Prince Reza Cyrus Pahlavi on Diplomacy with Iran

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Prince Reza Cyrus Pahlavi on Diplomacy with Iran

By Afarin Majidi

On May 6th, Prince Reza Cyrus Pahlavi (PRP), the eldest son of Shah H.M Mohamad Reza Pahlavi, spoke at University of California, Irvine’s Crystal Cove Auditorium. The audience included an overflow of more than one hundred people, who listened from outside the capacity-filled room. After being announced by UCI’s political science chair, Pahlavi delved straight into U.S-Iran relations and the political discourse that’s been set into motion by President Barack Obama’s administration. “It is foolish to think a serious breakthrough can happen with Iran,” Pahlavi insisted with absolute certainty. Looking strikingly like his father, he nearly echoed the late-Shah’s insistence on diplomatic futility, when American leaders urged him to make concessions with the clerics. This was prior to the Islamic Insurrection of 1979 that lead to the deposed monarch’s exile from Iran.

Modestly, PRP seems more the leader now than ever before. “I’m not running for office,” he said, however, to an audience member who beseeched him to become more politically active as a leader in Iran,

Pahlavi was very logical in his assessment that Iran sees “The U.S as the main obstacle in gaining a regional stronghold” and that the only leverage to be gained from the diplomatic dialogue Obama is setting into action is the “improvement of America’s image in the international media.”

Foreseeing “frustration with Iran’s unwillingness to compromise,” Pahlavi insisted that “Obama will not dissuade against Iran’s policies and its ideological enmity against the U.S. The clerics, he predicted, would never abandon nuclear and regional ambitions. Pahlavi’s own frustrations pointed to the way the major world powers have dealt with Iran. He insisted that they have let the people of Iran down for the sake of doing lucrative business with the Islamic Regime.

On the heels of what Pahlavi referred to as June 12th’s “so-called Presidential election” in Iran, he called upon the Southern California Iranian population to remember that the Islamic Republic is not the chosen government in Iran.

He urged us all to pro-actively interact with Iranians back home, so as to reduce the gap between the Iranian people in and outside of Iran. In breaking through unfortunate geographical barriers, he encouraged all Iranians “to let the youth of Iran know that they are not alone. They are the future. If you’re not talking about these issues with one another,” he added wisely,  “don’t expect CNN to talk about it.”

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