Reza Pahlavi’s Berlin Visit: A Prince of Unholy Alliances

A Prince Pays A Visit
…offering the attentive observer a hint of unholy alliances

So now Berlin. The energetic head of the internationally networked family business that aims to bring Iran back under the crown’s thumb, the „Sha’s Son“ Reza Pahlavi, visits the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany and is quick to criticise the German government for not doing more to bring him to the throne – pardon me – to bring the Iranians their freedom. He calls the German
government’s alleged hesitation a “disgrace”:

Stefan H. Heuer, M.A.
April 24, 2026

”Reza Pahlavi calls for regime change in Iran on Berlin visit: The former Shah’s son is in Germany to drum up support for his global campaign to overthrow Iran’s leadership. During a speech in the capital, he called the German government’s refusal to meet with him “a disgrace.”

This is typical of him: the man is of retirement age and still wants to rule – supposedly only to lead a “transitional government” in Iran.

Well, we are already familiar with such transitional presidents, blessed by the West, aren’t we? In Syria, the head-chopper Al-Jolani has been imposing on the Syrian people the transition from a secular nation to a Salafist torture chamber since December 2024. In Kiev, the comedian Zelensky, since May 2024, has been allowed to usurp the office of Ukrainian president without an electoral mandate, both of them without being reprimanded by the representatives of the EU or the US, who are always talking about so-called ‘Western values’. Hard-line dictators such as Reza Pahlavi’s father, Jolani, or Zelensky are always dear to the West, provided they are in its pocket.

Ever since, in 1953, the US and Britain had orchestrated their coup against the democratically elected Iranian prime minister Mossadegh, returning the nationalised oil production into the loyal hands of the British-Dutch and US exploiters, and reinstating the Shah as a puppet of the Western oil companies, the ties between the US and the royal family have been close.

Mossadegh was a patriot who wanted to bring freedom and prosperity to his people – that was his
mistake. The CIA stepped in and dealt with the problem

Mossadegh’s achievements for Iran should not be underestimated:

“At a time when politics in Iran was dominated by the monarchy, the clergy and military interests, Mossadegh offered a bold vision of governance based on constitutionalism, the rule of law and the will of the people. Although his tenure as Prime Minister was short-lived, it marked a remarkable departure from the prevailing authoritarian order. Through political measures such as the nationalisation of the Iranian oil industry, Mossadegh reaffirmed not only economic independence but also the fundamental right of nations to self-determination.”

Such acts of defiance cannot be tolerated when the supply of resources to the greedy capitalist monsters in the West is at stake. In this respect, the coup of 1953 is above all striking proof that democracy based on the Western model is not accepted by the West if it hinders its virtually free access to the resources of other countries.

The Shah, the subservient puppet of Western oil companies, was thus restored to the throne in Tehran and ruled from then on, from 1953 until his overthrow and flight into exile in 1979, with an iron fist; he made the people, whom he did not care about, pay for the fact that he had been forced to leave the country during the brief period of freedom they had won for themselves:

“According to a 1976 report by Amnesty International, the shah’s feared intelligence agency (SAVAK) often beat political prisoners with electric cables, sodomised them and ripped off their fingernails and toenails to extract false confessions.’At the end of the day, the shah’s regime was a brutal dictatorship and non-democracy […]”

The oil floated out of the country, the funds floated into the Shah’s pockets, whilst the oppressed people grew poorer.

Exploitation and subjugation under foreign rulers – that is what the second Pahlavi stands for. The third seems to want to follow in his footsteps, and his friends appear to be the same as his father’s:
”His family had a relationship with the CIA that went back to the coup in 1953 […]. 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.“

It is not only from the US that he hopes for his enthronement. He also maintains the closest of relations with the terrorist state of Israel, which is committing genocide against the Palestinians as well as the population of Lebanon to force through ‘Greater Israel’ – a state in which Christians and Muslims are harassed, if not driven out outright, and their places of worship destroyed. In doing so, he likes to refer to the close ties his father had maintained with the blood-soaked butchers in Tel Aviv, which he would like to renew in due course:

“Yasmine and I were very pleased to meet with Israeli PM and Sara (Netanyahu).
We expressed appreciation for Israel’s continued support for the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations and emphasised that, as the children of Cyrus the Great, Iranians aspire to have a government that honours his legacy of tolerance for different faiths and protection of human rights. The day will soon come when the Iranian nation and Israel enjoy normal relations and mutually enriching and beneficial cultural, scientific and economic exchange.” (X post)

On the occasion of his first visit to his friends in 2023, Reza Pahlavi wrote that he wished to “convey a message of friendship from the Iranian people”

The fact that the Iranian people had not authorised the self-made man from the US at all did not bother anyone in the West, given the beautiful images and warm words. And just two years later, the Iranians were shown what “Israel’s continued support for the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations ” means: murder, terror, annihilation.

When Israel and the US attacked Iran, the prince was absolutely thrilled. He described the killing of Iranian civilians and the destruction of infrastructure as a “humanitarian intervention” and praised the aggressor:

“Trump will be remembered as the leader who stood with [the Iranian people] when it mattered most”

“Humanitarian interventions” by the West have a specific history. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria,
Mali, Libya, Somalia and Sudan are names that come to mind in this context. After the murder of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in the unfortunate countries on the death list of the evil empire, Iran is, as is well known, at the bottom of the list.

“We’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”

That this is always about the tangible geostrategic interests of the Western hegemon and its hunger for resources cannot seriously be disputed.

Pahlavi, who tirelessly campaigns for violent regime change, supports the attacks against the country he describes as his homeland, and against the people whom he has the audacity to claim to represent.

He referred to the Iranian schoolchildren torn to shreds by the US in Minab as ‘collateral damage’.

This is exactly how NATO describes its civilian casualties.

This is the sort of robust moral digestion that the West loves. For these figures, painstakingly polished by the media, dutifully parrot the script, regardless of the heavy toll in blood that the people supposedly to be liberated must pay. For these parrots with ambitions of power, it is worth kissing the feet of the mass murderers in Washington and Tel Aviv.

Mr Pahlavi, the self-appointed leader of the Iranian opposition, certainly also shone in Berlin with words that sounded good to Western ears:

“Noteworthy was Pahlavi’s outlined economic ‘vision’ for a secular transitional government, which he intends to lead. A ‘free’ Iran would become a ‘partner for regional economic integration’, he said. Iran’s ‘energy potential’ would once again be ‘linked to global markets’. The oil reserves would thus ‘benefit European consumers, neighbours in the Persian Gulf and the Iranian people in equal measure’. Pahlavi spoke of the ‘greatest untapped opportunity for regional peace in a generation’ and of ‘economic opportunities worth more than a trillion dollars over the coming decade’.

Surely it’s just a coincidence that this sounds very much like Trump’s property development project for Gaza.

Whilst there, the troublesome indigenous population is first being driven out or murdered before the golden age can dawn, Iran – economically strangled by sanctions – would, according to the wet dreams of Western imperialists, fall into their predatory hands like a ripe apple: a highly developed country with enormous energy resources.

The road to Tehran is currently being paved, and the busy Mr Pahlavi already has a plan for the changes desired by the West.

The ‘prosperity’ he promises therein will, as the Western-led upheavals in West Asia and Africa to date, accrue less to the people than to the puppet-masters in the West.

The ordinary Western man in the street, plagued by soaring living costs, instead hears that, with Pahlavi, oil is finally flowing into Western petrol stations once more. That will be reason enough for him to rubber-stamp the planned brutal subjugation of a highly civilised people to the exploitative foreign rule of the Western plutocracies. He is happy to pay taxes for that.

And the EU, too, appears set to discuss at its summit in Cyprus today how to deal with Iran, which dares to defy authority, to advance its own imperial interests.

To make the illegal regime change, which is only possible through military coercion, appear somehow nice, or ‘democratic’ so to speak, a charismatic figure is needed for the (notoriously ill-informed and even less interested) majority in the West, who will ultimately foot the bill for these measures. Ordinary people do not read strategy papers. And it is precisely for this purpose that the ‘terror West’ needs a figurehead whom it can dress up and present according to tactical considerations. It seems possible that Mr Pahlavi is being prepared for this role. In doing so, the West overlooks the fact that this gentleman plays a seemingly dubious role within the opposition movements of the Iranian exiles:

„Pahlavi’s movement morphed into something much darker and more dangerous over the years, especially after he effectively dropped out of a coalition formed by eight prominent Iranian opposition members at Georgetown University in 2023 and declared himself the sole leader of the Iranian opposition. […] To understand how extremist and increasingly violent the Pahlavist movement has become, look no further than the recent murder of Canadian-Iranian democracy activist Masood Masjoody in British Columbia.“

The murder was reported by Canadian media, which the Germans, however, do not read. That is why they are completely unaware of the figure that the media glosses over for him, as instructed.

Within the opposition movements, Reza Pahlavi is therefore controversial, but that doesn’t bother the West if it can present the taxpaying public with a figurehead. After all, he is the ‘only face of the opposition that people know’.

He is not yet suitable for a meeting with the representatives of the plutocracy in Berlin, but that could change. After all, Berlin has some experience in propelling puppets to prominence.

And when Iranian oil finally sloshes about in the tanks of Western cars, we, the golden billion of the West, will forgive the Iranians for the fact that we attacked them, bombed their schools, murdered their children and finally forced them under the rule of a Mr Pahlavi.

Because, aren’t we always the good guys?

Stefan H. Heuer, M.A.
Historian, born in 1964, has worked as a lecturer in adult education and, among others, in Human resources development for a US-American company in Germany.

English translation of the German article „Ein Prinz gibt sich die Ehre“ (2026-4-24), published at the author’s Substack site.

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