OPINION: Iran's uprising needs space — not a crown

In recent weeks, as Iran’s protest movement intensified, many outside the country, including in the United States, were eager to identify a leader who could speak for it. That impulse is understandable, but it is also dangerous. Iran’s uprising, even as it has eased in recent days, draws its strength not from a single figure or ideology, but from its refusal to anoint one. Efforts by exiled figures to step into that vacuum, however well intentioned, risk weakening the very legitimacy that has sustained the movement.

The most intense period of street protests has subsided, at least for now, and Iran has receded from daily headlines. Yet the question of who symbolizes opposition has taken on new significance. Recent media reports have highlighted episodes such as opposition messaging — including imagery and statements attributed to Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah — appearing on Iranian broadcasts, as well as debates among protesters about his relevance. These developments illustrate that the struggle over leadership and representation remains active even as visible demonstrations have eased.

After nearly half a century in exile, Pahlavi has reemerged amid Iran’s latest wave of unrest. The recent uprising, the most significant since the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022, has unfolded under extraordinary repression, with human rights groups reporting thousands of protesters killed. Many opposition figures have been imprisoned, silenced, or forced abroad. Into this vacuum, Pahlavi has stepped forward, presenting himself as a champion of constitutional monarchy and liberal democracy.

We have heard these promises before. I am old enough to remember when similar assurances were made by his father, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi — promises that ultimately dissolved into authoritarian rule.

There is a Persian proverb: az châleh be châh oftâdan — to escape a pit only to fall into a well. That was the tragedy of Iran’s 1979 revolution. Many Iranians, including members of my own family, were imprisoned or killed to overthrow the Shah, only to plunge into the far darker abyss created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his associates.

Since then, Iranians have repeatedly tried to climb out of that dark well: during the Green Movement, again after Mahsa Amini’s death and in countless smaller uprisings that never made international headlines. These movements were not about replacing one ruler with another; they were about dignity, agency and the right to choose.

Pahlavi, by contrast, has spent the intervening decades largely absent from Iran’s struggles, living abroad and removed from the risks borne by those inside the country. As my former RAND colleague Alireza Nader and other analysts have noted, Pahlavi’s political operation has been marked by inconsistent messaging, internal divisions and serious organizational weaknesses, including security breaches and allegations of infiltration by Islamic Republic agents.

More importantly, his actual support inside Iran appears far weaker than he suggests. Time magazine has questioned whether Pahlavi possesses any meaningful domestic organization, popular legitimacy or governing capacity, noting his resemblance to other exiled figures who failed to translate visibility into influence. The Associated Press has similarly reported that it remains unclear how much genuine backing he enjoys inside Iran, particularly among younger Iranians who have little attachment to monarchy and deep skepticism rooted in the Shah’s autocratic legacy. Visibility, in short, is not legitimacy.

This matters because legitimacy in moments of popular uprising is both fragile and decisive. In Iran’s recent protest movements, legitimacy has flowed not from leadership but from its absence — absence of hierarchy, absence of preordained outcomes, absence of a single figure who could be elevated, attacked or co-opted. The movement’s moral force has come from its horizontal nature: women removing headscarves, workers striking, students marching, families burying their dead. It has been a civic revolt demanding agency, not anointment.

Seen in this light, Pahlavi’s current role is politically dilutive rather than additive. By stepping forward — whether intentionally or through eager media amplification — as a recognizable alternative to the Islamic Republic, he recenters a fundamentally leaderless movement around a single exiled individual. This subtly but profoundly alters the nature of the struggle, shifting it from a collective demand for choice to a personalized debate over lineage, legacy and suitability. Once the movement becomes about who should rule, it loses power as a demand for how Iranians should choose.

His prominence also hands the regime a familiar and effective counter-narrative. The Islamic Republic has long relied on the specter of restoration — of monarchy, foreign-backed elites, and pre-1979 authoritarianism — to discredit dissent. Pahlavi’s visibility allows the state to reframe a diverse, grassroots uprising as a royalist project, regardless of protesters’ actual intentions. Even when false, this narrative revives historical grievances, sows doubt among undecided citizens and provides ideological cover for repression. A movement without a face is difficult to demonize; a movement associated with a dynasty is not.

There is also the question of risk and voice. Revolutionary legitimacy flows from proximity to danger — from those who are beaten, imprisoned or killed for dissent. When international media repeatedly elevate an exiled figure as the movement’s spokesperson, attention shifts away from those inside Iran who bear the costs of resistance. This imbalance distorts political reality: visibility is mistaken for authority, access for representation. Over time, this weakens the movement’s authenticity in the eyes of Iranians themselves and of international observers struggling to distinguish symbolism from substance.

Perhaps most damaging, Pahlavi’s involvement collapses process into outcome. Protesters have been explicit that their demand is not monarchy or republic, but choice itself: a referendum, a constituent assembly, a democratic mechanism through which Iranians can decide their future. Yet even when Pahlavi affirms these principles verbally, his very presence carries symbolic weight. In transitional moments, symbols speak louder than disclaimers. Association with hereditary rule — however disavowed — forces premature ideological sorting and fractures a coalition that had been united by opposition to the current regime.

Finally, his centrality imports the pathologies of exile politics into a domestic struggle that had initially transcended them. Diaspora debates — about 1953, the Shah, monarchy versus republic — crowd out the urgent realities of repression, economic collapse, gender apartheid and labor precarity. Energy that might otherwise sustain momentum is diverted into historical grievance and factional positioning. The result is not derailment, but dilution.

Critics do not argue that Pahlavi acts in bad faith or harbors authoritarian ambitions. The concern is not intent, but effect. By appearing as a ready-made alternative, he weakens the movement’s strongest claim — that it is not replacing one ruler with another, but insisting on the right of a people to choose for themselves.

For the sake of that claim — and for the people risking everything inside Iran — it would be wiser for him to step back.

Mahyar A. Amouzegar is a former senior analyst at the RAND Corporation, where he researched national security policy issues. His latest novel is “Tomorrow Brings Joy: Elysium.” He is a former president of New Mexico Tech.