After the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic is facing its greatest political crisis since its inception, with US President Donald Trump urging Iranian protesters to overthrow the regime amid Israeli and US strikes.

Iran has announced transition plans including the formation of an interim leadership council with the president, the head of the judiciary and a jurist from the Guardian Council, the body that oversees legislation and vets electoral candidates.

However, talk of a future Iran after the fall of the Islamic regime has grown increasingly fervent in some quarters. And buoyed by cries heard during some of the protests in Iran of “Long live the shah” (the former monarch of Iran), the voices of royalists in the Iranian diaspora are everywhere.

But is a return of the shah really what Iranians want, and what would be best for the country?

What are the monarchists promising?

Iran’s monarchy was ancient, but the Pahlavi dynasty that last ruled the country only came to power in 1925 when Reza Khan, a soldier in the army, overthrew the previous dynasty.

Khan adopted the name Pahlavi, and attempted to bring Iran closer to Western social and economic norms.

He was also an authoritarian leader, famous for banning the hijab, and was ultimately forced into exile by the British following the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941.

His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, attempted to continue his father’s reforms, but was similarly authoritarian.

Presiding over a government that tolerated little dissent, he was ultimately forced out by the huge tide of opposition during the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Now his US-based son, the exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi, 65, is being touted by many in the diaspora as the most credible and visible opposition figure to be able to lead the country if the Islamic Republic collapses.

Pahlavi, who has not returned to Iran since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted the monarchy, is billing himself as the man to lead a democratic transition to a secular Iran, as the theocratic regime fights to survive.

He penned an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Sunday in which he thanked US President Donald Trump for the strikes and again said that he was ready to lead a transition to a new Iran.

He made clear that it would only be a transitional role, after fears by some critics that he is seeking a return to an absolute monarchy.

“Many Iranians, often despite facing bullets, have called on me to lead this transition. I am in awe of their courage, and I have answered their call,” he wrote.

“Our path forward will be transparent: a new constitution drafted and ratified by referendum, followed by free elections under international oversight. When Iranians vote, the transitional government dissolves.”

Pahlavi, who visited Israel on an unprecedented trip in 2023, said that all Iranian opposition figures agreed on key principles including a separation of religion and state following the Islamic Republic.

He said that the opposition groups also backed the territorial integrity of Iran, which has large minority communities, and agreed on “individual liberties and equality of all citizens.”

Pro-monarchy groups such as the US-based National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI) have become vocal supporters of Pahlavi.

In early 2025, the NUFDI launched a well-coordinated and media savvy “Iran Prosperity Project,” offering what the group claimed was a roadmap for economic recovery in a post-Islamic Republic Iran. Pahlavi himself penned the foreword.

Then, in July, the group released its “Emergency Phase Booklet,” with a vision for a new political system in Iran.

Although the document is mostly written in the language of international democratic norms, it envisions bestowing the crown prince with enormous powers. He’s called the “leader of the national uprising” and given the right to veto the institutions and selection processes in a transitional government.

One thing the document is missing is a response to the demands of Iran’s many ethnic minority groups for a federalist model of government in the country.

Instead, under the plan, the government would remain highly centralized under the leadership of Pahlavi, at least until a referendum that the authors claim would determine a transition to either a constitutional monarchy or democratic republic.

But students of Iranian history cannot help but note echoes of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had promised a more democratic Iran with a new constitution, and without himself or other clerics in power.

After the revolution, though, Khomeini quickly grasped the reins of power.

Online attacks against opponents

When interviewed, Pahlavi has avoided discussing the autocratic nature of his father’s rule and the human rights abuses that occurred under it.

But if Pahlavi tends to avoid hard questions, his supporters can be aggressive. At the Munich Security Conference in February, British-Iranian journalist Christiane Amanpour interviewed the crown prince.

After the interview, Amanpour’s tough questions resulted in an explosion of anger from his supporters. In a video that has been widely shared on X, royalists could be seen heckling Amanpour, saying she “insulted” the crown prince.

In online forums, the language can be even more intimidating. Amanpour asked Pahlavi point-blank if he would tell his supporters to stop their “terrifying” attacks on ordinary Iranians.

While saying he doesn’t tolerate online attacks, he added, “I cannot control millions of people, whatever they say on social media, and who knows if they are real people or not.”

Do Iranians want a monarchy?

The monarchist movement talks as though it is speaking for the whole nation.

But during the recent protests, some students could be heard shouting: “No to monarchy, no to the leadership of the clerics, yes to an egalitarian democracy.”

The level of support for the shah within Iran is unclear, in part because polling is notoriously difficult and communication with the outside world is tightly controlled.

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Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

2026 US-Israel war with Iran

1979 Islamic Revolution

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