Decoding Iran’s Politics: What do Iranians Think About the Pahlavi Dynasty?

January 16, 2019 was the 40th anniversary of the last Iranian monarch’s flight into exile. In January 1979, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, left the country following months of increasing protests against his regime. 

The anniversary triggered heated debates on social media between critics and supporters of Iran’s pre-revolution regime. When it came to Persian media outlets, some foreign-based media used the occasion to praise the Pahlavi dynasty, while a number of Iranian official media outlets commemorated the Shah’s departure as a positive change.

Many of the recent debates have focused on evaluating the Pahlavi dynasty era and its potential impact on the future — in particular, the extent to which people would support Reza Pahlavi, the last Crown Prince of Iran, who lives in exile in the United States, in his struggle for a regime change.

 

Pahlavi and the Protests of January and April 2018

Public debates on Reza Pahlavi have particularly intensified since the country-wide street protests of late December 2017 and early January 2018.  

One of the surprising aspects of the late December/early January protests was that in a number of cities — ranging from Qom and Mashhad, the strongholds of the Shia clergy, to some of the country’s smallest towns — people chanted slogans in favor of the Pahlavi dynasty. This attracted the attention of many analysts and activists, and also encouraged a group of opposition figures to capitalize on this pro-Pahlavi potential against the Islamic Republic of Iran.  

Less than two months after these protests, on April 23, Iranian media outlets published astonishing news about the discovery of a mummy in the same place that Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty, had been buried. Reza Shah died in 1944 and was mummified and buried in Shah Abdul-Azim, a holy shrine south of Tehran, but his mausoleum was destroyed after the 1979 revolution.

Given that many of the slogans chanted during the protests expressed admiration for the Pahlavi dynasty, and in particular Reza Shah, many believed that the discovery of the mummy would spark new demonstrations. Reza Pahlavi, the last Crown Prince of Iran, announced on April 24 that the mummy was possibly his grandfather’s cadaver — and then urged people to go to the streets to commemorate Reza Shah. Many expatriate monarchist activists also appealed to people to grasp the opportunity to stage widespread street protests.

However, these foreign-led calls did not lead to new demonstrations in Iran. This was possibly surprising to many analysts, who had interpreted people shouting pro-Pahlavi slogans as an indication of their readiness to respond to Reza Pahlavi’s call to step up and continue street protests.  

On the one hand, the April experience indicated that the December/January protests, including the use of pro-Pahlavi slogans, were natural and spontaneous public acts, without being led or organized by any foreign-based group, including Reza Pahlavi’s supporters. In other words, many people who had chanted such slogans were for the most part demonstrating their deep anger about the Iranian regime, without necessarily supporting any political leader. 

On the other hand, attributing the entire failure of April 2018’s call for street protests to people’s indifference to Reza Pahlavi may be misleading. The December/January protests left at least 25 people dead, and resulted in hundreds of injuries and thousands of violent arrests and prosecutions. Iran’s judiciary and security apparatus’ brutal response to the protests would have frightened many potential pro-Pahlavi people, discouraging them from staging new protests in April 2018. As a result, the April experience did not prevent pro-Pahlavi activists from capitalizing on the newly-awakened protest potential within Iranian society.

 

A New Pro-Pahlavi Organization

The events of December and January motivated various pro-Pahlavi activists to organize a new opposition force. In September 2018, 40 opposition activists across the United States, Canada and Europe founded an opposition action network, Iran Revival (in Persian: Farashgard). The group says it also has also active members in Iran who do not reveal their real identity to protect themselves from prosecution.

This new organization is supportive of both Reza Pahlavi and Donald Trump and is clearly counting on the widespread frustration with the Iranian regime among Iranians, as well as the US president’s uncompromising attitude toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Members of the network are very active on social media, with many people promoting Reza Pahlavi and his work to discredit those who they view as being supporters of the Islamic Republic.

Iran Revival has also started an online campaign to call for public protests in the main squares of Iranian cities. So far it has not specified any particular date for such protests. But when it does, the outcome will be viewed as the first real test of the group’s social influence inside the country. 

 

People’s Views on the Pahlavi Dynasty

Apart from pro-Pahlavi activists’ effects on Iran’s developments, it appears that Iranian people are increasingly expressing positive views with respect to pre-revolutionary Iran. An observation of Persian-language posts on social media reveals that quite a considerable number of people sympathize with the Pahlavi era and regard the pre-revolution standard of life as superior to the current situation.

Such sympathy may largely result from the activities of fake social media profiles or even bots. However, it cannot be denied that fake social media profiles are used by both supporters and opponents of the Iranian regime, and that a great proportion of pro-Pahlavi sentiment comes from the profiles of undoubtedly genuine people.  

On the other hand, it seems that many of those individuals who admire or feel nostalgic for the Pahlavi era are not necessarily monarchists. Instead, for many of them, expressing pro-Pahlavi views demonstrates their deep frustration with the Islamic Republic’s performance, and is the outcome of a comparison of this performance with the situation under the Pahlavi dynasty. This frustration is reflected in repeated references to the country’s pre-revolution conditions — for instance, better standards of living, more social freedoms and better relations with the international community.

Such references mainly come from people who believe that the policies of the Iranian regime — or the regime itself — must be changed. But having this view does not signify a particular idea about the nature of the regime that should replace the Islamic Republic.

A proportion of those people who believe the pre-revolution era was better than the current situation favor the restoration of the monarchy, represented by Reza Pahlavi. Another proportion of them are pro-republic people who believe that the Islamic Republic must be overthrown, while disagreeing with a monarchy. These opponents range from former pro-reform people who once believed in the ideals of the Islamic Republic but now feel it has failed to serve the interests of its people to leftist anti-monarchy opposition activists. There are even certain republican activists who sympathize with Reza Pahlavi as an opposition leader, but do not want him to become the next Shah of Iran. 

Reza Pahlavi, too, has often portrayed himself as an opposition leader who seeks a regime change in Iran, without expressing any particular view on the nature of Iran’s future regime (and whether it should be a republic or a constitutional monarchy). He has always said that the future of Iran’s political system must be defined by a referendum and he is not necessarily in favor of the restoration of monarchy in the country.

Finally, a group of Iranian monarchists routinely criticize the last Crown Prince for what they describe as Reza Pahlavi’s irresolute attitude toward his political position. They suggest that Pahlavi, as an individual or activist, does not hold more weight than any other Iranian opposition figure or group. According to them, the main reason that his position is higher than other opposition leaders is that many Iranians view him as the symbol or representative of the Pahlavi monarchy and its legacy.

These critics of the former Crown Prince conclude that his hesitance in assuming responsibility for restoring the monarchy will deprive him of those supporters of the Pahlavi dynasty who seek for a dedicated monarchist leader.