Give them the gift.
He'd probably like to return and have a shot at ruling if and when the current goons are gone. He's not interested in being in charge of a smoking ruin, which likely explains his reluctance.
Finally someone without an agenda. Was Chalabi busy?
The "Crown Prince" so to speak, was a young child when the revolution happened and even the Khomeini-ists publicly announced they had no quarrel with him since he had never done anything bad to anyone. Much too young.
Timmerman has his good and bad moments and I'm not sure if you read incorrectly or he mis-spoke. As has been said by more than one pro-Khomeini supporter, the reign of the late Shah was paradise mutiplied by ten thousand compared to what's there under the Mullahs.
Carter made the Shah look really bad in the West as part of his personal agenda.
I speak from personal knowledge not the Media spin.
I am not specially recommending a return of the monarchy, other than perhaps the only practical catalyst and umbrella under which a democratic system could operate more smoothly after all the chaos of the last quarter century of the Mullahs.
The orchestrated attacks on the late Shah and his "repression" and "suppression"- so over intensified by the Media - was not only almost mythical compared to reality but even among Iranians evaporated rapidly compared to what they began to endure immediately after Khomeini took over.
Anymore than the Media presents anything good about Iraq, they were given the agenda of vilifying the late Shah because Carter wanted to glorify Khomeini as a new Iranian Pope.
You might want to read up about some of this on http://www.antimullah.com
Kings, religious clerics - all part of antiquated leadership structures. Iran's need - the whole world's need - is for sane democratic, non-religious governance. It's to George Bush's eternal credit that he tried for this in Afghanistan and Iraq, though it increasingly looks like the Islamic world may never be ready for it.
power to guarantee its mission of exporting the revolution may not stop at that. It may even include that.”
Pretty good basis for Israel to preempt
Incidentally Timmerman's claim to fame is possession of Islamic Revolutionary Guard documents, none of which would be favorable to the late Shah or his family. He has his place in the fight against the Mullahs but his analysis of the monarchy would appear flawed from what you mention. He seems to repeat what the MSM was saying at the time and eventually became "fact" even though it was wrong.
Again, both Alan Peters and myself went through it all first hand. He stayed behind to oppose the revolution, got stuck there after Khomeini returned and had to be "helped" out.
"Reza is a little prick who's lucky the US is protecting his ass from Iran 'justice'. "
Excuse me? Timmerman has been a friend of Reza Pahlavi.
And as for your slanderous "playboy" comment, I'd like you to back that accusation up. Reza has a beautiful wife and 3 children.
Bomb, bomb, bomb..bomb, bomb Iran. With big bunker busting, earth-shaking, devasting bombs. Tacticals if necessary.
Sorry TxCaj, I don't buy your buck-two-ninety-eight analysis of the Shah's son being a playboy and/or a prick.
Reza Pahlavi has the same love for his country as any exile would, as any Cuban-American that has ached to watch Fidel Castro rape, pillage and destroy their nation via Communism.
Read the interview, all of it in Human Events, Pahlavi comes across not as a "prick", but as a well educated, intelligent man with a good head on his shoulders. Of course he doesn't want a military strike on Iran, that's his damn home, no matter where he's been living over the past 27 years! If he thinks he has enough contacts inside Iran to stir up a revolution and flush those mullahs out of there, more power to him and the United States Government ought to be helping anyway possible, naturally below the radar and in the shadows.
I'm not even Iranian or of any Arab/Persian ancestry, but if Reza Pahlavi came knocking on my door asking for volunteers, I'd give it some serious thought.
In my estimation, he's one of the good guys and we should be backing him up. If it is possible to defuse this situation without turning Iran into a glassy parking lot, as much as I've advocated bombing the Shiite out of Iran, I'll be the first to say that I'm all for another way out of this mess.