Iran regime will collapse within months, predicts exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi
- Heir to deposed monarchy urges Western powers not to negotiate with Tehran
- Pahlavi says Iranians can ‘smell the opportunity for the first time in 40 years’
The heir of Iran’s deposed monarchy predicted on Wednesday that the clerical regime will collapse within months and urged Western powers not to negotiate with it.
Reza Pahlavi said that major protests which erupted in November and again this month, after the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane, reminded him of the uprising that ousted his father in early 1979.
“It’s just a matter of time for it to reach its final climax. I think we’re in that mode,” the former crown prince told a news conference in Washington, which he lives near in exile.
“This is weeks or months preceding the ultimate collapse, not dissimilar to the last three months in 1978 before the revolution,” he said.
While exiled activists have routinely predicted the fall of the regime, Pahlavi said that Iranians could “smell the opportunity for the first time in 40 years this time”.
The 59-year-old heir to the Peacock Throne, who has not been to Iran since he was a teenager, cited as evidence what he called an easing of fear among protesters and the growing distancing of self-described reformists from the Islamic regime.