THE ODD COUPLE:

Raised to be a King, Shah's Son Preaches Democracy: Pahlavi appeals to young Iranians who hate clerical rule and don't remember his father's regime (Borzou Daragahai, Nov 28, 2003, Star-Ledger)

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. [...]

In a historic meeting, Pahlavi recently sat down for an afternoon tea with dissident Iranian cleric Hossein Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the fiery cleric who led the overthrow of the monarchy in 1979.

The young Khomeini was in Washington to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. "We talked about issues such as civil disobedience, such as secularization, such as separation of religion from state, such as self-determination, such as a referendum," Pahlavi said.

"Basically we had a common vision on all these points." [...]

Just as Khomeini used cassette tapes recorded in exile to distribute his revolutionary messages inside Iran, Pahlavi has been using satellite television and radio broadcasts.

He has shored up his presence inside Iran, calling for the end of a theocratic rule and a referendum on the country's future government.

"When I see him on television, I feel comforted," said Mina, a woman in her 50s who says she avidly watches Iranian satellite television broadcasts from abroad, which are illegal but generally tolerated.

"The people sense that they can't make any change through any of the internal forces in Iran, so they look abroad," said an Iranian dissident intellectual, recently released from jail and afraid of being sent back, who asked to remain anonymous.

"They've also forgotten the bad things about the previous government, and Pahlavi's satellite broadcasts have a great impact on the young generation." [...]

Unlike his father, who in 1953 returned to his throne in a CIA-backed coup d'etat, the younger Pahlavi says he would return to lead Iran's monarchy only if Iranians opted for its restoration.

"As an Iranian I would shudder under the fact that my country would have to come under foreign attack of any sort," he said.

"It is in fact insulting for me to hear that people are not willing to believe that Iranians are capable of managing their own affairs and would require a foreign force doing it for them."

In Iran, however, at least a sizable number of the youth -- frustrated by social controls and the lack of economic opportunities -- have succumbed to the fantasy that Pahlavi will rescue the country from abroad.

"There's a perception that he's going to come and save us," said the dissident intellectual, who himself opposes restoration of the monarchy as a step backward for Iran.

"If the situation doesn't change, he has a good chance of coming back."

Now there's an alliance that would have to scare the Iranian clerics, the sons of the Shah and the Ayatollah, working together for democracy.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 28, 2003 1:57 PM