Iranian Shah’s son Pahlavi: Controversial hope for the opposition

He is the son of the last Shah and would like to organize a regime change in Iran: Reza Pahlavi wants to unite the opposition and is planning the time after the mullahs in a democratic system. But he is controversial.

When Reza Pahlavi gives interviews in Europe, he doesn’t like to talk about his father. The 62-year-old son of the last Shah of Persia does not want to give the impression that he is coming as heir to the throne. Nothing is further from his mind, he says in an interview tagesschau.dethan bringing the monarchy back to Iran once more.

Pahlavi defines his role differently. He wants to bring together the divided opposition against the mullahs’ regime. “That is the point on which the opposition can agree.” The existing political differences of opinion could then be discussed later in a constituent assembly.

Contact with the opposition never broke off

There is still a long way to go before that, Pahlavi has no illusions about that. The task now is to organize the regime change. He wants to prepare the end of the Islamic Republic from abroad, with as many currents of exiled Iranians as possible. “That’s what I’m concentrating on now,” he says. Together with friends in exile and the dissidents at home in Iran, he wants to ensure a peaceful transition.

The former crown prince speaks of home. But he has not been to Iran since his father, the Shah, was forced to flee almost 45 years ago. He went to Washington, trained as a fighter pilot in the US Army and says today that he never broke off contact with the opposition in Iran.

Concept for a post-mullah Iran

Ten days ago, Pahlavi made a well-received appearance at the Munich Security Conference. He used the international podium to present his concept for a post-mullah Iran. A democratic constitutional state is to emerge from the dictatorship of religious rulers, with equal rights for women and men and with a constitution based on the UN Human Rights Convention.

He came to Munich to set the course with other members of the opposition. “We are here to pave the way for an interim government to do its job,” explains Pahlavi.

Cooperation with the human rights activist Alinejad

The Shah’s son is in Munich with a team: Masih Alinejad, the Iranian women’s rights activist and journalist, supports Pahlavi. For months she has been in exile in America, ensuring that videos about the uprisings in Iran are distributed all over the world on social networks. “The headscarf is the regime’s Berlin Wall,” emphasizes Alinejad. “If the headscarf requirement falls, the regime will fall.”

Again and again she posts videos in which women tear the hated scarf from their heads. And videos of maltreated and abused women who, according to the moral guardians, had not tied their headscarves correctly.

It is not obvious that the radical human rights activist and the Shah’s son would team up. “We put our political differences of opinion aside,” she explains in an interview in Munich tagesschau.de. “We are united and working together.” This is exactly what is worrying the regime in Tehran. “They see us united against the dictatorship, despite the different political positions we have,” says the human rights activist.

Criticism of Pahlavi from anti-monarchists and leftists

However, the new coalition is not without controversy. Anti-monarchists and left-wing groups in the Iranian opposition think little of the Shah’s son’s new role. It is criticized that he never distanced himself from his father’s brutal methods of repression, from the crimes of torture and human rights violations in the 1970s. Pahlavi responds to the allegations that no one should be held responsible for what the parents did.

Especially the younger ones in the Iranian protest movement think that Pahlavi is not the right man – not even for the transition.

Designate members of the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists

During his two-day visit to Brussels, Pahlavi wants to demand more support from the Europeans. He demands that the EU classify the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as terrorists. This is the only way to divert the helpers of the mullahs’ regime from their course.

The members of the Revolutionary Guard should have an incentive to switch sides. Pahlavi is convinced that if at least some of them distance themselves, sooner or later Islamic rule will falter.