“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets, the goal is to prepare to take and control the city centers.” Of on X Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the Shah of Iran who was deposed in 1979, tried to further stir up the protests in the country on Saturday morning.
Major demonstrations have been taking place in Iran for two weeks out of dissatisfaction with high inflation and the country’s dire economic situation. The protests were severely suppressed by the Iranian regime, resulting in at least 45 deaths. It is difficult to verify whether the demonstrators heed Pahlavi’s call: the internet in the country has been largely closed since Thursday evening.
In addition, there is a lot of uncertainty about the supporters of the 65-year-old ‘crown prince’ (as he likes to call himself these days) within Iran. Pahlavi was attending air force training in the United States – he is said to have made his first solo flight at the age of 11 – when the Iranian Revolution broke out in 1979. His family was driven out of the country by the supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and eventually ended up in the US via Egypt. After his father’s death in 1980, Pahlavi appointed himself shah.
Although he has not set foot on Iranian soil for over forty years, he has always been busy with his native country. After studying political science at the University of Southern California, he tried to form a government in exile. He also continued to speak out in interviews against the theocratic regime of the ayatollahs in Iran, but received little follow-up.
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Iran’s oil wealth
Pahlavi’s fame only rose when he became involved in the demonstrations in 2019, which also arose from dissatisfaction with the economic situation in Iran, and even more so when he spoke out about the demonstrations in 2022, which followed the death of Masha Amini. The 22-year-old woman died in September of that year after a violent arrest by the Iranian moral police for allegedly wearing her headscarf incorrectly.
During that period, Pahlavi was increasingly embraced by the West. He attended the annual Holocaust commemoration in Jerusalem in 2023 and was allowed to attend the security conference in Munich that same year. However, according to experts, his influence on the Iranian demonstrators remained limited. This is related to the memory of his father’s regime; Although he pursued pro-Western, modern and secular policies, he also led an authoritarian regime that included torture and abuse of power.
The Shah also profited handsomely from Iran’s oil wealth. Politico wrote in 2018 that Pahlavi still lives off the family wealth built up during that period, he does not have a paid job.
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No formal power
Still not all demonstrators are happy with Pahlavi’s support, who regularly thanks American President Donald Trump for his criticism of the Iranian regime. Opposition members within Iran fear that he is using the unrest in the country to seize power and restore the monarchy, and opinions are also divided about his visit to Israel in 2023. But there are also demonstrators who chant Pahlavi’s name on the streets, Iran expert Vali Nasr said earlier this week. NRC.
“I have trained all my life to serve my country. I am more ready than ever to enter Iran,” Pahlavi wrote this week on X. But even if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were deposed, as some demonstrators are calling for, Pahlavi’s return is uncertain. He has no formal power in Iran. For the time being, he still operates from his hometown of Potomac, in the American state of Maryland.
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