The exiled Crown Prince of Iran has declared that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Islamic Republic ‘is collapsing’ and has urged citizens and soldiers alike to rise up against the regime.
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah to rule before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, has long been a prominent critic of Khamenei and says he wants to replace Iran’s clerical rule with a ‘national and democratic government’.
Now, following days of punishing attacks from Israel that wiped out the upper echelon of Iran’s military command, targeted its nuclear facilities and sent Khamenei into hiding, Pahlavi took to social media to issue a rallying cry.
‘Khamenei, like a frightened rat, has gone into hiding underground and lost control of the situation,’ he declared. ‘The regime’s apparatus of repression is falling apart.
‘All it takes now is a nationwide uprising to put an end to this nightmare once and for all. Now is the time to rise – the time to reclaim Iran.’
In an emotional message to Iranians at home and abroad, he added: ‘Let us all come forward… and bring about the end of this regime. ‘A free and flourishing Iran lies ahead of us… We have a plan for Iran’s future.’
Pahlavi’s call for revolution comes as the region teeters on the brink of all-out war.
Khamenei on Tuesday declared that Israeli would be shown ‘no mercy’.
‘In the name of the noble Haidar, the battle begins,’ he wrote in Farsi, referring to Ali – whom Shia Muslims consider the first Imam and the rightful successor to the prophet Mohammed.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said he wanted Khamenei’s ‘unconditional surrender’ as American air and naval assets descended on the region, raising suspicions that the US military may soon enter the fray.
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah to rule before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, has long been a prominent critic of Khamenei and says he wants to replace Iran’s clerical rule with a ‘national and democratic government’
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is currently in hiding amid the strikes from Israel
Reza Pahlavi has called on Iranians to rise up against Khamenei’s regime. (Pictured: Iranian flags fly as fire and smoke from an Israeli attack on Sharan Oil depot rise)
Pahlavi’s father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, took power in Iran following a 1953 coup engineered by Britain and the US
Pahlavi’s father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, took power in Iran following a 1953 coup engineered by Britain and the US.
Under the Shah’s secular and pro-Western rule, Iran experienced a rapid modernisation program financed by oil revenues.
Education and healthcare expanded, infrastructure boomed, and Tehran became a showcase capital for Western influence in the Middle East.
But the regime’s repression, inequality, and reliance on the hated secret police, SAVAK, sowed resentment among Iran’s religious and working classes.
Mass protests, general strikes, and clashes with security forces destabilised the monarchy throughout 1978 as the cancer-stricken Shah struggled to cling to power.
It was then that Pahlavi, aged just 17, left Iran for military flight school in the US, just before his father abandoned the throne for exile in January 1979.
The Islamic revolution followed as a coalition of religious clerics, leftist groups and disaffected Iranians tore down the monarchy, overran the US Embassy in Tehran and the swept away of the last vestiges of the American-backed government.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a radical Shia cleric, took charge, denouncing Pahlavi’s father as a puppet of the West and positioning Islam as the path to justice and national sovereignty.
Among the revolution’s foot soldiers was a young cleric named Ali Khamenei.
A loyal supporter of Khomeini’s vision, he played a key role in consolidating the new regime’s power, helping to purge dissent and set up the Islamic Republic’s security infrastructure.
He would go on to serve as president in the 1980s before being appointed Supreme Leader after Khomeini’s death in 1989.
Yet after more than four decades of Islamic rule, the Pahlavis and the age of the monarchy have retained their mystique in Iran.
Pahlavi’s critics associate him with Western meddling in Iranian affairs, while his supporters see him as an antidote to Khamenei’s repression.
Any American intervention in the Middle East would be ‘a recipe for all-out war in the region’, Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, told Al Jazeera today.
Pahlavi has long campaigned against Khamenei, reminding people that Iran under the Shah was far more socially liberal.
‘If you look at the legacy that was left behind by both my father and my grandfather… it contrasts with this archaic, sort of backward, religiously rooted radical system that has been extremely repressive,’ Pahlavi said.
‘This regime is simply irreformable because the nature of it, its DNA, is such that it cannot,’ the exiled prince said.
‘People have given up with the idea of reform and they think there has to be fundamental change. Now, how this change can occur is the big question.’
US President Donald Trump said he wanted Khamenei’s ‘unconditional surrender’ as American air and naval assets descended on the region
Khamenei on Tuesday declared that Israeli would be shown ‘no mercy’. He also shared a disturbing image showing balls of fire raining down on an ancient city
Tehran burns following attacks by Israeli warplanes earlier this week
The Iron Dome, the Israeli air defence system, intercepts missiles fired from Iran, over Tel Aviv, Israel, 17 June 2025
Prior to the outbreak of hostilities between Jerusalem and Tehran, he had outlined in previous interviews how he felt a revolution would eventually occur in Iran, even without foreign intervention.
Asked how his envisioned revolution could play out, Pahlavi said it would need to begin with labour unions starting a nationwide strike.
He said members of the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary organisation established to protect the clerical system, would be assured they wouldn’t be ‘all hung and shot.’
Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, on Friday after saying it had concluded the Islamic Republic was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon – an accusation that Iran denies.
The US has so far only taken indirect actions in the current conflict with Iran, including helping to shoot down missiles fired toward Israel.
But Trump has ordered significant air and naval assets to the region, suggesting Washington could be about to enter the conflict.
Trump was given three options by advisors about how the should largest military in history should assist Israel in demolishing Iran’s nuclear program, according to The New York Times.
The first and most basic option was the US providing intelligence and jets for refuelling Israeli airplanes on bombing missions along.
The second option included American and Israeli joint strikes on Iran.
The most hawkish option provided a plan for a US-led military campaign that included B-1 and B-2 bombers, aircraft carriers and ‘cruise missiles launched from submarines,’ the Times reported.
Meanwhile, Ali Bahreini, the ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in Geneva, said Iran will continue to respond strongly to Israeli strikes despite Trump’s calls for surrender.
‘We will not show any reluctance in defending our people, security and land – we will respond seriously and strongly, without restraint,’ Bahreini declared.
