Reza Pahlavi: Iran’s Reluctant Prince

Reza Pahlavi, the heir to Iran’s Peacock Throne, looked for the first eight days of January to be the star of his own comeback film. The Islamic Republic, which ended his father’s reign in the 1979 revolution, was wobbling and lurching as the value of the rial collapsed. Furious merchants in Tehran and other big cities shut down the bazaars. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians streamed into the streets, with many shouting “Javid shah”: Long live the king.

All of this was different from previous uprisings. When Iranians demonstrated against their regime in 2009, 2019, and 2022, the country’s powerful merchant class joined reluctantly and not en masse. The economy teetered during these bouts of unrest, but this time it was in free fall. And this time, the American president stepped forward to offer support. If the regime shot peaceful protesters, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “the United States of America will come to their rescue.”

The Iranian regime seemed to be near its end, and the crown prince looked like the only plausible answer to a pressing question: Who comes next? Pahlavi himself appeared to accept this mantle. He called for two days of demonstrations on January 8 and 9 at the height of the protests, and Iranians seemed to heed his call, flooding the streets in unprecedented numbers. “The bond between me and the Iranian people is not new,” he said at a January 16 press conference in Washington. “It’s been with me since birth and it cannot be broken. Even in exile, I’ve pledged my life to the service of the Iranian nation.”

Those are bold words from a man who left Iran for the last time at the age of 17, one year before the revolution, and now lives in the suburbs of America’s capital. Millions of Iranians consider this paunchy 65-year-old to be the heir to the dynasty that his grandfather, Reza, founded a century ago. But Pahlavi over the years has been ambivalent about whether he seeks to restore the monarchy. For decades, he has committed only to leading the country’s transition to democracy, even though he has sometimes presented himself as the shah-in-waiting lately.

Now, after the regime cracked down