concrete Support for Iranians Seeking Democratic Changehttps://t.co/utgnIM1HMg
— Maged Amin (@Maged_Amin_) September 23, 2026
Do you hear the final words of young men and women sent to the gallows for merely seeking freedom? I do! Do you?
And do you hear the voices of millions of Iranians who fear that their pleas for freedom are once again being forgotten? I do! Do you?
We must answer them, and that does not mean hoping for miracles to happen.
My friends, despite their justifiable fatigue with this war to nowhere, Americans have a stake in what happens in Iran.
The American people wish for an end to the regime, an end to the suffering of Iran’s people, and an end to the threat that a nuclear Iran poses not just to the world, but also to the everyday lives of Americans.
They, too, my fellow Americans, want a free Iran. They may not want an endless war. They do not want American casualties or boots on the ground.
What they want, what we want, what you want, is for the United States to live up to its promise to serve as Iran’s arsenal of democracy!
So, the question before us is not simply: What are we against? The more important question is: What are we for, and what are we going to do to prove it?
We are for an Iran in which the people — not a pretentious Hollywood shah, not a supreme leader, not a foreign power — determine their future.
We are for an Iran in which a transparently elected government is enshrined in a durable constitution. We are for an Iran that lives peacefully with its neighbors.
My friends, there is already a detailed proposal for how to make this happen. All we have to do is make it happen.
It is in your hands to help make it happen under the able leadership of President-elect Maryam Rajavi of the NCRI. God bless her! God bless her for her courage and for her leadership, and for all of the Americans and all the people around the world who stand behind her.
She unveiled in April a transitional plan, a roadmap addressing how provisional authority can be exercised once these mullahs are banished from the face of the Earth.
This transitional plan also provided ways in which elections would be organized, how sovereignty would be transferred to an elected Constitutional Assembly, and how a new constitutional order would be established.
And sustaining that transition plan, which is so well thought out, is Madam Rajavi’s Ten Freedoms — a veritable Bill of Rights worthy of our Founding Fathers 250 years ago.
🚨 FREE IRAN ACTIVIST: WOMEN SHOULD HAVE THE FREEDOM TO LEAD – AND CHOOSE WHETHER TO WEAR THE HIJAB 🚨
Speaking with LindellTV’s @CaraCastronuova outside the United Nations, a Free Iran activist outlined the Iranian opposition’s position on gender equality and women’s rights.… pic.twitter.com/rGIYCZ7Ca9
— LindellTV (@RealLindellTV) September 25, 2026
They represent the essential building blocks of a new democracy.
No one has to guess how to get there. We just have to have the will to make it happen.
We need a transitional government-in-exile headed by Madam Rajavi. That is the exit ramp the American people are looking for!
The Iranian people have sacrificed in the streets. Their blood is flowing in the streets.
It is time the American people responded to their SOS! I assure you: Americans cannot give Iranians their freedom. Americans cannot and should not choose their leaders.
Only the Iranian opposition and the Iranian people together can accomplish that. But we can incubate a government-in-exile.
We can get the Resistance Units that have been fueled and supported by the MEK more support.
And that brings me back, my friends, to those voices — the voices that brought us here together today.
The voices from Tehran, from Tabriz, from Isfahan, from Shiraz, from every corner of Iran where men and women still cry out for freedom.
They want the world to remember this war is not about the Strait of Hormuz. This is a war about the freedom of the Iranian people!
My friends, do you hear their voices?
I do! Do you? So let us resolve to get to work and to get the help that the people in Iran need and that we must provide them immediately.
That is our mission. That is our goal. The transition plan is there. The Ten Freedoms are there. The leadership of the MEK and the NCRI are there. The American people are behind you.
Stand tall and make sure we never stop hearing the voices of the Iranian people!
Thank you.