Shadow of the Shah

As Iran navigates war, sanctions and domestic unrest, an old political spectre has resurfaced — the Pahlavi dynasty, led in public debate by Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s last shah.

“Shadow of the Shah As Iran navigates war, sanctions and domestic unrest, an old political spectre has resurfaced -- the Pahlavi dynasty”

The Daily Star

Across parts of the Iranian diaspora and in pockets of protest discourse, the name Reza Pahlavi has re-emerged as a possible stopgap in political transition, reflecting deep frustration with the Islamic Republic while raising the question of whether a monarchy that collapsed nearly half a century ago can still shape Iran’s political imagination.

The Daily Star

The dynasty began with Reza Shah Pahlavi, a military officer who rose through the Persian Cossack Brigade and staged a coup in 1921; by 1925 Iran’s parliament had crowned him shah and established the Pahlavi monarchy.

Reza Shah sought to transform a fragmented state into a modern nation by expanding the army, building national infrastructure such as the Trans-Iranian Railway and introducing secular legal reforms, and in 1936 he imposed a controversial ban on the Islamic veil in public life that angered religious communities and deepened tensions between modernising elites and conservative clerics.

The Daily Star

The dynasty’s first upheaval came when British and Soviet forces invaded Iran in 1941 and forced Reza Shah to abdicate, after which his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became shah at just twenty-two.

“Shadow of the Shah As Iran navigates war, sanctions and domestic unrest, an old political spectre has resurfaced -- the Pahlavi dynasty”

The Daily Star

The defining moment of Mohammad Reza’s reign came in 1953 when the United States and Britain orchestrated Operation Ajax to remove Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and restore the shah’s authority; the coup involved propaganda campaigns, bribery of political figures and organised street protests, Mosaddeq was arrested and the shah returned to power, an episode that fostered lasting resentment towards Western influence in Iran.

During the 1960s the shah launched the White Revolution — including land redistribution, women’s suffrage and mass literacy campaigns — which accelerated industrialisation, expanded education and helped Tehran’s cultural scene flourish to the point Western observers often described the capital as the “Paris of the Middle East.”

Political freedom, however, remained limited as the monarchy relied on the intelligence service SAVAK, which was accused of surveillance, repression and torture of dissidents; combined with economic inequality and anger among religious leaders, authoritarian rule eroded public support and mass protests erupted in 1978.

The Daily Star

Security crackdowns intensified the unrest, and on January 16 1979 the Shah fled Iran; months later a national referendum abolished the monarchy and established the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the shah died in exile in Egypt in 1980, bringing the Pahlavi era to a close.

Reza Pahlavi has lived in the United States since the revolution and has repositioned himself not as a monarch-in-waiting but as an advocate for democratic transition and a referendum on Iran’s future political system, though his influence inside Iran remains difficult to measure due to political restrictions and the absence of reliable polling.

“Shadow of the Shah As Iran navigates war, sanctions and domestic unrest, an old political spectre has resurfaced -- the Pahlavi dynasty”

The Daily Star

Recent protests have revived the Pahlavi name, with some demonstrators invoking the former monarchy while criticising the Islamic Republic, but analysts caution that such slogans often reflect anger at the present system rather than organised royalist support; the current conflict involving Iran, Israel and the United States has intensified that debate.

The Daily Star

Reza Pahlavi argues that sustained pressure on the Islamic Republic could eventually open the door to political transition and positions himself as a possible unifying figure for a post-regime Iran, but the return of the Pahlavis remains uncertain: inside Iran there is no organised royalist movement, opposition groups remain fragmented, many activists favour a secular republic rather than a restored monarchy, and analysts cited by Reuters and The Guardian say the Pahlavi name functions more as a symbol within Iran’s broader political struggle than as a realistic pathway back to the throne.