Pahlavi Hopes of Some Iranian Americans

“Pahlavi Hopes of Some Iranian Americans” in 2014 by Michael Craig Hillmann In early January 2014, a series of Facebook postings reached me presenting images and commentary about the head of the “House of Pahlavi,” “Crown Prince” Rezā Pahlavi (b. 1960), his daughters “Princess” Nur Pahlavi and “Princess” Iman Pahlavi, and expressions of support for Rezā Pahlavi–whom some Iranians have long called nim-pahlavi [half a pahlavi gold coin]–as Iran’s future leader, monarch if things turn out that way. The Iranian American authors of these postings voice support for democratic principles, while arguing that Iran needs a strong leader, for example Rezā Shāh Pahlavi II. These Iranian Americans also energetically mock the Muslim Prophet Mohammad (d. 632), his son-in-law Ali (d. 661), and Ali’s younger son Hosayn (d.

680), and ridicule the Koran. In short, they hold Islam responsible for the reprehensible behavior of the Islamic Republic in its 35-year history (nine years longer than Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi’s post-Mosaddeq, America-supported reign from August 1953 to December 1978). They further hope that Islam might disappear from Iran when the Islamic Republic there collapses. In fact, they would apparently legislate the faith of the vast majority of Iranians out of Iranian existence. More generally, they see people of faith, whatever faith, as ignorant, narrow-minded, and incapable of intellectual growth and impartial judgment.

Among the many issues that the Facebook images and commentary and You Tube attacks on Islam raise, the one that seems most amenable to summary and analysis is the notion that Rezā Pahlavi should lead or rule a post-Islamic Republic Iran.

Rezā Pahlavi (b. 1960), like his brother, his father, and his grandfather, is named after Emām (= Imam) Rezā (d. 818), the 8th Shi’ite Muslim Imam who died and is buried in a city thereafter renamed because of him, the Arabic loanword “mashhad” denoting the burial place of a shahid or martyr.

Some years back, the province in which Mashhad is located was divided into three provinces with these names: Northern Khorāsān, Razavi [= pertaining/ belonging to Imam Rezā] Khorāsān, and Southern Khorāsān. The new name Razavi Khorāsān is particularly grating to anti-Muslim Iranians for whom it is infuriatingly inconceivable that the Arab Rezā could be so honored instead of Ferdowsi (940-1020), author of the Iranian national epic called Shāhnāmeh [Book of Kings] (1010) who was born, lived, and died not far from Imam Rezā’s burial place.

As for those other “Rezās” in Rezā Pahlavi’s immediate family, online reports announced the suicide of his younger brother ‘Alirezā Pahlavi in early January 2011. His younger sister Laylā had reportedly committed suicide ten years earlier.

Rezā has another sister called Farahnāz, who reportedly is unwell and reportedly lives in seclusion, and a half-sister called Shahnāz. Shahnāz is the daughter of Pahlavi Hopes. Hillmann, 2014-2021.1

Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi (ruled 1941-1979) and his first wife, Egyptian King Faroukh’s sister Fowzieh. Mohammad Rezā and his second wife Sorayya Bakhtiyāri did not have any children, which is reportedly why Mohammad Rezā, who reportedly wanted a male heir, divorced her and married Farah Dibā, then a college student in Europe (the marriage permanently cut short her education), with whom he had the already cited four children. Mohammad Rezā apparently did not father any children with his mistresses.

Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi (1919-1980) famously and pusillanimously fled from Iran in January 1979 after protests and mass demonstrations against his ultimately incompetent and autocratic misrule caused his government to collapse and his “Immortal Guards” to disperse. Interestingly, Rezā’s grandfather, also named Rezā Pahlavi, had been forced by the Allies in 1941 to abdicate the Iranian throne, which he had usurped in the early 1920s, and to spend the last three years of his live in exile, as did Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi, who died homeless in Egypt where he is buried.

Parenthetically, Rezā Pahlavi’s grandfather chose the family name “Pahlavi” apparently to invent a connection between pre-Islamic Iran, Pahlavi a name for the Middle Persian language, and his family which had no history, much less a history of public service or other distinction.

Grandfather Pahlavi, who ruled Iran autocratically from the 1920s to 1941, apparently had little or no formal education, while his son Mohammad Rezā had only a European high school education. His grandson Rezā Pahlavi, after fleeing Iran in his late teens with his parents and siblings, thereafter attended a liberal arts college in America for a year and reportedly later continued his education by correspondence.

Back to the family given name “Rezā” and what lies behind it, Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi made regular pilgrimages to Imam Rezā’s Shrine in Mashhad and likewise reported that he had visions of the 1st Shi’ite Imam ‘Ali, who he asserted once helped save him from an assassin’s bullet.

As for Rezā Pahlavi, like his father Mohammad Rezā, he has made the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and has written the following on religion in Iran in general in a book called Winds of Change: “...a profound personal commitment to faith has been deeply rooted in Iranian culture and heritage. As one of the cradles of civilization, Iran has been a land of tolerance, a home to a multitude of ethnicities and religions. The respect for individual faith gained root and flourished in our land, and our forefathers were among the first to introduce the concept of a deity and of monotheism to mankind. In all these years, men of the cloth, regardless of which faith they represented, were respected members of our society.”

On Islam in Iran, Reza Pahlavi writes: “Since the advent of Islam, our clergymen have served as a moral compass. Spirituality has been an inseparable part of our culture.” According to Reza Bayegan in an article called “Rezā Pahlavi Pahlavi Hopes. Hillmann, 2014-2021.2

and the Question of Religion” (Payvand online): “Prince Rezā Pahlavi is deeply attached to his Shi’ite Muslim faith” and “believes that religion has a humanizing and ethical role in shaping individual character and infusing society with greater purpose.” Naturally, then, as Bayegan observes, Reza Pahlavi “avoids the Islam bashing that occurs in some circles of the Iranian opposition,” in particular many of his Iranian American supporters.

The recent online attention to Rezā Pahlavi has reminded me of facts of political life during my six years in Iran before the Iranian Revolution. Then and later, I met few Iranians whose families or whose acquaintances’ families did not include persons arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and/or executed by Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi’s government.

Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi’s coronation ceremony in 1967 in which he crowned himself “Emperor,” his inculcation of fear among university faculty and students of my acquaintance in Mashhad and Tehrān through his SAVAK secret police organization, the system of bribes, kickbacks, and connections he fostered, his heavy-handed censorship of print media and publishing in general, his approval of the execution of four of my Fall 1966, freshmen English students at Mashhad University for political activities (reading and discussing Marxist texts?), the bizarre and lavish celebration of 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy in the early 1970s, his inauguration of a single-party political system in 1975 and compulsory membership in it on the part of Iranian civil servants, including educators, and his institutional of an Iranian Imperial Calendar in 1977 are just a handful, among scores of policy decisions that persuaded me that this man, best known for womanizing, bad parenting, inadequate communication skills, and egomaniacal trust in his own ill-informed views, was unfit for public office.

In short, merely on the basis of my personal observation of Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi’s public behavior and policies as they impinged upon my life in Mashhad, Karaj, and Tehrān, I saw him as incontrovertible proof that monarchy could not serve as the basis for an effective system of government in Iran’s future.

After the Iranian Revolution during which the Pahlavi dictator ignominiously fled Iran with wealth accumulated at the expense of the Iranian nation, leaving behind colleagues and supporters many of whom the barbaric Islamic Republic of Iran proceeded to imprison and execute, it further puzzled me that Americans persisted in referring with royal titles to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s third wife and their children whose family played no role in Iran society before the 1920s, who never worked in their post-Revolution years in Europe and America, and who never saw fit to return any of their unearned wealth to Iranians needing it.

If Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi had listened to experts around him, if he had learned lessons from Iran’s history, if he had instituted any democratic reforms, or if had at least paid lip service to the 1906 Constitution under which he nominally ruled, and if he had resigned his position or delegated authority once he learned he Pahlavi Hopes. Hillmann, 2014-2021.3

was seriously ill, both his family and Iran would have had different futures.

Parenthetically, it makes sense to me that some Iranians hold him personally responsible for the sad outcomes in his family and the tragic state of affairs in Iran ruled oppressively by Shi'ite Muslim clerics.

As already discussed, Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi’s legacy lives on in the person of his older son Rezā Pahlavi, who apparently and naturally embraces the Pahlavi legacy. Born and raised in the public eye in Tehran, Reza Pahlavi was presented to Iranians in the media as the best student and the best athlete and the best Boy Scout in his youth. As described above, with his parents and siblings, he fled Iran in early 1979, never to return. Thereafter, as cited above, Reza Pahlavi attended college in America for a year. He also reportedly completed a U.S. Air Force Training Program in Lubbock (TX) to become a jet fighter pilot (for what reasons escaped me then). After his father’s death in 1980 and at the age of 21, Pahlavi declared himself shāhanshāh [king of kings, emperor], but later ceased to use that title for himself and now refers to himself as head of the “House of Pahlavi” and announces himself as ready to serve as Iran’s leader should Iranians want him to serve as such. That some Iranian Americans would support as Iran’s leader a man who has never lived or worked as an adult in Iran is puzzling.

For example, when I realized in 1980 that I could no longer spend much time in Iran or conduct research there, I decided that my academic areas of interest would henceforth be Persian literature up to 1979, that I would not write or teach about literature thereafter, and that I would not write about Iranian culture thereafter because I thought that, absent living and work experience in the Islamic Republic of Iran, my writing would lack necessary first-hand information and perspectives.

Although my example here relates to an insignificant academic arena, it strikes me as paralleling significant arenas such as public service. Moreover, I daresay that Rezā Pahlavi, through no fault of his own, knows little about Iranian history and probably is not qualified even to talk about Iranian society and politics within the country.

Also, during his years in the States, the multi-millionaire Reza Pahlavi has apparently neither sought employment nor served in any managerial or other professional capacities, but has written and spoken widely in support of human rights and democracy in Iran and has advocated civil disobedience as a means of blunting the oppressive policies of the dictatorial Islamic Republic of Iran. And some expatriate Iranians in Europe and the States view Reza Pahlavi in terms such as these used by expatriate writer and Pahlavi supporter Reza Bayegan: “Reza Pahlavi's vision of a secular government is not unlike the dream of another modern, progressive statesman in a different era and different country, John F. Kennedy.” This is an instructive comparison.

Born into money and attendant advantages, John Kennedy attended and graduated from an academically challenging high school and college, wrote a book Pahlavi Hopes. Hillmann, 2014-2021.4

on political history in his 20s, worked summers on a ranch and overseas at an embassy, served in the U.S. Navy throughout World War II, won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946 and served there from 1947 to 1953, and won an election in 1952 to the U.S. Senate where he served from 1953 to 1960.

Still, despite a record of twenty years of gainful employment and public service, many Americans thought him not sufficiently experienced when he ran for U.S. President in 1960. Now the cited “vision of a secular government” that Rezā Pahlavi supporters attribute to him has none of the specificity of Kennedy’s written and spoken views from his college days to his candidacy for the American presidency in part because Rezā Pahlavi has held no private or public positions and has not traveled anywhere relevant to a leadership position in Iran and has never been responsible for or to anyone outside of his family. Yet, Rezā Pahlavi’s Iranian American supporters hope for his return to Iran to leave a post-Islamic Republic society.

From an American outsider’s perspective, nothing problematic inheres in Iranian expatriate support for Rezā Pahlavi. In fact, support of any progressive ideology or ideologues opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran seems commendable.

That would include support for the now dormant Green Movement and support for Los Angeles Iranian-American oppositionist television personalities. But when Iranian individuals or groups or political platforms gain some recognition, more serious scrutiny comes into play.

For example, that fact that one of those Los Angeles television personalities, Bahram Moshiri, engages in constant denigration of the Islam that millions of Iranians practice raises serious questions in the minds of American observers who share Benjamin Franklin’s views on religion and who conclude that Iranian oppositionists like Moshiri support freedom FROM religion in Iran rather than freedom OF religion. In addition, Moshiri’s diatribes against leading expatriate oppositionist activist Shirin Ebadi can lead some observers to wonder if a streak of misogyny does not figure in the mindset of some Iranian oppositionists outside of Iran.

As another example, for some observers, support for Rezā Pahlavi speaks to a traditional Iranian patriarchal orientation that leads some politically minded Iranians to look for a senior leader first instead of first developing ideas and positions in groups and then letting spokespersons for the groups emerge, not as leaders necessarily, but as representatives. Of course, in Rezā Pahlavi’s case, the platitudinous and unspecific political commentary in his writing, combined with his lack of training in law, business administration, the economy, or any other relevant field, and his lack of work experience of any kind, not to mention managerial experience, and his likely lack of intimate acquaintance with Iranian history, culture, and contemporary Iranian society, make it difficult for observers to visualize him as an effective voice in Iranian politics, much less as a potentially Pahlavi Hopes. Hillmann, 2014-2021.5

competent leader of any Iranian organization.

In late December 2013, an Iranian visitor to the States much involved in cultural entertainment in Iran surprised me both with his declaration of support for Reza Pahlavi as the leader of a post-Islamic Republic government of Iran and with his assertion that a not insignificant number of people in Iran broach name of Rezā Pahlavi as a desirable successor to Ruhollah Khomayni, Mohamad Khātami, et al.

Then, in early January 2014, an Iranian-American friend, who regularly posts antireligion and anti-Islam messages, photos, and video clips as part of his anti-Islamic Republic of Iran stance started posting links to Reza Pahlavi’s web site and You Tube videos of his talks and interviews. Later over lunch, I asked my IranianAmerican friend about what he has found in Reza Pahlavi [= RP] that would make him comfortable with the latter as the ruler, even the king, of Iran. My friend’s multifaceted answer contained these points: • RP speaks three languages (English, French, and Persian), an important quality for a leader in the non-Western world; • RP professes to be wholeheartedly democratic in philosophy; • RP probably does not support Islam, but has to avoid anti-Muslim statements as a politician; • RP talks better than another other public personality not part of the Islamic Republic system; • RP may be too democratic or malleable to perform efficiently as an Iranian ruler, who would have to exhibit some of Rezā Shāh Pahlavi’s forceful decision-making and policy-enforcing.

My Iranian-American friend’s answer can both ironically serve as further support for my views of Rezā Pahlavi and lead me to this question: How can educated Iranian Americans–arguably the best educated group of immigrants in American history–think these two things: first, that the son of a national leader deserves consideration as his father’s successor, especially if that son has apparently accomplished nothing in public in his adult life; and, second, that monarchy can play a useful role in our 21st-century world?

Pahlavi Hopes. Hillmann, 2014-2021.6