On the 23rd (local time), in a hotel in Paris, France, the 'crowned prince without a crown', who has not set foot on his homeland for 46 years, held a microphone in front of foreign reporters.
He was Reza Pahlavi (64), the last crown prince of the Pahlavi dynasty of Iran, which was ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
As tensions escalated into a crisis with Israel and Iran exchanging missiles, he deemed now to be the 'golden time' for a regime change. Pahlavi appealed to the West, saying, 'Please support the democratization of Iran unabashedly,' casting himself as the savior.
According to Reuters and other foreign media, his declaration was evaluated as the greatest gamble in his 46 years of exile.
However, the international situation moved completely differently from his plans. His ambitious announcement of regime re-establishment faded within a day. The very next day, on the 24th, U.S. President Donald Trump announced, 'Israel and Iran have agreed to a complete and total ceasefire.'
With U.S. mediation rapidly de-escalating military tensions between the two nations, Pahlavi's claims regarding regime change in Iran quickly lost momentum.
The name Reza Pahlavi is unfamiliar in Korea. He is the son of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who ruled Iran until 1979. At the time of the revolution, he was undergoing training as an Air Force pilot in the United States at the age of 17.
After the Iranian Revolution, he fell from royalty to a wanderer, drifting with his family through Egypt, Morocco, and the United States. He has not set foot on his homeland for 46 years since then.
His father, the Shah, led the industrialization of Iran with a radical Westernization policy known as the 'White Revolution.' At that time, Iran's capital, Tehran, was so free and glamorous that it was called 'the Paris of the Middle East.' Women walked the streets wearing short skirts instead of hijabs.
However, beneath that facade were iron-fisted rule and chronic corruption led by the infamous secret police known as SAVAK.
The enormous wealth derived from Iranian oil was used by the royal family and a small elite class for luxury. The vast majority of the populace suffered from extreme wealth disparity.
The religious community, which values tradition, fiercely resisted the repressive Westernization policies. Intellectuals and students who yearned for democracy turned their backs on the authoritarian dictatorship that claimed to uphold constitutional monarchy.
Ultimately, the Shah was forced to leave the throne in loneliness, overrun by a revolution led by Islamic religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
Pahlavi did not hide his desperation during this press conference in Paris.
According to the Times of Israel, in the press conference he appealed to the West, saying, 'We must not negotiate with the violent regime of Iran and throw them a lifeline again.'
He presented himself as 'the only alternative to embrace most of the Iranian military and bureaucratic organizations to lead an orderly transfer of power.'
In an interview with the U.S. political news outlet Politico, he asserted, 'I do not aim to be a king. My role is to help the Iranian people choose their own system through democratic elections.'
However, both the West and the Iranian public were indifferent.
Despite Pahlavi's appeal, the U.S. opted for a realistic compromise of a ceasefire to avoid the worst-case scenario of escalation with Iran. This clearly indicated that the U.S. was unwilling to support the risky judgment of viewing him as a candidate for power transfer, given the uncertain support base he secured in Iran.
Internally in Iran, there remains a strong negative perception of the Pahlavi dynasty's rule.
When large-scale anti-government protests swept across Iran in 2022, dubbed 'Iran's Spring,' demonstrators shouted, 'Death to the dictator, whether it's the Shah or the Supreme Leader!' While vehemently resisting the current theocratic regime, they also clearly drew a line against a return to monarchy.
Experts analyzed that the Pahlavi dynasty represents an undesirable past filled with dictatorship and corruption for the current younger generation in Iran.
According to a survey conducted by the Iranian research institute GAMAAN, based in the Netherlands, 81% of respondents among 158,000 people in Iran answered that they 'oppose' the Islamic Republic. However, those who supported Reza Pahlavi accounted for only 39%.
This highlights the significant gap between the role he claims as a 'democratization advocate' and public sentiment in Iran.
The Jerusalem Post cited experts stating, 'The Iranian people prefer a new republic with guaranteed freedom and democracy over the return of an old king,' and added, 'With this ceasefire, the conflict with Israel has entered a phase of lull, erasing even the motivation for regime change that he anticipated for the time being.'