{"id":241936,"date":"2026-01-16T21:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/241936\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T21:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:30:08","slug":"son-of-former-shah-says-he-is-uniquely-positioned-to-lead-iran-as-he-predicts-end-of-regime-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/241936\/","title":{"rendered":"Son of former shah says he is \u2018uniquely positioned\u2019 to lead Iran as he predicts end of regime | Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran\u2019s former pro-western monarch, has predicted the country\u2019s Islamic regime will fall and claimed he is \u201cuniquely\u201d placed to head a successor government.<\/p>\n

His bid to assume the leadership of a possible new Iran follows weeks of mass protests<\/a> that have left thousands dead after being brutally suppressed by security forces.<\/p>\n

His credentials are certain to be challenged by other opponents of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei\u2019s regime, given Pahlavi has not been in Iran since his family fled the country at the beginning of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Many question his level of popular support, even though his name has been chanted at some protests.<\/p>\n

Calling on the west to help unseat Khamenei, Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Pahlavi said on Friday that the regime was nevertheless doomed to collapse with or without such assistance.<\/p>\n

\"RezaReza Pahlavi: is the last shah’s son a viable opposition leader for Iran? \u2013\u00a0video explainer<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranian people are taking decisive actions on the ground, it is now time for the international community to join them fully,\u201d he told reporters at a news conference in Washington.<\/p>\n

He said foreign involvement did not require \u201cboots on the ground\u201d but instead \u201ctargeted intervention\u201d that could weaken the regime\u2019s repressive apparatus, such as targeting the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they need from the world is resolute, targeted support to protect lives, amplify their voices and hasten the collapse that is already on the way,\u201d he said. \u201cBut let me be clear, with or without the world\u2019s help, the regime will fall. It will fall sooner, and more lives will be saved if the world turns its words into action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pahlavi said 12,000 protesters had been killed over 48 hours as security forces conducted a bloody crackdown against demonstrations that have swept the country since 28 December. Human rights groups have confirmed lower figures but still put the death toll in thousands.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump had vowed that \u201chelp is on the way\u201d if the regime continued to kill protesters, or carried out executions of those detained. But he retreated after warnings from the US\u2019s Middle East allies<\/a> that military intervention could trigger regional instability. Posting on his Truth Social network on Friday, Trump thanked the regime for allegedly cancelling a wave of scheduled executions.<\/p>\n

Large-scale anti-government protests have been carried out across Iran since late last year. Photograph: AP<\/p>\n

\u201cI greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Pahlavi spoke out after protesters chanted his name and \u201clong live the shah\u201d at recent protests \u2013 an ironic development given that the monarchical regime of his father, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was overthrown after months of similar mass demonstrations and complaints of torture and human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

He avoided giving a clear answer when asked by the Guardian if he intended to re-establish a monarchy, but said he had a \u201ccomprehensive plan for an orderly transition, which is ready to be implemented immediately\u201d. It would include referendums to establish the form of a successor government, but he refused to rule out a monarchical restoration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am uniquely positioned to ensure a stable transition,\u201d he said \u201cThat\u2019s the verdict delivered loudly and clearly by the people in the face of bullets.\u201d<\/p>\n

He claimed \u201clarge segments\u201d of the security forces had already refused to fire on the population and \u201cwhispered their loyalty to me\u201d.<\/p>\n

He referred to \u201cthe bond between me and the Iranian people\u201d \u2013 a phrase redolent of his father\u2019s rhetoric \u2013 and said: \u201cIt\u2019s been with me since birth, and it cannot be broken, even in exile.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran\u2019s former pro-western monarch, has predicted the country\u2019s Islamic regime will fall and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-241936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}