addresses an international meeting honoring the 2026 International Women’s Day on February 21, 2026
At an international conference on February 21, 2026, held ahead of International Women’s Day, former Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison Linda Chavez stressed that the political debate on Iran has shifted from whether the clerical regime will fall to how a transition should be managed, arguing, “We are not talking about if there will be regime change; we know there will. The only questions are when and how.”
Chavez said the latest uprising, which she described as spreading across all 31 provinces, reflected both deep public anger over economic hardship and repression – especially against women – and the work of organized resistance networks already prepared to mobilize. She said the unrest “didn’t happen exactly spontaneously,” pointing instead to resistance movements inside Iran that were ready to bring others into the streets.
Chavez also warned against treating military escalation as a substitute for political transition, saying strikes might topple the regime but would not answer the central question of what would replace it. She dismissed monarchist restoration as a viable answer, asking what movement the former Shah’s son had built over decades and arguing that Iran needs “another movement, not just a single person.”
In contrast, she portrayed the NCRI as an organized political force and praised Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s leadership as rooted in a durable constituency, telling the audience she “deserves to lead” because she has followers and a long-standing movement behind her. Chavez also pushed back on claims that the MEK is Marxist, citing Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan and its support for equal opportunity and entrepreneurship “in a free market economy,” and closed by predicting that next year’s gathering could be held not in Paris, but “in Tehran.”
The full script of Linda Chavez’s speech follows:
#IWD2026 Conference – Women’s Leadership, an Imperative for a free Iran, a Democratic Republic
.@chavezlinda, Former Director of the White House office of Public Liaison: "We always talk of regime change but this time it is not if but when and how."#WomenForce4Change… pic.twitter.com/zJhvdb1zT9
— Women's Committee NCRI (@womenncri) February 21, 2026
Thank you. Thank you so much. This is always a very humbling experience for me. I have to tell you, I don’t think there is any other single event that I can think of where you have as many powerful women gathered in one place.
Not only our beloved Maryam Rajavi, but we have assembled here former heads of state, ministers, ambassadors, members of legislatures and Congress, all of them here to support women and the people of Iran.
Every year we talk about regime change. At least for the 15 years I’ve been coming to these, [we] always talk about regime change. But this year is different. We are not talking about if there will be regime change; we know there will. The only questions are when and how.
We have gone through periods of resistance in Iran from the beginning of the takeover by the mullahs of that country. We saw huge uprisings and the Green Movement in Iran in 2009. We saw people taking to the streets in 2022 after a young woman was killed because a few wisps of her hair were showing.
And this year, and at the end of last year, we saw literally a million people in the streets of Tehran. We saw people in the streets in every one of the 31 provinces in the country of Iran. The streets were flooded with people.
And what does the regime do when the people of Iran rise up? They do what they always do. They increase their repression. They kill, they maim, they torture, and the victims include not only men and women but children as well.
When we look at [the] resistance this last December and the month of January, you have to ask yourself: how did it happen? How did it come about? Why then? It happened for a lot of reasons, but it didn’t happen exactly spontaneously.
In fact, there were resistance movements within Iran ready to be able to go out into the streets and to gather others around them. And that is what happened. It happened because ordinary people were feeling the repression of the regime. People are unable to buy food; people do not have access to water. In an oil-rich country, you have problems with energy.
And you have the repression, particularly the repression of women. Women who are not allowed to even be in the streets, who are not allowed to do things unaccompanied, who are not allowed to pursue their life’s ambition, who are not allowed even to dress how they choose.
Finally, when this happens and you realize you don’t have enough money to be able to put food on the table, and you have all of your rights restricted, people say, “Enough! Enough is enough! We are going to rise up!”
Unfortunately, they rose up and they were killed by the thousands. And since then, the question throughout the world has been, “What’s going to come next? Are we going to see any change?”
.@chavezlinda: Maryam Rajavi deserves to lead because she has inspired followers, many of them women who lead, not just support from the sidelines. That is why this movement is powerful. It is not only a leader, but a third alternative and a plan of action for Iran’s future.…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) February 21, 2026
I can tell you, in the United States, every day I open the newspapers wondering whether those F-35s are going to be headed towards Iran to try to hit sites there. And I know there are a lot of people who think that will bring about regime change.
It will kill a lot of people. And it is conceivable that they will topple [the regime], or more likely that Khamenei and his counterparts will simply stick their tails between their legs and run to Russia with their millions, maybe billions of dollars.
But what will happen after? That is the question I think everyone needs to ask themselves. What is it that will replace this regime?
Now some in Washington, I know, think that maybe they can negotiate something. Maybe they can find some moderate leaders in the Iranian leadership class that they can bring in and install, and maybe they’ll be more reasonable, and maybe they won’t pursue nuclear weapons, and we’ll just work out a deal.
There are others who think that maybe we can pick who the leader is going to be. And we have this guy who’s been living in the States for forty-some years. He’s very well connected with other elites. But what has he been doing these last many decades?
Has he been out giving speeches and talking and trying to get the people of Iran to look to a future? Has he been gathering a movement of people who are committed to democracy and who want to see a free Iran that is different than the regime that preceded the mullahs? To my knowledge, not at all.
And there really does not seem to me—and I’ve been involved in this issue going back to the 90s—there doesn’t seem to me to be another movement, not just a single person, but a movement.
And with all due respect, Maryam Rajavi, you are a charismatic leader. But you deserve to lead because you have followers. Because there are people whom you inspire, many of them women. And women who do not just lick envelopes, as we say in the United States, and do the back-office stuff of politics, but who actually lead. And that is why I think your movement is so powerful.
It is also not just one person or a charismatic leader. It is an idea for the future of Iran. What you have done by creating a third alternative—not negotiations, not re-imposing someone related to someone who led the country, not even himself ever having been a leader—but instead, you have created a plan of action for the Iranian people.
In that plan of action, it is a combination not just of principles like those in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights, not just the kinds of concepts you would see in a constitution, but a whole policy prescription as well.
I was reading the New York Times, I think it was this week, and they were talking about who’s going to be the future. Is it going to be a former Nobel Peace Prize winner? Is it going to be the son of the Shah? Or is it going to be this “Marxist” organization, the MEK?
I found that very interesting because I have to tell you, if this were a Marxist organization, I would not be standing here right now.
I looked to Madame Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan. And one of the things that I see there is justice and equal opportunities in the realms of employment and entrepreneurship for all people of Iran in a free market economy.
So the lies that are told about this movement are extremely disturbing to me. And it is commendable that so many of you in this room have fought against those lies because those lies are corrosive. And we know who is telling those lies. It is the regime.
I’ve had people say to me, “You really shouldn’t be fooling around with those people. And they don’t have any support in Iran.” And I say, “That’s very interesting that they have no support in Iran, because I’ve seen the support, I’ve seen the pictures like we saw today.”
But more importantly, you know who thinks they have support in Iran? The mullahs think they do, which is why they put prices on the heads of people who support them.
I want to conclude by saying that, speaking as an American, I do not believe that we should arrogantly decide who it is the people of Iran should choose. I know who I prefer. But it is not up to me or anyone else except the people of Iran. And they are going to be the ones who choose the next leadership.
And in choosing that leadership, I think they will look to somebody who has been with the people, fighting for the people every day of her adult life, organizing a movement that has been out there fighting for the people of Iran for decades.
And that means that when we gather again next year, Maryam, we’re not going to be gathering in Paris. I think we are going to gather next year in Tehran.