For decades, Reza Pahlavi has lived far away from his homeland in exile and was looking for signs of a weakness to use in Iranian Islamic regime that replaced his father, the last Shah.
Most of the time he was a peripheral figure, which was accused by critics of being credible and unable to be able to form the theocratic leaders, who took power in 1979. Now that Israeli bombs rained to the Islamic Republic and the regime is locked back in a struggle for its survival, he bets that his moment may finally be able to arrive.
“This is the first time in all the years that we can see that the competitive conditions are more chance for changes,” Pahlavi told Financial Times.
Since Israel started his war against Iran on Friday, Pahlavi, the regime’s highest opponent in exile, has confiscated the moment to demand the Iranians, to stand out and to regain Iran. He has repeated Benjamin Netanyahus his own attempts to cut an uprising Iranthat led to many Iranians suspect that the Israeli prime minister urges the change of regime.
So far, however, there is no signs that one of their calls is observed. The long -difficult disillusionment of the Iranians with their leaders is initially replaced by their own survival streams and their anger in the direction of Israeli Bombs.
Vali Nasr, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said that the mood has become increasingly anti-Israeli, “regardless of whether they are pro regime, anti-regime” was classified as nationalism.
“There will be a settlement for the Islamic Republic.
The regime has been fighting public violations of the anger for years, which increased under a aspirant, youthful population, of decades of oppression rule, isolation and economic difficulties. Frustration has exploded onto the street in the past two decades with increasing frequency.
Millions of people protested against the “green movement” in 2009. Three years ago, young women and men showed in the Iranian cities and defiantly demanded an end to the senior leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenis rule after the 22-year-old’s death Mahsa Amini in police custody after she had been arrested because she hadn’t worn her hijab properly.
But on every occasion, the regime brutally laid down the protests, while sometimes small concessions made to relieve domestic pressure.
In the meantime, no structured internal opposition could mobilize.
The authorities sniff every reference to organized dissent, prison activists, critics and former regime loyalists who had opposed the system.
Pahlavi, who has not returned to Iran since 1978 when he was 17 years old to study in America, tried to take advantage of the gap to say that the regime’s opponents speak of its base in the USA. Now, he said, he offered himself as a “transition leader” of a secular, democratic alternative to the republic.
However, many Iranian experts are deeply skeptical.
Analysts say that Pahlavi has a certain support in Iran because he sparked frustrations with the regime and nostalgia for the pre -revolutionary era. But the extent of this support is ambient, and the Iranian diaspora has long been of internal divisions and accusations that it is not in contact.
After Amini’s death, Pahlavi and others in exile opposition saw a similar moment to urge themselves to change the regime with the protests “women, life, freedom”. But the diaspora quickly failed when the leading figures made up each other, the protests were crushed and the banished opposition returned to the political margins.
The bombing of Israel today is a much serious threat, but experts said that the opportunities were initially against a fragmented opposition.
“In order to start a revolution or change of regime without the use of US troops, you need charisma, you need an organization. You need people who are ready to fight for you in Iran,” said Mohsen Milani, author of author of author of The rise of Iran and the rivalry with the USA in the Middle East.
“You have to make an acceptable vision popular for the future and you have to be able to form a broad national coalition against the established regime. I have seen very little evidence of this.”
He added that the attack of Israel had expanded the cracks within the opposition: “Some are against them, while many of Mr. Pahlavi’s supporters have expressed support.”
“There are many people in Iran who also oppose the Islamic Republic and paid their lives and livelihood,” said Milani, professor at the University of South Florida. “It is difficult for me to see how they just disappear and take care of someone else.”
The additional risk of Pahlavi, who met Netanyahu in 2023 in Israel in 2023, is that he is seen as an Iranian employee and eroded support in the Republic, say analysts.
The 64-year-old insisted that the Iranians were “smart enough” to know that this is not “Israel’s war with Iran”.
“The only traitor here is really khameni,” he said.
Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an Iranian-American academic based in the USA, even said in a scenario in which Israel and the USA and the USA defeated it Iran and tried to bring Pahlavi to power that history would not end there.
“In view of the degree of political polarization in the country … many will see him as a doll of the Israelis and the Americans.”
The most organized opposition is the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a banished group that is supported by Iran Hawks in the USA such as the experienced Republican John Bolton. In the 1980s, Iraq supported it with Iran in its war, and the Islamic regime often accuses of shooting protests and instability and working with Israel.
However, analysts say that the militant movement, which is often referred to as a cult, is detested and feared in Iran, where it is accused of killing civil servants and civilians. It is unlikely that it will achieve popular support, they say.
“You can send your people to cause disaster in the country,” said Boroujerdi. “But the main question is really: what force does this nationwide muscle and organizational support and the network have to do something effective?”
As a result, analysts say that there is no obvious alternative to the republic inside or outside Iran. But what could change the domestic landscape are defects from the regime, said Boroujerdi, including the army and the mighty revolutionary guard.
“The main point (is). Boroujerdi said.” From that moment we see no serious signs of this elite defect. ”
However, the Republic is in an unknown area, with the Israeli strike the top ranks of its military, his intelligence network deeply infiltrated and Netanyahu did not rule out to murder Khamenei.
The NASR said Iran could have a “Yeltsin” moment in relation to Boris Yeltsin, which triggered the end of the Soviet Union and became the first elected president in Russia.
“What people will attract is someone who will turn on the light that is ordered and stabilized the relationships with the outdoor area,” he said. “That would gather the bureaucracy.”
The greatest fear of the Iranians would be the fragmentation of the multi-ethnic nation of 90 million people, after seeing the slaughter in neighboring Iraq after the 2003 invasion of the USA that dictator Saddam Hussein fell, as well as civil wars, which in Syria and Libya pursued the popular uprisings and Libya in 2011.
Milani said that these conflicts and the Iranians’ own experiences with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 had the middle class – the main driver of change – if there are any regulations for changing regime.
“You have become much more reluctant to participate, unless you have a certain degree of assurance that what the Islamic Republic will replace would be better than what we have today,” he said.
