From Exile to Occupation
After my family was forced to flee Iran due to my parents’ struggle against the newly established Islamic regime and their fight for the restoration of the monarchy, we were granted asylum in Norway. After many years, we later moved to Sweden. My early life was therefore shaped by two very different political realities: one country that had survived occupation and emerged free, and another that, in the eyes of millions of its citizens, had fallen under a new form of ideological occupation.
In Norway, I learned in school about Nazi Germany’s invasion of the country on April 9, 1940, and about the Norwegian resistance movement that followed. What left the deepest impression on me was not the military events themselves, but the moral choices that confronted individuals, institutions, and leaders under occupation. The price of freedom was extraordinarily high, yet the Norwegian people chose resistance over submission.
In this struggle, Norway’s king, Haakon VII, played a decisive role. When Nazi Germany attempted to legitimize its occupation by pressuring the king to appoint Vidkun Quisling as prime minister, Haakon VII refused. His decision was not symbolic alone; it set a moral boundary. By rejecting collaboration, the king made clear that legality, legitimacy, and national sovereignty could not be manufactured by force. The consequence was brutal retaliation by the occupiers, but also a stronger and more determined resistance.
From exile in the United Kingdom, King Haakon VII continued to lead. Through public statements, he urged the Norwegian people to persevere in the struggle for liberation. His leadership provided continuity and legitimacy at a time when the state itself had been dismantled by occupation. He became a unifying leader who sustained national resolve. In the fight for freedom, more than ten thousand Norwegians lost their lives. Their deaths were not the result of resistance, but of occupation.
The Return of National Resistance
Today, many Iranians believe that their country has experienced a comparable rupture. In 1979, Iran fell under the control of an Islamist regime that replaced national sovereignty with ideological rule. Since then, the regime’s policies have consistently prioritized Islamism and regime survival over the interests, security, and well-being of the Iranian nation. State institutions have been transformed into tools of repression, while dissent has been brutally suppressed.
As in occupied Norway, resistance in Iran did not emerge out of ideology alone. It emerged as a response to systematic repression, corruption, and violence. Over time, Iranians, much like Norwegians during World War II, have organized resistance networks, civil protests, and acts of defiance aimed at reclaiming their country and restoring national dignity.
In this struggle, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has served as an important source of inspiration and guidance. For decades, large segments of the Iranian population were exposed to sustained Islamist and Marxist disinformation campaigns directed against his father, the late Mohammad Reza Shah of Iran, and the Pahlavi dynasty as a whole. These narratives sought to delegitimize not only a political system, but the very idea of a secular and national Iranian state.
Over time, however, academic research, archival material, and serious journalistic work have exposed the scale and persistence of this disinformation. At the same time, the Crown Prince has consistently articulated a clear vision for Iran’s future - one grounded in democracy, secular governance, national sovereignty and Iran’s territorial integrity. His leadership has not been imposed, but earned through consistency, restraint, and a refusal to engage in factionalism. As a result, public trust and support for him have grown steadily.
Responsibility for Repression
Leadership in times of occupation and crisis is not measured by the absence of risk, but by the willingness to accept it. When Crown Prince Pahlavi called for mass protests against the Islamic regime on January 8 and 9, millions of Iranians responded across all of Iran’s provinces. They chanted his name, carried his portraits and shared his vision. These demonstrations were the largest in the history of the Islamic regime. The response from the authorities was a massacre.
According to reports, the regime slaughtered more than 33,000 peaceful protesters. Responsibility for this violence lies entirely with those who ordered, executed, and justified it. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand both history and moral responsibility.
This massacre carried out by the Islamic regime is in no way the responsibility of the Crown Prince, despite attempts by some journalists to frame it as such. For example, Germany’s public broadcaster ARD recently posed a question to the Crown Prince suggesting that he should bear some blame for the massacre in Iran, an implication that shifts responsibility away from the perpetrators and toward those who inspired peaceful resistance.
History offers clear guidance on this question. Just as Norway’s king inspired resistance without bearing responsibility for Nazi atrocities, Crown Prince Pahlavi has inspired resistance in Iran without bearing responsibility for the regime’s crimes. Leadership that calls for freedom does not cause repression; repression is the choice of those who fear freedom.
Like King Haakon VII, the Crown Prince is fulfilling a moral and patriotic duty by seeking to preserve the Iranian nation and protect future generations. And just as Nazi Germany bore full responsibility for the atrocities committed in Norway, it is the Islamic regime alone that bears full responsibility for the massacre of peaceful protesters in Iran.
Arvin Khoshnood
Political Scientist | Iran Expert
