History is rarely kind to societies that mistake collapse for liberation. Iran today stands at precisely such a crossroads. As nationwide protests intensify—from Ilam and Luristan to Kermanshah and beyond—the question dominating Western capitals and exile circles alike is not whether the Islamic Republic can endure, but what might replace it. That question, however, is being answered far too hastily, and dangerously so. For Iran, the temptation to leap from mullaism back to monarchism would not be a cure. It would be a relapse.

The Islamic Republic is unquestionably exhausted. Its legitimacy has eroded under the weight of economic decay, moral hypocrisy, and relentless repression. Yet regime failure does not automatically confer wisdom on its alternatives. Revolutions, as Edmund Burke warned, often destroy more than they build when guided by nostalgia rather than judgment. Iran must not repeat that mistake by confusing opposition to clerical rule with endorsement of dynastic restoration.

At the heart of this debate lies Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the last Shah. To some Western policymakers, he appears convenient: English-speaking, familiar, non-clerical, and safely secular in rhetoric. But convenience is not legitimacy, and familiarity is not leadership. Reza Pahlavi is not a unifying figure for Iran; he is a symbol of exclusion, historical amnesia, and political irrelevance.

The idea that Iran can be stabilized by returning to monarchism rests on a flawed reading of history. The Pahlavi dynasty did not preside over a golden age interrupted by religious fanaticism. It governed through authoritarian centralization, forced assimilation, and brutal suppression of dissent. Reza Shah Pahlavi’s rule was marked by executions, exiles, the crushing of autonomous movements, and the imposition of a singular........

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