Arash Azizi, the author of What Iranians Want<\/a> and a supporter of an Iranian Republic, says the scale of this repression is unprecedented. \u201cThe impact has been disastrous and numbing. We are still digesting it. We are talking about the most brutal actions by the Islamic Republic since the 1980s. The vast majority of Iranians do not remember anything like this. It\u2019s now emerging that we almost all knew someone who was killed.\u201d<\/p>\n The necessity to reflect collectively on such a tragedy inside Iran is made more difficult by a weeklong blackout of communications. It leaves the opposition grieving, in disarray, and still bitterly divided over the wisdom of foreign-backed revolt and how change can be achieved.<\/p>\n Some cling to the hope that Donald Trump and Sen Lindsey Graham will still make good on their promise to help the revolution and whatever help comes has only been postponed. Others accuse Trump of betrayal and of offering false hope, urging the protesters on to the streets only for them to be mown down. Trump clings to the threadbare excuse<\/a> that the regime has promised not to execute the protesters.<\/p>\n The inquest will be most intense around the role of Reza Pahlavi<\/a>, the 65-year-old exiled son of the former shah of Iran. Even anti-monarchists admit chants for the return of the shah have featured strongly, even if they differ on the depth of that support and its meaning. In the words of Mehrdad Khamenei, writing on the news website Akhbar Rooz, \u201cit is a paradox of the opposition that, unable to produce liberation, [it] has taken refuge in the reproduction of the past\u201d.<\/p>\n Rouzbeh Parsi, an adjunct lecturer at Sweden\u2019s Lund University, says Pahlavi is for many Iranians born after the shah\u2019s repressive rule little more than a convenient blank page. \u201cThe calls for the return of a monarch is a sign of desperation on the part of some protesters, who under the repression of the Islamic Republic have not been able to coalesce around any single political figure inside the country.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the striking aspects of Pahlavi is that in interview he is unfailingly polite, cautious to the point of robotic, and seemingly unexceptional in his stated centrist ambitions to help bring about a modern Iran, ideally through a referendum. He has three daughters raised in the west, of which the oldest, Noor, cultivates her Instagram accounts with 1.3 million followers, balancing images of her luxurious modern lifestyle with articulate calls for her father to be given the chance to restore Iran\u2019s freedom.<\/p>\n Reza Pahlavi (right) with his family, including his father, the shah of Iran, and mother, Farah Pahlavi, in April 1979. Photograph: Jayne Kamin\/AP<\/p>\n In interview, Pahlavi avoids criticising his father\u2019s rule, which was brought to an end by the revolution of 1979. Pressed, he says his father took on too much responsibility, but that Iran was on course to become South Korea, instead of resembling North Korea.<\/p>\n In contrast, some of Pahlavi\u2019s closest supporters appear to be, online at least, intolerant, rightwing and vengeful. After half a century of bloodshed and sacrifice, perhaps that is not surprising. Iranian exiles are inevitably deeply invested one way or another and Pahlavi has come to personify all that remains unresolved about Iran if the current regime was to collapse.<\/p>\n Azizi, a long-term opponent of a return to monarchy, argues that Pahlavi and his advisers have a lot to explain. He said: \u201cHe now faces a huge credibility challenge. He asked people to come out and they did, but he did not seem to have a plan to follow through. He called for strikes that did not take place. He repeatedly promised intervention by Trump but not only did it not come, Trump refused to meet him and openly cast doubt on his chances even if he said some nice things about him personally.\u201d<\/p>\n Pahlavi had also courted the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting Israel in 2023, but now Israeli officials are briefing on Netanyahu\u2019s scepticism about Pahlavi\u2019s credentials and leadership skills.<\/p>\n The tensions over Israel\u2019s refusal to intervene is apparent among some of his closest advisers such as Saeed Ghasseminejad. On 15 January, he wrote on X: \u201cIf Israel remains on the sidelines while the massacre and execution of Iranians continues, it will shape Iranians\u2019 perception of the Jewish state for generations. However, if Israel acts on the explicit promise Prime Minister Netanyahu made weeks ago and helps Iranians bring down the regime, a new era of Israeli-Iranian alliance under the \u2018Cyrus Accords\u2019 framework [a proposed peace agreement] will emerge, one where the sky\u2019s the limit for economic, security, and military partnership. The regime\u2019s back is to the wall, the decision is Israel\u2019s to make and it will define Bibi\u2019s legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n Pahlavi\u2019s allies seek vengeance, not just against the Iranian state but against those that called for negotiations with that state.<\/p>\n Women in the city of Holon, Israel, rally in support of the Iranian people and against the suppression of protest. Photograph: Yael Guisky Abas\/Sopa Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Amir Etemadi, another adviser, wrote: \u201cThe architects of the slaughter of the Iranian people are Khamenei, his underlings and his mercenaries; and their accomplices in crime are the apologists who, under the guise of analysts and journalists, whitewashed the reformist branch of the Islamic Republic time and again, enabling its greatest atrocities to unfold during the eras of Rouhani and Pezeshkian. You\u2019re done for. Every last one of you \u2013 wherever you may be in the world.\u201d Others promised that the \u201cReza boys\u201d were coming to get the defenders of the regime.<\/p>\n During the 1979 revolution, the many rivulets of opposition met to form one mighty river to overcome the shah. This time the tributaries inside and outside Iran remain separated.<\/p>\n It has been a perennial problem since the late 90s. As the Iranian elite started to fracture, and protests grew, Pahlavi made several attempts to build opposition coalitions, including the National Council of Iran for Free Elections, launched in 2013. Most have struggled with internal disagreements. The diverse coalition formed at Georgetown University during the \u201cwomen, life, freedom<\/a>\u201d movement in February 2023 rapidly fell apart. The Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion, one of the six-strong council, without naming Pahlavi, wrote: \u201cImposing opinions is not democratic and the consensus of a group\u2019s members, not just one member, is a precondition of a democratic movement.\u201d<\/p>\n Pahlavi\u2019s critics also challenge his personal capacity to lead, saying he has been erratic about his envisaged role and the need for foreign intervention.<\/p>\n Mostly Pahlavi describes himself as an honest broker, above the fray, promising to act with absolute neutrality to secure a transition. But at other times his aides appear to insist they alone can commandeer the protests and act as if Pahlavi aspires to be something of a ruling monarch on the model of his father.<\/p>\n Protests in Barcelona in solidarity with the demonstrations in Iran on 13 January. Photograph: Marc Asensio\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Pahlavi also faces criticism for urging Iranians on to the streets without a realistic plan. Insisting he was prepared to die for freedom, he declared: \u201cAll institutions and apparatuses that are responsible for the regime\u2019s false propaganda and the severing of communications are considered legitimate targets.\u201d The option of layered, non-violent resistance was spurned.<\/p>\n Asked by CBS on 12 January whether he had to bear some responsibility for the deaths, he responded: \u201cThis is a war and war has casualties\u201d \u2013 words that in isolation sound callous. Pahlavi\u2019s claim<\/a> that 50,000 members of the security services were primed to defect also proved optimistic. He revised the claim, saying: \u201cThousands of military and police forces did not go to work so as not to participate in the suppression.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Reza](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768629248_369_945.jpg\")
Reza Pahlavi: is the last shah’s son a viable opposition leader for Iran? \u2013\u00a0video explainer<\/p>\n![\"What](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768629248_775_1280.jpg\")
What are we hearing from inside Iran? | The Latest<\/p>\n