Reza Pahlavi
Who is Reza Pahlavi?
What is Reza Pahlavi’s educational background?
What has Reza Pahlavi advocated for regarding Iran?
Reza Pahlavi is the crown prince of Iran and the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah who was ousted in the country’s 1979 revolution. He has spent most of his adult life in exile in the Washington, D.C., area, where he has advocated for regime change and a more secular government for Iran. Whether Pahlavi, who has not lived in Iran since 1978, has the popular support and political ties to head such a government is unclear.
Early years
- Birth date: October 31, 1960
- Birthplace: Tehran, Iran
- Education: Completed U.S. Air Force training program as a certified jet pilot; bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Southern California, 1985
- Current role: Exiled crown prince of Iran
- Family: Married Yasmine Etemad-Amini in 1986; the couple has three daughters
- Quote: “I will return,” in a surreptitious 1986 broadcast into Iran
Pahlavi was born in Tehran in October 1960. He was officially named the prince at his father’s coronation in 1967. He was raised largely by a French governess and protected by a military officer whom his father had appointed. He studied at a palace private school, where he was captain of the soccer team. He was isolated from the public; a childhood friend told People magazine about a time when Pahlavi sneaked out of his family’s summer home, without his bodyguards, so he could be with people in the bazaar, the hub of commercial and social activity in Iranian cities.
Revolution and exile
In 1978, when Pahlavi was 17, he left Iran to be trained at the Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas (which closed in 1997). Only months after his departure, in January 1979, the Iranian revolution—the popular uprising that cut across political, social, ideological, and economic lines and was largely in response to the shah’s increasingly repressive regime—forced the shah and his family to flee the country. Pahlavi finished his military training that March, and he joined his family as they drifted from Morocco to the Bahamas to Mexico. They were under tight security, and he told The Washington Post it was “really like being in a fortress.” His father died of cancer in Egypt in 1980. Afterward Pahlavi declared himself the shah, in a ceremony in a palace in Cairo. “In a way, I’m king-elect,” Pahlavi told The Washington Post in a 1989 interview.
Pahlavi had begun studying at Williams College, in Massachusetts, before his father’s death but in the aftermath moved to Morocco and enrolled in a correspondence program with the University of Southern California, receiving a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1985. That same year, on a visit to Washington, D.C., he met Yasmine Etemad-Amini; they married the next year and moved to suburban Virginia so he could carry on his political work in Washington and she could attend George Washington University.
In 1986 Pahlavi made a secret 11-minute TV broadcast into Iran during which he proclaimed, “I will return.” His family had a relationship with the CIA that went back to the coup in 1953, when it helped restore the royal family after a power struggle with Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh led them to flee the country. Journalist Bob Woodward reported that the CIA was behind the 1986 broadcast, though he said it wasn’t clear whether Pahlavi knew about the agency’s involvement. Pahlavi later told The Washington Post he wasn’t connected to the CIA in any way. “I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.”
Voices of exiles
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s Pahlavi campaigned for political change in his home country. In addition to his family’s fortune, he was supported by other wealthy Iranian exiles. He appeared regularly on a Persian-language station based in Los Angeles, which many Iranians watched via satellite. Pahlavi’s father had been deeply unpopular at the time of the revolution, but as Iranians became disillusioned with the current regime, Pahlavi’s profile increased, particularly among young Iranians, who opposed the existing regime. In 2001 the Iranian government confiscated thousands of satellite dishes to stop residents from seeing Pahlavi’s broadcasts.
Pahlavi told USA Today that he wanted to be a “catalyst” to help Iranians achieve full democracy for the first time in their country’s history. He hoped to see a “successful campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience,” leading to a referendum. However, he insisted that he was not seeking to return to the throne. But even as some Iranians expressed confidence in Pahlavi, others were disappointed. In that same USA Today article, a young Iranian was quoted as saying, “We were waiting for the shah’s son, but he didn’t step up to the plate. I think he is afraid.”
In 2006 U.S. Pres. George W. Bush’s administration created the Iran Democracy Fund, pledging $75 million for aid to Iranian opposition groups and propaganda directed against the government. Pahlavi called for more still, though he urged against military action, saying it would only strengthen the existing regime.
Critic of negotiation; calls for protest
His calls for regime change continued through the 2010s, though they failed to produce results. Some observers continue to express doubt as to whether he truly had a wide base of support. Amin Saikal, a professor and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2018 that the Pahlavi family did not have a meaningful presence in Iran. “They run events and they have meetings with politicians and policymakers in the U.S.,” he said, “and that’s where they try to remain relevant.”
Pahlavi harshly criticized the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, and he has urged Pres. Donald Trump to exercise “maximum pressure” on the existing regime. In 2023 he visited Israel with his wife and aligned himself overtly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pursued military action against the Iranian regime.
In June 2025, after Israel launched an attack on Iran, Pahlavi did not condemn the assault. Instead, several days afterward, he released a video statement disparaging Iran’s leader, Ali Khamenei, assuring Iranians that if the Islamic Republic regime were to fall, the country would not lapse into chaos. He said the opposition movement had a 100-day transition plan to install a democratic government. He urged military members, police, and state workers to join the resistance. “Do not stand against the Iranian people for the sake of a regime whose fall has begun and is inevitable,” he said. He also called for protests in the streets.