“Now is the time to rise; the time to reclaim Iran. Let us all come forward and bring about the end of this regime.” With these words, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi addressed Iranian dissidents following Israel’s military strikes on Iranian soil since June 12. 

The launch of Operation Rising Lion, targeting senior IRGC commanders and key elements of Iran’s military infrastructure, marks a significant shift. Israel states that its objective is to decapacitate, destroy, and remove the threat. Notably, the scale and precision of the strikes have raised speculation that regime change may be an unintended or intended consequence.

This scenario is further reinforced by domestic dynamics: widespread public anger and deep-seated resentment toward the Islamic Republic. Decades of repression, economic mismanagement, and ideological control have eroded the regime’s legitimacy across broad segments of society. Against this backdrop, Reza Pahlavi has reemerged as a prominent figure in the debate over Iran’s political future. 

“Do not fear the day after the fall of the Islamic Republic,” he recently declared. “Iran will not descend into civil war or instability. We have a plan for Iran’s future and its flourishing.”

While the Pahlavi has consistently refrained from endorsing a specific model of governance, his historical affinity with the institution of monarchy and the broad support he continues to attract have brought renewed attention to the prospect of a constitutional monarchy.

Within this context, the idea of restoring the monarchy remains one of the most contentious, and least openly discussed, topics in contemporary Middle Eastern politics. The notion of a return to monarchy has become the proverbial elephant in the room of Iranian politics, an undeniable political force that many prefer to ignore. While the movement has gained significant traction among Iranians, especially in exile, it is often dismissed as little more than a nostalgic yearning for a bygone era. Such reductive interpretations, however, fail to capture the nuanced realities of Iran’s political landscape. 

In politics, few ironies rival the interplay between the passage of time and the availability of information. Political phenomena often reveal their true nature only in hindsight, and by the time sufficient evidence emerges to form a sound judgment, the opportunity for taking the right course of action has often passed. Henry Kissinger famously described this dilemma as one of

© The National Interest