After 14 years in exile, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran on Feb. 1, 1979, following the departure of the Shah on Jan. 16. His return was a pivotal moment in the Iranian Revolution, leading to the collapse of the provisional government just 10 days later.
Fast forward to 2026, where the son of the late Shah of Iran, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, on Jan. 8, called for citizens to protest nationwide. He repeated his call on Jan. 9.
The reaction, Pahlavi boosters say, was excellent. Millions of people went into the streets as demonstrations against the regime, which began two weeks ago, appear to be building.
Pahlavi's call for protests was a test of his popularity. It should be noted that people were already in the streets protesting, but he used the appearance of a response to his protest call to bolster his case for a leadership role in a post-theocratic Iran.
Pahlavi is calling on Donald Trump to help him.
Mr. President, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention, support, and action. Last night you saw the millions of brave Iranians in the streets facing down live bullets. Today, they are facing not just bullets but a total communications blackout. No Internet. No…
— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) January 9, 2026
Trump has been cagey about embracing Pahlavi. He's kept a polite distance so far. Pahlavi's baggage and Trump's caution about involving the U.S. in another Middle Eastern adventure are well considered.
The crown prince told the Associated Press that Trump's promise to attack Iran if protesters were harmed "kept the regime's thugs at bay" during Thursday night's protests. However, a doctor in Tehran says that 217 protesters were murdered in the streets on Thursday night.
"Speaking to TIME, a Tehran doctor said that just six hospitals in the Iranian capital recorded at least 217 protestor deaths, "most by live ammunition." Other Iran human rights organizations had much lower death tolls.
The doctor says that the bloodletting was horrific.
The doctor said authorities removed corpses from the hospital on Friday. Most of the dead were young people, he said, including several killed outside a northern Tehran police station when security forces sprayed machine gun fire at protesters, who died “on the spot.” Activists reported at least 30 people were shot in the incident.
This kind of massacre was expected once the government called in 850 Iraqi and Hezbollah Shi'ite militia members to stiffen the spine of Iranian security forces. The task in the next few days will be bloody, but done in darkness, thanks to cutting off the internet, as well as international phone service.
The conversation in and outside Iran about the future now turns to the regime's endgame. Will the massacres continue, or will the leadership exit the stage? This is where Pahlavi enters the picture. There is plenty of downside to the crown prince's return.
Reza Pahlavi’s political office is inept, and, in recent years, his aides have been divisive despite his rhetoric of unification. Replicating Mujahedin-e Khalq-style trolling is not a good look for a would-be monarch. He and his top supporters also face a “White Russian” problem, seemingly preferring life in exile and travels in the United States and Western Europe to the hard work of cultivating a new generation of Iranians. Still, he is better positioned than any other Iranian to usher in a peaceful transition to a constitutional, democratic order even if not a monarchy. Most Iranians would prefer what Pahlavi stands for, rather than a Venezuela-like transition that would empower a Khamenei collaborator like former President Hassan Rouhani.
Ultimately, this means Pahlavi will need to return to Iran. While it is still too early for him to do so—the Iranian people only control a few peripheral towns—his return will be a political earthquake. Many Iranians will see it as the sign of the Islamic Republic’s final collapse.
Indeed, a possible scenario involves U.S. punitive bombing of the state's means of oppression (Revolutionary Guard and Basij headquarters), international pressure, and a well-timed return of Pahlavi to Iran.
But how popular is the crown prince?
The Pahlavi name remains tainted for many by memories of SAVAK torture chambers, lavish corruption, and dependence on foreign powers for viability. While dissent against the Islamic Republic is widespread, slogans from the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests — sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in custody over the mandatory hijab — reveal a deep-seated rejection of both autocracies with chants like, “Death to the oppressor, be it the Shah or the Leader.”
The monarchy Israel hints at reviving was not merely overthrown in 1979, it was actively rejected by a powerful coalition of Islamists, leftists, and nationalists united against the Shah’s repression. This legacy of popular rejection severely curbs Reza Pahlavi’s appeal today.
"Israel’s campaign may weaken the Islamic Republic, but it cannot conjure a new, friendly Iran from the ashes, least of all by championing a successor from a fallen dynasty that Iranians have long since rejected," writes RS's Elfadil Ibrahim.
The Iranian opposition, both in and outside of Iran, is disorganized, fractured, and at each other's throats. That's why Pahlavi might be the only possible unifying factor that could be a bridge from the past to the future. It's a long shot, for sure. But revolutions are almost always long shots, and there are precious few options for the Iranian people if they want to move from tyranny to freedom.
The ultimate question is how much danger the regime is truly in. Scott Anderson, war correspondent and author of the book, King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution—A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation, explains why these protests are vastly different from past threats to the regime.
The regime in the past has always been very adept at playing one segment of society off against another. The religious against the more secular, the rural against the urban. The Women’s Freedom protests of three years ago, they were able to talk about it being—she was a Kurdish woman, the woman who was killed by the morality police—to kind of play the ethnic card.
This time, that’s not going to work because this is an economic collapse that has happened with the devaluation of Iran. So everybody is affected. Playing off one side against the other is just not going to work this time. The second thing that’s quite different is you now have an Iranian president, Pezeshkian, who’s come out in sort of solidarity, or at least in sympathy with the protesters.
The protests have reached a tipping point. Either they will taper off to a bloody, inconclusive end, or the people will succeed. Waiting in the wings is Crown Prince Pahlavi, who could be Iran's best hope for a peaceful transition.
