The Son Of Iran’s Last Shah Has Learned Some Things From Trump

Not that long ago, Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last shah of Iran, was considered a political amateur in world capitals.

Sure, he was handsome and erudite. Now and then, he would rear his head to call on U.S. and other leaders to dislodge the Islamist clerics who led the overthrow of his father in 1979. But while Iranians around the world knew Pahlavi’s name, he was one of multiple opposition figures, couldn’t claim to lead a serious movement and was lucky to get meetings with lawmakers.

That has all changed now, in part because his team has grown far more combative.

In recent years, Pahlavi aides and supporters have been using slash-and-burn tactics online and in real life to dominate the Iranian opposition and broader discourse inside and outside the country — a blueprint I’m told was partly inspired by President Donald Trump. The moves have unnerved even people accustomed to long-running infighting in Iran’s diaspora.

As his supporters have pursued these aggressive tactics, Pahlavi’s profile has reached new heights, a trend especially obvious since Israel’s war with Iran last June and amid recent protests in Iran. And with Trump threatening military strikes against Tehran, Pahlavi — who has spent most of his life in the U.S. — may soon get a shot at returning to his homeland and shaping its future. The possibility is so appealing to anguished Iranians, including in the diaspora, that some activists who don’t like his team’s tactics tell me they’ll still support Pahlavi if it helps end the Islamist regime.

One person familiar with Pahlavi’s inner circle told me their goal is to create exactly that dichotomy in people’s minds: Pahlavi or the regime.

The Pahlavi team’s strident approach today means the smallest criticism of Pahlavi is enough to get his backers to lash out. Iranian activists, including some who admire the 65-year-old Pahlavi on a personal level, have been threatened by his followers, often in misogynist and vulgar ways.

One person told me a Pahlavi supporter recently screamed in his face and left him feeling physically unsafe. Another said his family was doxxed by suspected Pahlavists. A former U.S. official, meanwhile, said of Pahlavi’s aides: “They scare me.” I granted them and others anonymity for their safety.

Pahlavi aides and backers have tried to sideline his potential opposition rivals, often by questioning their anti-regime bona fides. Their meddling was a major reason a coalition of Iranian opposition figures fell apart after just a few months in 2023, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Many of Pahlavi’s backers, who often call him “Prince,” “Crown Prince,” or, in the case of friends, just “RP,” cast him as the only legitimate voice of Iranians.

“This is addressed to those who chose to become part of the censorship and distortion machine against the voice of the nation: Your names have been recorded,” wrote Amir Etemadi, one of Pahlavi’s top aides, in January.

Pahlavi himself usually avoids the harsh rhetoric, saying he condemns political violence and intimidation. He also speaks loftily of a future democratic Iran where he may play a vague role. He has, however, started putting himself forward as the sole leader of the opposition. He also has become more partisan in the U.S. sense. He criticizes Democrats while praising Trump and the GOP. He has further linked himselfwith the Israeli government and spoken at conservative gatherings.

Pahlavi and his movement have become more organized and more able to draw crowds, as well as celebrity backers. He is eclipsing others in the Iranian opposition, including people imprisoned for defying the regime and the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a decades-old movement the U.S. previously listed as a terror group.

Pahlavi’s statements are believed to have helped fuel the recent protests in Iran, during which many demonstrators appear to have chanted his name. (Some Pahlavi critics blame him in part for the regime crackdown that killed many thousands of those protesters.) Polls in recent years suggest that Pahlavi has significant support in Iran, although it’s tough to poll there. In mid-February, Pahlavi drew an eye-popping crowd of 250,000 in Munich, Germany, as well as large gatherings in other cities around the world, to rally for regime change in Tehran.

Iran International, a major TV channel outside the country, has become very friendly toward Pahlavi, and there are reports of an Israeli-linked online campaign to promote Pahlavi. He’s finally getting meetings with some key global figures. That includes Trump envoy Steve Witkoff (who didn’t respond to my request for comment).

Pahlavi aides — including two of the most strident online, Saeed Ghasseminejad and Etemadi — did not reply to my requests for comment about their harsh approach and if it was part of a broader strategy. Pahlavi also did not reply to multiple requests for comment about the tone of his aides and supporters and his plans for Iran.

But through talks with people familiar with Pahlavi’s team and by reading some of Pahlavi aides’ past commentary, I’ve grown convinced that their approach is not an accident.

A second person who knows Pahlavi’s top aides told me that they have purposely adopted a strident stance because they believe it’s strategically smart: By insisting that Pahlavi be the focus of the opposition, his authority is undiluted by coalition politics, the message he sends to the regime can be more disciplined and regime opponents can have one person to rally around. A third person who knows Pahlavi’s group said they saw Trump’s hard-charging approach, especially his use of social and other media, as a template, even though Pahlavi was less accustomed to the spotlight than Trump.

The first person familiar with Pahlavi’s inner circle said his aides were pushing his supporters to remove references to Iran’s “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement from their social media handles because they believe it is associated with a leftist, feminist agenda that could detract from nationalist slogans they believe are more unifying and more favorable to Pahlavi in this moment. (I couldn’t verify whether anyone had actually removed such a reference from their account.)

Several analysts argued Pahlavi’s growing popularity may have more to do with how desperate Iranians have become to topple the regime. Iranians are sick of the regime’s oppression, its economic errors and Iran’s global isolation. Pahlavi is a household name they can cling to in a dark time. The TV and online influence campaigns backing him certainly haven’t hurt.

The Trump administration should take notice, some analysts said. “Washington cannot afford to keep making the perfect the enemy of the good on Iran policy,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

How charged are these times? Some of my fellow Iranians have urged me not to write this column, despite agreeing the Pahlavi movement’s tone is often harsh and suspecting he doesn’t have much of a ground game inside Iran. (From what U.S. officials tell me, those are fair suspicions.) Why, these Iranians ask, write anything that might damage Pahlavi’s reputation when Iranians have so few options at this critical moment?

Pahlavi has argued the regime may be using online manipulation to fuel the attacks people blame on his backers. “They always try to play the divide and rule game,” he said at this year’s Munich Security Conference.

It’s likely the regime has infiltrated the pro-Pahlavi ranks. But a good deal of the harsh language comes from known individuals — not fake bots — as well as some of Pahlavi’s advisers. He has not been able to rein in the movement’s malicious actors, nor has he sidelined his aides. (His wife, too, has faced criticism for some of her rhetoric. She did not reply to a request for comment.)

“The way he runs his organization says something about the way he might run a country,” said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist with the center-left Brookings Institution in Washington.

Pahlavi has said tens of thousands of would-be defectors in Iran’s military and government have contacted him — a claim hard to verify.

His movement’s pugilism may make some would-be defectors think twice about joining him, undermining his ability to consolidate support. That’s especially the case when some Pahlavi backers assert that no one in the current Islamist regime will be spared or chant against so-called leftists and reformists.

The last person who led an overthrow of the Iranian government was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the cleric who ousted Pahlavi’s father. Khomeini was willing to ally with many groups — secularists, communists and more — to oppose the shah. It was only after the monarch fell that Khomeini vanquished coalition partners and ushered in Islamist rule. He also broke his promise to retire to a life of studying Islam instead of taking over as Iran’s leader.

Pahlavi hasn’t been in Iran in nearly 50 years; he was in the U.S. when his father fled. Over the decades he has lived mainly in America and styled himself in different ways, including as a devotee of nonviolent civil disobedience. It’s possible, some Iran analysts mused, that Pahlavi won’t fire his current aides over their rough tactics because they have helped raise his profile in ways his past advisers didn’t.

Pahlavi allies have crafted a hefty plan for a post-Islamist Iran, called the Iran Prosperity Project. It envisions an emergency phase in the wake of the regime’s fall during which Pahlavi and his aides say keeping the country stable will be crucial. But that emergency phase plan also gives the leader of the transition — presumably Pahlavi — significant power that makes some activists nervous.

While Pahlavi has long called for a secular democracy in Iran, he has also said Iranians should decide what type of government they want. The Prosperity Project envisions Iranians eventually having a choice between a “democratic monarchy” and a “democratic republic.”

Whether Pahlavi returns to Iran could be up to Trump.

The U.S. president has built up the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and threatened Iran’s leadership. (In January, he promised Iranian protesters that “help is on its way,” but the U.S. didn’t stop the slaughter.)

Trump could still choose to strike a deal with the existing regime. Or he could force a change to its top ranks but leave most of it in place, as he did in Venezuela.

Trump has suggested Pahlavi has little backing inside Iran, while also saying he “seems very nice.”

Pahlavi isn’t giving up on Trump. Should Trump fulfill his pledge to help Iranians, Pahlavi said in Munich, history will record him as among “the world’s greatest heroes.”