He has been in exile for nearly 50 years. His father — the Shah of Iran — was so widely hated that millions took to the streets in 1979, forcing him from power. However, Iran’s Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi, is trying to position himself as a player in his country’s future.
Pahlavi managed to galvanize protesters into the streets on Thursday evening, in a major escalation of protests sweeping Iran. Initially fueled by the Islamic Republic's dire economic situation, the demonstrations have become a serious challenge to the theocracy, which has been battered for years by nationwide protests and a 12-day war in June, launched by Israel, during which the US bombed nuclear enrichment facilities.
What remains unknown is how much real support the 65-year-old Pahlavi, who lives in exile in the US, has within his own country. Do the protesters want the return of the Peacock Throne, as his father's rule was known? Or are the protesters simply seeking any alternative that is not Iran's Shiite theocracy?
Pahlavi issued calls, rebroadcast by satellite channels and Persian-language websites abroad, for Iranians to return to the streets on Friday evening.
“Over the past decade, the protest movement and dissident community in Iran have become increasingly nationalist in tone and content,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is under sanctions by Tehran.
“The more the Islamic Republic has failed, the more its antithesis has strengthened. … The success of the crown prince and his team has been in creating a stark contrast between the normalcy of what was and the promise of what could be, against the nightmare and present state that is the reality for so many Iranians.”
Pahlavi's profile rose again during the first term of US President Donald Trump. However, Trump and other world leaders have been cautious about openly embracing him, due to many cautionary examples in the Middle East and beyond, where Western governments have placed their trust in exiled figures long cut off from their countries.
Iranian state media, which for years has mocked Pahlavi as out of touch and corrupt, blamed "monarchist terrorist elements" for Thursday night's protests, during which vehicles were burned and police kiosks were attacked.
Born in luxury
Born on October 31, 1960, Pahlavi lived in a world of extreme luxury as the crown prince of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Mohammad Reza had inherited the throne from his father, an army officer who seized power with British support. Mohammad Reza's rule was consolidated by a CIA-backed coup in 1953, and he worked closely with the Americans, who sold the autocratic ruler billions of dollars in weapons and used Iran to spy for the Soviet Union.
Reza Pahlavi was educated at the school that bore his name, the Reza Pahlavi School, built within the walls of the Niavaran Palace in northern Tehran. A biographer of his father noted that the crown prince once played rock music in the palace during a New Year's visit to Tehran by then-US President Jimmy Carter.
But the fall of the Peacock Throne was imminent. While the Shah benefited from rising oil prices in the 1970s, deep economic inequality spread during his rule, and the infamous SAVAK intelligence service became known for torturing dissidents.
Millions of people across the country took part in protests against the Shah, bringing together secular leftists, labor unions, professionals, students, and Muslim clerics. As the crisis reached its peak, the Shah was condemned for his inaction and poor decisions, while secretly battling a terminal cancer.
In 1978, Crown Prince Reza left his homeland for flight school at a US air base in Texas. The following year, his father fled Iran at the start of what became known as the Islamic Revolution. Shiite clerics gradually ousted other anti-shah factions, establishing a new theocratic government that executed thousands of people after the revolution and remains one of the world’s most execution-prone regimes.
After his father's death, a royal court in exile announced that Reza Pahlavi assumed the role of shah on October 31, 1980, his 20th birthday.
“I can understand and share your suffering and your inner anguish,” Pahlavi said, addressing Iranians in a speech at the time. “I shed the tears that you must hide. But I am sure that there is light beyond the darkness. Deep in your hearts you can be convinced that this nightmare, like others in our history, will end.”
Years in exile
But what followed were nearly five decades in exile. Pahlavi tried to gain influence from abroad. In 1986, The Washington Post reported that the CIA had supplied the prince’s allies with “a miniaturized television transmitter for a secret 11-minute broadcast” to Iran from Pahlavi, pirating the signal of two Islamic Republic stations.
"I will return and together we will pave the way for the nation's happiness and prosperity through freedom," Pahlavi is said to have declared in that broadcast.
This did not happen. Pahlavi lived mainly abroad, in the United States, between Los Angeles and Washington, while his mother, Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi, lived in Paris.
Circles of staunch Iranian monarchists in exile have long cherished the dream of restoring the Pahlavi dynasty to power. But Pahlavi has been hampered in broadening his support by several factors: bitter memories of his father's rule; the perception that he and his family are disconnected from the reality of the country; and repression within Iran, which aims to silence any dissent.
At the same time, younger generations in Iran, born decades after the Shah's rule ended, have grown up under a different experience: social restrictions and brutal repression by the Islamic Republic, as well as economic turmoil caused by international sanctions, corruption and mismanagement.
Pahlavi has tried to make a voice heard through videos on social media, while Persian-language news channels such as Iran International have highlighted his calls for protests. The channel has also broadcast QR codes that lead to information for members of the security forces inside Iran who are willing to cooperate with him.
Mahmood Enayat, the general director of Volant Media, the owner of Iran International, said the channel broadcast messages from Pahlavi and others "for free," "as part of our mission to support Iranian civil society."
In interviews in recent years, Pahlavi has floated the idea of a constitutional monarchy, perhaps with an elected rather than hereditary ruler. But he has also stressed that the decision rests with the Iranian people.
“This regime is simply irreformable, because its nature, its DNA, is such that it cannot be reformed,” Pahlavi told the Associated Press in 2017. “People have given up on the idea of reform and think there has to be fundamental change. Now, how this change can happen, that is the big question.”
He has also faced criticism for his support for and from Israel, particularly after the June war.
"My focus now is the liberation of Iran, and I will find any means I can, without compromising national interests and independence, with anyone who is willing to give us a hand, whether it's the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel or anyone else," he said in 2017.
