Iran has now entered its seventeenth day of large anti-regime protests. Dozens of protesters have been killed, many more wounded or arrested, and the Islamic Republic has once again answered peaceful dissent with bullets, batons, and fear. Yet amid the familiar images of repression, one fact has become impossible to ignore: crowds across Iran are openly chanting the name of Reza Pahlavi, calling for the return of the monarchy.
This did not come out of nowhere.
For Iranians, this moment has been a long time coming. Support for the Pahlavi legacy did not emerge overnight. As early as 2012, Western reporting noted a surprising rehabilitation of the late Shah among young Iranians. By 2015, journalists were documenting a growing fascination with Shah-era symbols, memorabilia, and history. What we are witnessing today is not a sudden mood swing, but the public eruption of convictions that have matured quietly under four decades of repression.
The Regime’s Story Is No Longer Believed
The first reason is historical clarity. After more than forty years of Islamic Republic propaganda, many Iranians no longer accept the regime’s portrayal of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi as a tyrant, a foreign puppet, or a ruler who clung to power through mass bloodshed. Serious historical scholarship has dismantled many of these claims, showing how they were exaggerated, distorted, or deliberately constructed to legitimize the 1979 revolution.
This includes long-standing myths about events such as “Black Friday” in September 1978, where inflated death tolls became political weapons rather than historical fact. For many Iranians, discovering that they were lied to, about their past as well as their present, has been a political awakening.
Iranians have also reassessed the role of the West. Declassified material and scholarly analysis indicate that Western governments were aware of the Shah’s terminal illness and quietly distanced themselves at a decisive moment, helping to collapse Iran’s constitutional order. His exile and medical treatment were shaped less by care than by calculation, an episode remembered in Iran as abandonment when stability mattered most.
Seen from today’s Iran, the contrast is brutal. The Shah’s 37-year reign is increasingly associated with modernization, national sovereignty, secular governance, and pragmatic statecraft. The Islamic Republic has delivered economic collapse, international isolation, regional militarization, and the routine killing of its own citizens.
A Society That Knows What It Lost
The second reason for the chants is the absence of credible alternatives. Iran’s opposition is fragmented and weighed down by history. Many groups either helped bring the Islamic Republic to power or later turned to violence when pushed out of it. For a society scarred by revolution, war, mass executions, and repression, that history is not abstract, it is disqualifying.
Reza Pahlavi stands apart. He has no Iranian blood on his hands. He did not collaborate with the regime, and he did not take part in cycles of violence. He represents an institution, the monarchy, that shaped modern Iran and remains the longest-standing political framework Iranians have ever known. In moments of national rupture, continuity and institutional legitimacy are not luxuries; they are lifelines.
Just as important is what he has consistently advocated: pluralism, dialogue with opponents, and a commitment to letting the Iranian people decide their future, whether through a constitutional monarchy or a national referendum.
Why Pahlavi Is Not “Just Another Exile”
The chants heard today are not about nostalgia. They are about credibility, continuity, and survival. Iran is approaching a point of no return. Either the free world supports the Iranian people in their struggle for a legitimate political order, or it once again enables disaster through passivity and false neutrality.
This moment carries enormous strategic weight. A collapsing Islamic Republic will not automatically produce freedom. Without a credible, unifying alternative, the result will not be democracy but fragmentation, militia politics, and prolonged instability, the kind that bleeds across borders and reshapes entire regions.
Reza Pahlavi is the only figure capable of anchoring a lawful and orderly transition. This is not symbolism. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi never abdicated. The Islamic Republic did not replace the monarchy through a constitutional process or a free national vote, but through revolution, coercion, and mass executions. Its rule has never rested on legal or moral legitimacy; it has survived through fear.
Legitimacy Is the Battlefield
Legitimacy is not an academic concept in moments like this, it is decisive. Without it, transitions collapse into power struggles. With it, nations can rebuild. Reza Pahlavi offers continuity without bloodshed, unity without militias, and a clear commitment to letting Iranians decide their future through a democratic process. No other opposition figure offers this combination.
The choice before the international community is stark. Either it recognizes this reality and engages with the Iranian people’s most legitimate unifying leader, or it repeats the catastrophic mistake of 1979, standing aside while extremists and opportunists fill the void.
There will be no neutral outcome, no managed chaos, no benign neglect. If this moment is squandered, Iran will not merely endure another failed uprising. It will descend into fragmentation and radicalization that will reshape the Middle East for decades. And this time, no one will be able to say they did not see it coming.
Dr. Ardavan M. Khoshnood
Associate Professor | Consultant
