As Israel strikes Iran hard, former Iranian Crown Prince Pahlavi calls for regime change in Tehran

Exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi on Friday urged both the Iranian people and the country’s conventional military to rise up against the increasingly unpopular regime led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He accused the regime of dragging Iran into an unnecessary war with Israel.

“Ali Khamenei, the reckless leader of the anti-Iranian Islamic Republic regime, has once again involved our country in a war,” Pahlavi wrote in Persian on social media. “This is not Iran’s war, nor the war of the Iranian people. It is Khamenei’s war and the Islamic Republic’s war."

His call came after the Israeli Air Force (IAF) conducted massive, unprecedented strikes on the Iranian regime’s military and nuclear facilities, killing at least 20 top Iranian military leaders. 

Pahlavi is the son of the late Iranian monarch Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was overthrown during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. 

Pahlavi also called on Iran’s police, conventional military and intelligence services to “join the people” against the ayatollah regime. 

“This regime and its corrupt, incompetent leaders do not value your lives or the future of our Iran,” Pahlavi emphasized. He described the current time as “a battle between the Iranian nation and the destructive Islamic Republic.” 

“In these difficult moments, I stand with you,” he continued. “We are all in this fight together, and we will be victorious."

Iran openly calls for Israel’s destruction and has invested billions of dollars in its covert nuclear weapons program, along with supporting Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and other terror proxies in the Middle East. 

It is currently unclear whether the Iranian people and the Iranian regular forces will heed Pahlavi’s call and rise up against the ayatollah regime and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. There is growing anger in Iran against the ayatollah regime for destroying the Iranian economy with its aggressive imperial ambitions. 

Last month, it was reported that a comprehensive document revealed the Iranian government's plans to turn the then-Assad-led Syria into the jewel of the Iranian Middle East Empire. The document was reportedly retrieved from the Iranian embassy in Damascus after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. A former Iranian lawmaker estimated that the ayatollah regime has funded as much as $30 billion in Syria for various projects that ended with the collapse of the Assad regime. 

Pahlavi has called for restoring relations with Israel and peace between Iran and Israel. During a visit in 2023, he praised the Israeli citizens and the hospitality that he received in the Jewish state, which is home to a large Iranian Jewish community. 

“The amount of affection and emotions demonstrated by the Iranian-Israeli community, Jewish community, but also regular Israeli citizens, has been overwhelmingly warm and welcoming, and it has affected myself and my wife very much,” he stated. "And it goes without saying that you can only get emotional about it."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have repeatedly emphasized their desire for peace with the people of Iran, stressing that the regime is an enemy of both Iranian citizens and Israelis.