The devastating fallout of the joint US-Israeli war on Iran is spreading rapidly across the region and world. Meanwhile, one name continues to emerge in Western media discussions of a ‘credible’ alternative to the regime, particularly following the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on 28 February.
Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Shah, Iran’s last monarch who ruled until the 1979 revolution, has been living in exile, primarily in the US, since he was a teenager. Through regular media appearances, the 65-year-old has positioned himself as a secular democratic alternative to the Khamenei dynasty, oscillating between a constitutional monarch-in-waiting and a non-ideological transitional figure willing to support a future referendum.
