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Last week, I had the opportunity to address over forty members of the United States Congress with the goal to encourage their recognition of the importance of engaging the Iranian people and their ongoing struggle for human rights and democracy. I began my remarks by asking, "If the U.S. is to continue to assert engagement as the path forward in the case of Iran, whom precisely should the engagement be with?" The answer: the "Green Movement" of the Iranian people. If the U.S. supports the Iranian people in their struggle for democracy -- for human rights and liberties -- it...

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Thirty years ago, Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile to found a totalitarian theocracy -- the likes of which we have not seen for hundreds of years, perhaps even since medieval Europe. Thirty years ago, Iranian militants took American embassy workers hostage. Thirty years ago was the last time I saw Iran. To this day, I have not been able to return. In 1979, the new Iranian clerical regime promised the Iranian people a republic. By definition, a "republic" is a state in which the supreme power...

Reza Pahlavi, son of the late shah of Iran, has lived in exile in the United States since 1979. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he reveals how he has aided the recent opposition protests, why he believes Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lost his legitimacy as supreme leader and his hopes of returning home. SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Pahlavi, are you still politically active? Pahlavi: I have been politically active in opposition to the clerical regime in Iran for the past 29 years. Throughout these years, I have maintained broad-based contact with a variety of Iranian groups SPIEGEL ONLINE: So you're...

WASHINGTON, June 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement by Reza Pahlavi, in response to President Obama's statement on Iran on June 23: "President Obama's strong support for human rights in Iran is greatly appreciated. But so is the dilemma of his policy of engagement. Obviously, it cannot succeed in an atmosphere when the clerical regime is revealing its insecurity by forcing arrested demonstrators to admit to Western plots. But a secure Ahmadinejad government means that people have to go home, and submit to the authority of usurpers. That is a lot to ask for! It is clear that...

The exiled son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, warned Monday of dire consequences for the volatile Middle East and the rest of the world if the popular uprising in Iran is crushed. The defeat of the movement protesting the outcome of presidential elections 10 days ago would not only threaten global stability but could lead to nuclear war, Pahlavi told a news conference here. The exiled son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, warned Monday of dire consequences for the volatile Middle East and the rest of the world if the popular uprising in Iran...

The son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, was Monday carrying in his breastpocket a photograph of the slain protester known as Neda said to have been killed in the Tehran protests. "I have added her (Neda) to the list of my daughters. She is now forever in my pocket," Pahlavi told AFP fighting back tears, after calling at a press conference for Western media and governments to stand strongly alongside the protest movement in Iran. The former crown prince of Iran took from his left breastpocket photographs of his wife, Yasmine, and three daughters, Noor, Iman and...

http://www.wmtw.com/video/19822260/index.html

The son of Iran's late shah said Monday he saw echoes of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew his father as massive crowds took to the streets against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Saturday, June 13th, 2009 Today the world is witnessing the demonstrated anger of millions of Iranians against a regime that denies their most basic rights, including the right to choose leaders who could improve their abysmal condition. There is no exit from this condition, so long as one man appropriates onto himself the “power of god” and controls the judiciary, the media, the security forces and, through direct and indirect appointees dictates the only candidates claiming to represent an impoverished and disenfranchised people. Today I stand united with my fellow Iranians and call for the end of the Islamic Republic,...

ADDRESS GIVEN BY Reza Pahlavi of Iran "Iran-US Relations At a New Cross Road" University of California – Irvine Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 Members of the faculty, students, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: I am very happy to be back at UCI today. It is a special privilege for me to have the opportunityof addressing you at this important crossroad in the relationship between our two countries, and the significance it has for the future of peace and stability in the Middle East. Let me begin by saying that a good university where one can study in peace and freedom...

Pahlavi, son of the late shah of Iran, acknowledged that sentiment in Washington for launching a dialogue with Iran's hard-line rulers is growing. But the administration should also "open a line of dialogue with the democratic opposition," he said. Pahlavi lives in Maryland and remains an active presence among Iranian exiles in the United States and Europe who oppose the Shiite cleric-led government in Tehran, which took power in 1979 after a revolution that deposed his late father. He spoke of the continuing "quest for democracy" in Iran, adding, "We seek a secular alternative." The 48-year-old Pahlavi brushed aside a...

(EXCERPT) ...allow me to frame today’s US-Iran predicament from the perspective of one who has had a daily front-row seat into my country’s domestic theatre, and whose primary concerned is the individual fate of 70 million Iranians who’s legitimate aspiration for liberty, freedom and humans rights cannot be discounted under any circumstance. In my view, we should first and foremost reflect on the big picture: First, the clerical regime’s ultimate goal, Second, my compatriots national aspirations, and Third, the free world long term interests. On the first point, we need to remember that the regime’s raison d’être is to establish...

“ … Their conclusions were unanimous: That madman, the Shah of Iran, had inexplicably used cobalt as the contamination agent in the six nuclear bombs which had exploded in the Middle East. Cobalt has one of the longest half-lives of any substance known to man. The oil fields of Saudi Arabia, of Kuwait, of Iran, would remain totally inaccessible for at least twenty-five years. The Arabs were through as a world power – and as a threat to Israel. Of course, the Western industrial powers were through too. … For the world was now forced to live with a bank...

Reza Pahlavi: Leadership for Democracy in Iran March 30th, 2008 For almost three decades, Reza Pahlavi has been a strong voice for freedom and democracy the world over. Now, with the support of freedom seekers around the world, he is ready to lead an international effort for a new era in his native country. A letter to the World The recent parliamentary election in Iran, and, for that matter, all previous elections, have been a travesty, a sad farce, with the ruling government again making promises it cannot fulfill. During 28 years of involvement as a secular democrat, I have...

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 Democracy & Security Conference Prague, Czech Republic Ladies and Gentlemen: I have come to Prague to ask for your solidarity with the people of Iran against a common enemy: Islamist preachers of intolerance who turn young men and women into walking bombs, shouting death to America, death to Israel, death to whosoever resists their murderous ideology. To the realpolitik cynics who say Islamist theocracy is a reality we have to live with, I respond: funny – they never said they can live with YOU! To those who say the theocrats can reform if we are nice...

The latest Presidential National Security Directive names the Islamic Republic of Iran as the greatest threat to international peace, security and stability. That is principally because permitting the foremost state-sponsor of terrorism to acquire nuclear weapons is unthinkable. What has changed from Herman Kahn’s era is that mutual assured destruction (MAD) worked against a rival that defined its interests in this material world. Messrs. Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and many of their cohorts do not. How can assured destruction deter those who glorify self-destruction and call it martyrdom? Just as suicide bombing has changed domestic security policies, dealing with the nuclearization of...

LONDON -- Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday. Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's neighbors _ including Iran _ if progress is to be made in the region. "If you mean by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support,...

-Snip- Gigot: You heard,... President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech. He has also been giving some interviews. What do you think he's trying to accomplish this week with these appearances? Pahlavi: ...I think the grandstanding of Mr. Ahmadinejad is a carefully planned move to gain more popularity on certain Arab streets, as a champion of the cause of extremists who simply don't look at the world the same way we do. The truth is he is losing more and more popularity at home, based on complete dysfunctionality of our economic situation. People are tired, are miserable. They have a lot of economic...

Reza Pahlavi Offers Senators Three-Pronged Approach on Iran; Confront and Pressure the Regime, Support the People 9/14/2006 WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Hosted by US Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Mel Martinez (R-FL) Reza Pahlavi of Iran affirmed the world needed to focus on the big picture regarding the crisis facing his homeland, proposing an integrated three- pronged policy approach to the clerical regime of Iran. Offering his views to US law makers, he said "the best way to deal with the Iranian regime is by confronting it, pressuring it, at the same time supporting the Iranian people." Elaborating...

Interview: Reza Pahlavi on Iran: 'A Race Against Time' August 27, 2006 Rachel Makabi What does 'seriously talk' really mean? Will the regime seriously discuss its violations of human rights at home? Reza Pahlavi was just a teenager in 1979 when an Islamic revolution in Iran ousted his father, the shah. In the years since, Pahlavi, who now lives in Maryland, has been involved with activists both inside Iran and abroad who seek to overthrow the mullahs from power. As the Iranian government continued to stonewall on the nuclear issue—with the United States calling for sanctions despite Iran's offer to...

10 Questions For Reza Pahlavi June 11, 2006 Time Magazine Vivienne Walt As the oldest son of the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi's youth in Tehran's sumptuous palace — and his prospects for the throne — ended at age 17, when the 1979 Islamic revolution drove his family into exile. Between meetings with French politicians last week, Pahlavi, now 45, sat down with Time's Vivienne Walt in his mother's Paris residence to describe the best way to oust the Tehran regime — and return him home. How can the opposition defeat the regime? A campaign of civil disobedience is the...

"The exiled son of Iran's late shah has sharply criticized diplomatic negotiations by the West to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program. Reza Pahlavi held a press conference Wednesday. The oldest son of late Iranian shah Mohammed Reza describes diplomatic dialogue with Iran as a lose-lose situation. Pahlavi, 45, says the United States and Europeans will get nowhere in their efforts to coax Iran to abandon its nuclear program through dialogue. He says these negotiations only strengthen the hand of hard-line conservatives in Iran. Instead, Pahlavi says the United States and the European Union should support popular opposition within...

...Mr. Pahlavi easily grasps what the rest of the international community refuses to understand... The threat of sanctions or the promise of aid won't budge the regime either, he says. "There is no economic incentive that you can throw at them... It's not the welfare of the people that matters to them... "You cannot even offer them a security guarantee, they don't care. For them, war is a gift from God... Peaceful revolutions from within have worked before, so why, he asks, isn't the West investing in the Iranian people -- "the same way they supported so many movements in...

Reza Pahlavi Royal Democrat 6/03/06 WSJ Nancy Dewolf Smith It's been an agonizing week for Iranian patriots. On Monday, Washington's ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, suggested that if Iran's ruling clerics abandon efforts to make nuclear weapons, they can remain in power. Thursday brought another jolt, when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the U.S. would join direct negotiations with Tehran if Iran verifiably halt its weapons program. In one fell swoop, it seems, the U.S. not only committed itself to a course that is certain to fail. It blundered into the one strategy guaranteed to strengthen...

POTOMAC, Maryland (Reuters) - The exiled son of Iran's late shah on Monday called on the Bush administration to put action before rhetoric in ousting Tehran's Islamic regime, which he said has long been the source of global instability. Reza Pahlavi, 45, the eldest son of the late Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, said Iranians are ready to actively oppose the Islamic regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but need more than pro-democratic utterances from world leaders like U.S. President George W. Bush. "Fantastic, we love to hear that, motherhood and apple pie," Pahlavi said of Bush's statements that the United States...

Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran, told the editors of HUMAN EVENTS last week that in the next two to three months he hopes to finalize the organization of a movement aimed at overthrowing the Islamic regime in Tehran and replacing it with a democratic government. He believes the cause is urgent because of the prospect that Iran may soon develop a nuclear weapon or the U.S. may use military force to preempt that. He hopes to offer a way out of this dilemma: a revolution sparked by massive civil disobedience in which the masses in the...

Revelers call for anti-Islamic Regime demonstration on Wednesday March 15th at 7pm Iran Time (GMT +3:30). Farsi language radio station KRSI in Los Angeles took calls live this Tuesday morning from people gathered in the streets in Iran and broadcasted them live to listeners all over Iran. Despite a total ban by the Islamic regime against celebrating an ancient Zoroastrian festival, traditionally on the last Wednesday of the Persian Year, by jumping over lines of smallish tumbleweed bonfires and chanting "your redness to me, my yellowness to you", crowds ignored the edict. And faced up to the attacks from the...

Iran's clerical regime is more Likely to hurt itself if it were to follow through on oil boycott. As a net importer of refined fuel, any such threat will hurt, an already ailing economy, something it can ill-afford. Click here to watch the interview. After clicking scroll down.

Ladies and gentlemen, It saddens me to reappear before you here today at a time when under the yoke of the clerical regime, my homeland is labeled as the greatest threat to international peace and security, and more importantly, from my vantage point, this threat comes at the cost of great pain and suffering for my fellow compatriots in Iran. Fear of the first state-sponsor of terrorism acquiring nuclear weapons, with all of its implications for nuclear blackmail and terror, even unconventional delivery of a nuclear device to Europe or to these shores, has been widely discussed. But let me...

Son of last shah of Iran urges support for Iranian opposition Wed Mar 1, 2006 The son of the last shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, urged support for Iran's internal opposition, insisting neither diplomacy nor military might would resolve the current crisis. Pahlavi, 45, told reporters that "Euro-three diplomatic efforts bought Iran's theocrats three extra years. Another series of cat and mouse games with the Russians may buy the clerical regime the time it needs to make the bomb. "That is the Islamic Republic's plan and hope," said Pahlavi, who fled his country during the 1979 revolution. "The problem with...

Call-In U.S.-Iran Relations C-SPAN, Washington Journal Jerome R. Corsi Michael Shedlock , GlobalEconomicAnalysis.blogspot.com 09:00 AM EST 0:30 (est.) LIVE Call-In U.S.-Iran Relations C-SPAN, Washington Journal Reza Pahlavi II

Washington, D.C. -- During a live primetime televised interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, Reza Pahlavi of Iran condemned Mr. Ahmadinejad's repeated comments on the holocaust and ailing Ariel Sharon as "despicable," having set a "new standard on incivility and disgrace," and "rejected by the vast majority of the Iranian people." Observing that Jews and Persians had "for millennia lived peacefully together," the 45 year old opposition leader to the clerical regime reminded the audience that the first Shah of Iran, Cyrus the Great, is revered as a 'savior-saint' of the Jewish people. "Obviously Mr. Ahmadinejad is ignorant of our...

His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations The United Nations, New York, NY August 5, 2005 Your Excellency: Topic: Human Rights conditions and deterioration of the situation of political prisoners and Human Rights activists in Iran. My compatriots and I are greatly concerned about the ever-increasing violation of human rights conditions in Iran. Various Iranian ethnic groups and women have stood out as targets of the Islamic Republic. The recent brutal murder of the Kurdish activist, Mr. Shwaneh Ghaderi and the imprisonment of Dr. Roya Toloee, a leader of Iranian women’s movement, are vivid examples of such...

When American bombs were raining down on what is left of Afghanistan, fellow Muslims in the neighbouring Islamic republic of Iran took out to the Streets. Contrary to our expectations in the West, they did not rally to denounce the 'Great Satan' - the name given to America by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Instead, ordinary Iranians, in one of the most extraordinary shifts in the geopolitical landscape since September 11, challenged their own hard-line Islamic clerics who swept Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from power in 1979. Tens of thousands of men and women also demonstrated, in several cities, after World...

The son of Iran's last shah, Reza Pahlavi, denounced Tehran's looming presidential polls as "theatrics" as he launched a hunger strike to support political prisoners of the Islamic regime. In an interview with AFP, Pahlavi called for a boycott of next week's polls organised by the Iranian government that toppled his father in a 1979 revolution that sent the imperial family into exile. The 44-year-old royal said he would not eat or drink, save for water to avoid dehydration, for three days between Friday to Sunday to draw attention to the lack of human, civic and political rights of Iranians....

FAIRFAX, Va., June 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Reza Pahlavi of Iran, in response to a direct invitation by political prisoners in Iran, pledged his solidarity and announced his plans to go on a three day hunger strike starting Friday, June 10. "Solidarity with political prisoners of Iran and support for the legitimate quest for freedom, human rights and economic opportunity in Iran transcends all political boundaries and ideologies," said Reza Pahlavi, opposition leader to the clerical regime of Iran. Yesterday, in a communique, signed by numerous political prisoners, in Iran, the June 17 presidential elections were rejected as "sham and undemocratic."...

PARIS, 3 June (IPS) Prince Reza Pahlavi joined his voice to other Iranian dissidents inside and outside Iran to urge Iranians not to participate in the coming presidential elections and do not give popular legitimacy a “discredited regime”. “With more than 20 million votes, (outgoing President) Mohammad Khatami was not able to implement his reform program, what can a Hashemi Rafsanjani do, a man who is also very unpopular?”, the 45 years-old son of the late Iranian Monarch observed during a press conference held in Paris on 2 June on the invitation of the French-American Press Association, referring to reports...

Roozbeh Farahanipour was jailed and beaten during student protests in Iran in 1999. Today, he sits in a cramped office above a Persian-language bookstore on Westwood Boulevard, speaking in low tones about the pro-Tehran "agents" he says still dog him. Two years ago, after hostile men confronted his Iranian activist group at public forums, he walked down the bustling avenue — past Persian restaurants, Persian pop music vendors and the publisher of the 1,200-page Iranian Yellow Pages — to the FBI office a few blocks away. There, he said, U.S. agents pressed him for details on espionage and provocateurs. Such...

"So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation… America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom." Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran, who was watching President George W Bush's speech on television at his hotel in London, noted the language. He was relieved that the phrase "regime change" was not used. He believes that American military intervention in Iran would be wrong:...

An open letter to Mr. Reza Pahlavi By: Amil Imani January 18, 2005 Dear Mr. Reza Pahlavi, "What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do." Aristotle 384-322, BC, Greek Philosopher. I am not a very important man. I have had a simple life. I have not accumulated a great deal of wealth. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I have never held or occupied a position of grand authority. Yet, I have always hoped to be as effective as my pen allows me to be. As has...

“Every nation deserves the government it has.” Ayatollah Khomeini. A recent trip to the United Kingdom provided me the opportunity to pay a visit to the British National Archive in Kew. Reading pages and pages and taking notes on various topics of interest made me decide to use some of the collected information and write the following piece. One of the most under-studied and under-researched international personalities of the twentieth century has to be the late Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Islamic revolution of 1979, its causes, roots, pros & cons as well as its outcomes have been...

The government in Cairo has refused to remove the old Iranian "Shir-o-khorshid(Sun & Lion)" flag from Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's grave, which was a prerequisite by the Islamic Republic of Iran for resumption of diplomatic ties between the two countries. This issue has managed to stop in its tracks ongoing negotiations between Iran and Egypt on normalization of bilateral relations.

Your new memoirs, "An Enduring Love: My Life With the Shah," offer a reverential look at your late husband, Reza Pahlavi, who ruled Iran from 1941 until he was toppled in 1979. He was above all a patriot who wanted progress and modernity in our country. I tell my life as I lived it. In the 25 years since he was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution and you fled to the United States for safety, have you ever been back to Iran? No. The Islamic Republic put me on their death list. The people of Iran were promised a paradise...

THEN: Prince Philip, the father of Prince Charles, and Princess Anne attended $500 million celebrations marking 2,500 years of the monarchy in Iran, amid the ruins of the ancient capital, Persepolis. The guests, a who's who of world leaders, wined and dined on peacocks, truffles, 2,000 pounds of caviar, and vintage champagne. More than 180 chefs and helpers were flown in from Maxim of Paris. Philip was given two thoroughbred stallions. NOW: Prince Charles meets in Tehran with President Mohammad Khatami for an hourlong discussion. Later, he visits the ruins of a devastating earthquake in the city of Bam and...

Today is the 25th anniversary of the departure of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from Iran. Iranians throughout the country joyously celebrated his departure at the time. But RFE/RL reports that many Iranians of all classes tend 25 years later to remember the shah's reign with nostalgia. Prague, 16 January 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi reigned as the last shah of Iran for almost four decades. But in 1979, the Shah left Iran and never returned. He died of cancer on 27 July 1980 in Cairo. Veteran Iranian journalist Massoud Behnoud says that the shah's departure from Iran ended...

"Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace: Free Iran at ActivistChat.com! Reza Pahlavi will appear live for an interview with the Fox News Channel on Sunday, January 4, 2004: Time: 9:15 AM (ET) To find Fox News Channel in your area, visit: http://www2.foxnews.com/channelfinder/index.html Please forward the above information to friends and family. RP Secretariat

An Interview With Dr. Amir Aslan Afshar 15th January 1979. One day before his departure from Tehran, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi stood in front of a statue of Reza Shah I in one of the rooms at the Niavaran Palace and expressed his regrets for deciding to leave Iran and said farewell to his father. Dr Amir Aslan Afshar, Chief of Protocol at the Imperial Court, stands to the right of the Emperor. An Interview With Dr. Amir Aslan Afshar By Dr Mostafa Alamouti Translated from the Persian edition of Dr Mostafa Alamouti’s series “Iran During the Pahlavi Era” Vol.15...

Pahlavi appeals to young Iranians who hate clerical rule and don't remember his father's regime McLEAN, Va. -- With his plastic watch and blue suit, Reza Pahlavi blends easily into the strip malls and bedroom communities that sprawl beyond the Capital Beltway. But the son of Iran's deposed king has far greater aspirations than the white-collar professionals and stay-at-home moms who populate suburban Washington: He wishes to lead the Iran of his youth -- the nation that sent him into a quarter-century of exile -- from dictatorship to democracy. "Look at Solidarity in Poland and what it accomplished," he said...

http://www.rezapahlavi.org/audiovideo/cspan112003.html Click on Source URL: You need Realplayer Shah's Son is advocating a Secular Democracy, or a Constitutional Monarchy based on the British, Spanish, Japanese Democratic models.

Free Iran atActivistChat.com REZA PAHLAVI will be on Washington Journal tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:30 am EST - BE SURE TO WATCH!!!