On January 16, 1979, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi boarded a plane and left the country. The departure was presented as temporary, a pause intended to calm a country already slipping from the government’s control after months of protests. Then-prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar, himself a longtime opponent of the shah, had urged the move, in the hope that it might defuse the uprising gathering force in the streets.
As the shah departed, scenes of quiet collapse unfolded around him. Imperial Guardsmen wept openly as they watched their commander-in-chief leave the country. Within hours, the public response became unmistakable. Statues of the Pahlavi family were attacked and torn down. Symbols of the monarchy were defaced or destroyed. By nightfall, almost every visible sign of the Pahlavi dynasty had been erased from Iran’s streets.
The shah would never return.
In the intervening four-and-a-half decades, the Islamic Republic worked to remove the Pahlavi name from Iran’s political consciousness. The monarchy was cast as a symbol of corruption, and the former shah was reduced to caricature. Invoking the name Pahlavi in public carried risk and marked a citizen as politically suspect and ideologically deviant from the ideals of the Islamic Revolution.
That system of control is now breaking down.
Across Iran, three weeks into the protests that have shaken the regime to the core, crowds are chanting words that were once unspeakable: “Pahlavi Barmigardeh.” (Pahlavi will return.) The chant is heard alongside “Javid Shah,” (Long live the Shah), echoing through protests that no longer confine themselves to economic grievances over the country’s dire economic situation or cultural resistance. For a regime founded on the overthrow of monarchy, the slogans represent a direct challenge to its legitimacy.
The Islamic Republic no longer commands moral authority, historical superiority, or generational loyalty to the Iranian people, and its founding narrative is collapsing under the weight of lived experience.
Forty-seven years after Shah Mohammad Reza fled Iran, his son, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, has reentered the country’s political imagination from his exile in the United States, as a focal point for a movement and a people searching for direction.
And the voices on the streets are being heard.
THE CURRENT uprising developed gradually. Early protests in December appeared across several cities, driven by inflation, unemployment, corruption, and daily humiliation under a collapsing economy. In Mashhad, anger intensified after the death of human rights lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, found dead hours after a visit from security officials. The episode resonated nationally, helping to underpin the sense that the regime no longer distinguishes between repression and criminality.
The decisive shift occurred on December 28, when Tehran’s bazaar merchants closed their shops and took to the streets. In Iran’s political history, bazaar closures signal escalation. In 1978, they marked the beginning of the unraveling of the monarchy. In 2025, they signaled systemic defiance.
The regime responded with familiar repressive tools such as Internet shutdowns, mass arrests, and live fire into demonstrations. Opposition estimates place the death toll from two nights of January unrest in the thousands. Iranian officials have admitted the number is around 3,000 people dead, but human rights activists and opposition groups have stated the number could well be as high as 20,000. Senior republic officials issued threats against Israel and the United States should they come to the protesters’ aid, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders declared maximum readiness should war break out.
Iran has witnessed mass protests repeatedly over the past two decades. In 2009, millions mobilized after disputed elections that saw former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reelected. In 2019, demonstrations spread nationwide following fuel price hikes. In 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini ignited a generational revolt that focused around the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom.”
Each movement demonstrated extraordinary courage, and each collapsed without achieving structural change.
The reason was consistent. Protest surged without coordination or coherent leadership. Calls for strikes appeared without infrastructure, and opposition figures spoke in parallel instead of unifying. That pattern has now changed completely with the emergence of Pahlavi.
FOR YEARS, Reza Pahlavi positioned himself as a unifying voice rather than a commander. He emphasized democratic principles and economic freedom for a country that has siphoned billions of its oil dollars to terrorist proxies across the Middle East, warned against factionalism and ethnic disagreement, and, most importantly, insisted that Iran’s future belongs to those inside the country. His restraint drew some criticism, but it also preserved credibility.
Over the past three weeks, restraint has given way to action.
As protests expanded and bazaar closures signaled readiness, Pahlavi began issuing guidance designed to sustain the momentum on the streets. He called on protesters to remain present in the streets, and issued directives calling for nationwide strikes only after visible endurance had been established.
From the beginning of the protests, pro-Pahlavi chants, particularly the call “Javid Shah,” have been heard loud and clear. The fact that younger protesters, many of whom do not even remember the days of the monarchy, are chanting for the return of the Pahlavis and the dissolution of the Islamic Republic shows a generation that has concluded that the regime has failed so completely that it has no future.
The Islamic Republic no longer occupies a superior historical position in the public imagination, and therefore it is no longer legitimate. This shift terrifies the regime because it cannot be reversed through force and repression alone. Despite the killings and the Internet shutdowns, the people are still taking to the streets.
Since Iran’s Internet was sharply restricted, the scale and location of Reza Pahlavi’s audience have become clearer. Views on his social media posts dropped from peaks of between 30 million and 90 million to between 2.8 million and 5.5 million, once access inside Iran was disrupted. The decline is telling. It suggests that a substantial share of his reach was coming from inside the country itself, not from the diaspora or foreign observers. As connectivity has been throttled, so, too, has his visible audience – even as protests continue on the streets.
A precedent of sacrifice
Iranian protest movements do not lack slogans, but sometimes they lack leaders willing to share danger.
Last Saturday, Pahlavi issued his most consequential statement to date.
“I, too, am preparing to return to the homeland so that at the time of our national revolution’s victory, I can be beside you, the great nation of Iran,” he said.
Returning to Iran would place him within reach of a regime that has executed, imprisoned, and assassinated opponents without hesitation, and show remarkable personal bravery.
This was not the first time Reza Pahlavi offered himself to Iran at a moment of national peril.
In September 1980, months after his family was expelled and the monarchy dismantled, Iraq invaded Iran to begin the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War. As the Islamic Republic mobilized its forces, the crown prince sent a letter to regime officials offering to serve in defense of the country without rank or privilege.
“In this extremely sensitive moment in the life of this sacred soil and water,” he wrote, “I wish to protect the dignity of this land with the sacrifice of my own blood. In the very heart of Iran’s turbulent and storied history, this assault on our homeland has occurred, and the Iranian nation will display steadfast determination and unwavering belief from its depths to the very end – until the last drop of blood is shed in defense.
“If my father were alive, I am confident that he would, as an Iranian officer and a loyal servant of our country, carry out his duties as I intend to do. Let no one be doubtful: Iran’s independence and territorial integrity will not be compromised.”
The regime ignored the offer, but Pahlavi’s gesture is another example of his selfless dedication to his country – even one that had ousted his family just months before.
REVOLUTIONS FAIL, more often than not, when states collapse faster than regimes.
In order to protect against this proposition, Pahlavi and his team have worked to put together the Iran Prosperity Project, a transition framework that focuses on stabilizing the country after revolution. Public assets would be secured to prevent looting and asset stripping. Pension payments and public-sector salaries would be maintained to avoid social collapse and panic. The independence of the central bank would be restored as quickly as possible to reanchor confidence in the currency and halt runaway inflation.
Capital flight – a recurring disaster in postrevolutionary states – would be constrained through temporary controls, while financial markets would close briefly to prevent speculative collapse. State-owned enterprises would be placed under interim technocratic management and subjected to forensic audits before any restructuring or privatization. Markets would then reopen in phases, beginning with core instruments rather than speculative trading. The language of the plan is deliberately restrained. It promises continuity before reform, stability before ambition.
“In energy, Iran holds some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world,” Pahlavi said on Wednesday. “A free Iran will become a reliable energy supplier to the free world. Policy-making will be transparent. Iran’s actions will be responsible. Prices will be predictable.”
It is also imperative to point out that Pahlavi’s transition plan is for an interim 180-day post-revolution period. He has declared intentions to hold a referendum on the future of Iran and let the people choose their future, be it republicanism, a constitutional monarchy, or any of the other options presented.
For a population exhausted by years of inflation, regime corruption, and economic free fall, the prospect of a healthy economy returning is one that appeals.
A future Iran defined
In his Wednesday message, Pahlavi also articulated a diplomatic vision for a post-Islamic Republic Iran, one that goes against everything the regime has stood for.
For nearly five decades, the United States and Israel have been described as the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan.” It has seemed at times the Islamic Republic has existed merely to hasten the downfall of the US and the destruction of Israel.
But Pahlavi has a different idea.
He committed to ending Iran’s nuclear military ambitions, terminating support for terrorist groups, and normalizing relations with the United States. He pledged immediate recognition of Israel and proposed expanding the Abraham Accords into “Cyrus Accords,” integrating Iran into a regional security framework.
“Iran will act as a friend and a stabilizing force in the region. And it will be a responsible partner in global security,” he stated.
“In diplomacy, relations with the United States will be normalized and our friendship with America and her people will be restored. The State of Israel will be recognized immediately. We will pursue the expansion of the Abraham Accords into the Cyrus Accords, bringing together a free Iran, Israel, and the Arab world.
“A new chapter will begin, grounded in mutual recognition, sovereignty, and national interest.”
The opposition is now articulating a future, while the regime struggles to defend the present.
US President Donald Trump, who has threatened Tehran with military action should it continue to kill protesters and execute them as punishment, mirrored some of the international ambivalence to Pahlavi, however, on Wednesday. Some opposition groups have questioned Pahlavi’s experience and motives in offering to return to Iran, and on Wednesday, Trump described Pahlavi as “very nice” while questioning whether Iranians would accept his leadership. He offered neither endorsement nor dismissal.
However, the voices on the streets firmly endorse the crown prince.
None of this guarantees success, though. The Islamic Republic retains formidable coercive power and has no qualms shooting down protesters. Repression may intensify. Strikes may falter. What has already changed is the structure of the challenge.
Reza Pahlavi has moved from being a symbolic figure of a bygone era to a strategist with a plan that he has been waiting to execute. He waited for readiness, escalated deliberately, and articulated a transition framework that treats state survival as seriously as regime collapse.
In a movement long defined by courage without direction, leadership has emerged.
Forty-seven years after the shah fled Iran, the name the regime tried to erase is once again being chanted in the streets.
“Pahlavi barmigardeh.”
Now it is being chanted by a generation no longer willing to endure the Islamic Republic.