Great people of Iran, global and regional developments have placed a new opportunity before us to reclaim and save our beloved Iran.
Today, the Islamic Republic is weaker than at any time before, and more helpless in the face of crises. Amid all this, the regime's greatest weakness is its lack of legitimacy and popular acceptance. Our Iran is rich in natural resources and human wealth, and its people should never have to worry about water and bread, medicine and healthcare, or fuel and electricity in the heat and cold; they should not have to earn their wages in rials only to struggle through life against a seventy-thousand-toman dollar and runaway inflation.
The ever-growing problems you face stem from an incompetence and corruption woven into the very fabric of this regime. The Islamic Republic simply lacks the will and the capacity to govern the country and provide for the most basic needs of its people. Those who once promised the Iranian nation free water and electricity have instead dried out our wealthy land and dragged it back into an age of darkness, replacing the vision of our great civilization with a great terror.
But now, in this critical period, in this new opportunity, two paths lie before us: either we stand by and wait, hoping that others will shape the change we want on our behalf; or, with national resolve and will, we become the driving force of change ourselves, and make the will of the Iranian nation prevail — both in our homeland and in the think tanks and corridors of power around the world. My choice, without hesitation, is the second.
In accordance with your wishes, I have declared my readiness to lead this change and to guide the period of transition. My strength comes from your power. I will channel the energy I draw from your continued struggle and rightful protests toward establishing a national government, and toward securing the widest possible international support to achieve it.
Now is the time to choose. Let us move forward with firm resolve toward a bright, free, prosperous, and flourishing future.
Long live Iran.