Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince of Iran, is calling on his countrymen to seize upon the disorder caused by Israel’s strike on Tehran and overthrow the Islamic regime.
The prince, who has lived the majority of his life in exile following the Islamic Revolution that overthrew his father, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, told Iranians that the time has come to “overthrow the Islamic Republic through street protests and nationwide strikes.”
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“The Iranian nation’s battle with the destructive regime of the Islamic Republic is to reclaim Iran and rebuild it. The solution is to overthrow the Islamic Republic through street protests and nationwide strikes,” Pahlavi said in his first message following the Friday strike.
He called on members of the Iranian armed forces specifically to turn against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei immediately during this moment of weakness.
“My message to the military, law enforcement, and security forces is clear: This regime and its corrupt and incompetent leaders do not value your lives or our Iran,” Pahlavi said. “Separate yourself from them and join the people.”
The crown prince is seen by the United States and its allies as a possible leader for a democratized Iran due to both his sympathies for liberalization and the sense of legitimacy his royal status carries in the nation.
Pahlavi left Iran for military school in the U.S. just before his father’s forced abdication in 1979. He has not returned to his homeland since, but is championed by Iranian democracy movements as a figurehead for a post-Islamic Republic country.
He has rejected the idea that he has a hereditary right to lead a post-regime nation, instead emphasizing that the Iranian people must be allowed to choose for themselves.
Israel sought to invoke the pre-revolution ideals of Iran with the name for their campaign that struck Iranian nuclear facilities, military bases, and residences of leadership on Friday — operation “Rising Lion.”
The Lion and Sun is among the most historic symbols of the Persian people, with a variety of meanings attributed to the motif throughout the nation’s existence. It appeared on the national flag of Iran until the 1979 revolution, which established the current design.
In a statement to the international community provided to the Washington Examiner by the crown prince’s office, the would-be shah blamed “Khamenei and his incompetent and criminal thugs” for having “dragged Iran into a war and put the Iranian people in harm’s way.”
Pahlavi has long maintained that diplomatic negotiations with Khamenei’s regime are futile and that the U.S. must instead seek to empower a grassroots uprising.
On Friday, he called the regime “weak and divided,” at risk of collapsing completely.
“As I have told my compatriots: Iran is yours and yours to reclaim. I am with you,” he wrote. “Stay strong and we will win.”
Operation Rising Lion was the most overwhelming military campaign launched against Iran since the Iran-Iraq War almost half a century ago.
Israeli officials assert that the coordinated strikes — many launched clandestinely from within Iran’s own borders — have crippled Iran’s nuclear program and decapitated swaths of its military command by striking “over 100 targets, including senior figures of the Iranian General Staff and leaders of the nuclear program.”
Iran fired a volley of missiles and drones back at Israel following the attack, but none of their projectiles were able to make impact.
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter said on Friday that the campaign will not be complete until the Fordow enrichment facility is destroyed.