Prince Reza Pahlavi II

[Rasputin]

Israel and the Jewish Lobby

The power of the Jewish Lobby is more prominently discussed now (though not in the major media) than when this dialogue took place. It got resonance from the paper issued in the spring by two noted political scholars - John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government - who argued how dominant the Lobby is. That position has been echoed by other analysts and also by a powerful new book by noted scholar James Petras called The Power of Israel in the US reviewed by this writer and available on sjlendman.blogspot.com. With his extensive documentation in a full-length book, Petras makes a convincing case for his position about how dominant the Jewish Lobby is in determining US policy in the Middle East and that AIPAC is just one part of a much broader network.

Chomsky and Achcar disagree. Chomsky believes the most powerful pro-Israel lobby is "American liberal intellectuals," not AIPAC. The intensity of their support crystallized after Israel's dramatic victory in the 1967 six-day war. It happened when the US was bogged down and losing in Vietnam and for liberal hawks (who later became neocons) this was a model or example of how to crush a "Third World upstart." Achcar has a similar view and believes it's untrue to think the Israeli "tail" wags the US "dog." Chomsky adds: "Whatever you think of the (Jewish) Lobby, it is nothing compared with the power of the US government." Those who want the opposite view should read the Petras book just published which covers this issue in much greater detail including a critique of Chomsky's position in the final section.

[Sepideh_UK]

hm!!!
Thanx R.W

[Rasputin]

I just read Ms. Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich's response "Blind ambition" to Mr. Reza Pahlavi's address, "Talking to Iran", and if I may, I would like to come to Mr. Pahlavi's defense.

First of all I do not think it is fair to brand Mr. Pahlavi guilty because of his father's actions. As for Mr. Reza Pahlavi making the mistake of being associated with the CIA and the neocon warmongers that can be written off as political immaturity and being a victim of a life long conditioning program so that one day he would be ready to rule as a benevolent dictator.

Breaking free of this programming and finding a way to alter his conditioning will require tremendous will and sincere dedication to finding his real self. And I think this will be a hard struggle for him. Maybe he will succeed in waking up and discovering that in order to be honest with himself and honest with the Iranian people he needs to throw off all the strings that have been attached to him and also break free of the shackles that are around his ankles.

I think the same goes for the MKO and all other Iranians that have acquired a set of ideas about Iran that has stayed fixed since 1979. The fact that Iran finds itself in an entirely new situation requires that we all adjust our thoughts about Iran to fit the new situation. If we continue to look at Iran through old and obsolete thought forms and ideas then we will never be able to be of any help in creating Iran's future. Only by understanding the Iran of today and what the new geopolitical realities are can we make a contribution.

If we continue to point at each other and brand each other as traitor, royalist, Marxist, Arab-parast, terrorist, cultist, and Khomeinist, we will only succeed in staying alienated from each other while claiming we care about Iran and Iran's wellbeing. And as long as we are alienated from each other, don't communicate with each other, and hate each other, we will not be able to work towards Iran's wellbeing.

So what is to be done? How do we find a way to get along? How do we find a way to play a role in Iran's wellbeing and help shape its future and not just be a powerless spectator?

Have you asked yourself what you would have done if the United States had not run into trouble in Iraq and used it as a stepping stone to invade Iran? How would you have reacted if Iranians had resisted the invasion and an insurgency developed and fought the Americans like the Iraqi's are fighting now? Which side would you have been on? Would you have remained an American citizen and supported the Bush Administration as it destroyed our country, bombed wedding parties by mistake, and killed half a million Iranians, mostly civilians?

Fortunately the chance that there will be a military confrontation between Iran and America has greatly diminished. The question Iranians need to ask themselves now is do we continue in our divided, alienated, splintered, and unhappy way or do we come together and organize and play a part in Iran's future. Let us hope it is the latter. The next question is how do we sit around a table and discuss matters of importance in a civilized manner? The answer can be found in many parts of the world where coalition governments have formed and succeeded in administering a country in a peaceful manner.

Can you envision a coalition government that has political parties headed by supporters of Ahmadinejad, Pahlavi, Rajavi, Ganji, Khatami, Montazeri, Hashem Aghajari, Shirin Ebadi, and many other Iranian leaders that have recently come forward?

I can envision such a coalition government --- but first I have to put on my rose tinted glasses. But seriously, shouldn't we come together and put before the Iranian people, a few fundamental questions: Do a majority of Iranians want to continue living in a theocratic state? Should Iran abandon or continue its nuclear activities? Can a secular form of government do a better job?

One issue all Iranians came to agree on over the past couple of years was being firmly against regime change through American military force. This is a good starting point. What else can we all agree on, a true democratic form of government for Iran? I think we can all agree on that, even though powerful unelected institutions would prefer to hold onto their illegitimate power.

The key to any change in Iran is allowing the free flow of information so that Iranians are well informed about the facts rather than what they are told to think by those in power. The next requirement is for Iranians to have the ability to organize, share ideas, and assemble without the fear of prosecution. The third essential requirement is to master and apply democratic principles so that any advances that are made are legitimate and have the support of fellow Iranians. Today's Iran makes taking these three steps very difficult but not impossible thanks to modern technology in the form of the Internet, satellite television, and new communication systems.

Can Iranians living outside Iran form a coalition government in exile? After all they are all living in a democratic system of government and know how things are supposed to work, so they should be able to contribute something of value. By creating such a coalition government in exile they will be showing Iranians living in Iran that there are viable alternative and it is possible to govern even when there are vast differences of opinion.

The days of coming to power and locking up and killing those that don't agree with you has passed. It is time to come together and forge a new Iran that is truly democratic and one that operates under the rule of law, laws written today by Iranians of today, not laws of the past that were relevant for an age where superstition was the driving force.

I will close with a quote by Ayatollah Montazeri so as to show that not all Shiite clergy are close minded: "Either officials change their methods and give freedom to the people, and stop interfering in elections, or the people will rise up with another revolution ... There is no freedom, repression is carried out in the name of Islam, and that turns people off ... All these court summonses, newspaper closings and prosecutions of dissidents are wrong. These are the same things that were done under the Shah and are now being repeated. And now they are done in the name of Islam and therefore alienate people."

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

True to its rhetoric, the Islamic Republic severed all official ties with Israel, but a clandestine relationship continued. Though Yasser Arafat was invited to Tehran and spoke of the plight of the mostly Sunni Palestinians, the Shia-Sunni divide and the fact that the Palestine Liberation Organization was largely secular meant that Iran’s support for the Palestinians was always lukewarm. Privately, Iran and Israel shared a common fear of the Arab states, especially Iraq. Israel sold Iran arms throughout the eight-year Iraq-Iran war.

In 1985, in the middle of that war, then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres helped broker a deal between the Reagan Administration and Iran. The agreement allowed the sale of American arms, including anti-tank missiles, to the Islamic Republic. In exchange, the United States sought Iranian influence to free Western hostages held by Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese group supported by Iran. (It also used the Iranian money to fund the anti-Communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua.) When news of the deal surfaced, the Reagan Administration was embarrassed and politically damaged—both the United States and Israel had previously denied selling arms to the Islamic Republic.

At the end of the Cold War, Israel had a change of heart and concluded that Iran had become a major threat to its security. With Iraq severely weakened by its defeat in the Gulf War, Israeli strategists focused on Iran’s quest for long-range missiles and nuclear weapons as well as Iranian funding of Hezbollah. At press conferences in Jerusalem and during many visits to Washington in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Yitzhak Rabin began emphasizing his desire to make peace with the Palestinians and with Syria because an even greater danger loomed: a nuclear Iran.


In 1977, Abbas Milani, then a political scientist at Tehran University, was arrested by the Shah’s police and thrown in jail. Considered a dangerous leftist academic, Milani shared a cell with some of the men who would become the leaders of the Islamic Revolution, including one of Ahmadinejad’s predecessors, Rafsanjani. Recalling his incarceration with the Islamists, he says bluntly, “I couldn’t stand them and they couldn’t stand me.”

Milani, who is not Jewish, left Iran for the United States in 1986, after the first waves of Iranian Jews fled the Revolution. He remembers that he first came to understand the special penalties that Iranian Jews faced under the mullahs when an Iranian friend, a prominent astrophysicist at Cambridge University, was invited to attend a conference in Tehran in 1982. The Iranian authorities had assured the young man he would have no problem returning to Britain, but because he was Jewish, they seized his passport upon his arrival and refused to return it.

“The poor guy had a wife and baby in England and they wouldn’t let him leave,” recalls Milani, who later discovered that the Islamic Republic had an unofficial policy of denying passports to young Iranian Jews to coerce their families into returning home after traveling abroad. They were in effect held hostage. “You can’t be a human being without feeling offended that this is happening in your name in your country,” says Milani.

Since the Islamic Revolution, approximately 75 percent of Iran’s Jews have fled the country. Estimates of the number that remain vary from 13,000 (the U.S. State Department’s 2005 International Religious Freedom Report, based on the most recent Iranian census) to the 25,000 to 30,000 claimed by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, a non-profit group based in New Haven, Connecticut. The difference, the Center says, stems from the fact that many Jews in Iran do not wish to call attention to their heritage.

Whatever their number, Jews make up a tiny and vulnerable fraction of Iran’s population of nearly 70 million. “Personally, I am very much concerned about attacks on Iranian Jews,” says George Haroonian, former president of the Council of Iranian American Jewish Organizations (CIAJO), a group of outspoken Iranian expatriates that advocates for the rights of Iran’s remaining Jews. “It’s my viewpoint that Iranian Jews are in a very precarious situation.”

CIAJO reports that since 1979, 10 Jews in addition to Elghanian have been executed, six have been assassinated by the regime, two have died as a result of being held in custody, eight have died under suspicious circumstances and 12 have disappeared.

The situation has become increasingly worse, says Haroonian. He points to the trial in 2000 of 13 Jews from Shiraz and Isfahan accused of illegal contact with Israel, conspiracy to form an illegal organization and recruiting agents, which provoked vandalism and boycotts of Jewish businesses. “This was the largest wholesale attack against the Jewish community,” Haroonian says. Ten of those charged were found guilty, although espionage charges were dropped and an appeals court overturned all the convictions but those for illegal contacts with Israel. By 2003 all had been released from prison; 10 remain on probation.
Iran has seen a recent wave of anti-Semitic propaganda masquerading as anti-Zionism in print, on television and within the educational system, heavily influencing what Iranians—a quarter of them under 15—learn about their Jewish neighbors. Last February, Iran’s largest newspaper Hamshahri sponsored an international Holocaust cartoon contest that solicited sinister anti-Semitic entries that were widely displayed. In 2000, the Al-Manar television station aired a claymation special in which Jews were turned into apes and pigs. In 2004, the station Sahar 1 aired a weekly series Zahra’s Blue Eyes, also called For You, Palestine, in which the Israeli government is depicted as removing the blue eyes of Palestinian children for implantation into Jewish children. The claymation program “doesn’t say ‘all Jews are cursed,’” notes Yehudit Barsky, director of the Middle East and International Terrorism section of the American Jewish Committee. “It doesn’t say the Jewish person next door is evil. But still, the selection of this story is saying there were Jews who were evil and were punished. It’s a message of an insidious nature, not a direct nature.”
As the line between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism becomes increasingly blurred, the Jews who remain in Iran continue to stick to the Khomeini formula. “The Iranian Jewish community has gone out of its way to condemn the state of Israel, including the recent war with Hezbollah,” says Nahid Pirnazar. Catholic University law professor Marshall Breger, who visited Tehran and Shiraz in 2003, says that the Iranian Jews he met expressed regard and affection for the people of Israel, but were not political Zionists. “They were creating what I would call Judaism without Israel,” he explains. “It’s not unknown. People would say, ‘it’s no problem to be a Jew’ but the more observant wouldn’t wear a kippah outside because people in Iran know kippahs as a symbol of the Israel Defense Forces.”

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

We deterred the Soviet Union, why can’t we deter Iran, is more music to the ears of the Islamic Republic, playing in Washington these days. Perhaps, it is the current mood of desperation on Iraq, but few policymakers seem to peel these thin disguises of surrender and see through the false parallels and specious arguments:

A cursory review of history will demonstrate that Henry Kissinger’s deal with China was possible because the latter saw the Soviets as the principal threat to her security. He knew how real that threat was when Leonid Brezhnev asked President Nixon to give him a free hand with China and stay out of a potential Sino-Soviet nuclear conflict. There is today, no such parallel with the Islamic Republic, which does not see a third party as the principal threat, let alone seeing the US as a possible savior!

In this new disguise for surrender, mention of deterrence is even less valid, but requires more insight to expose. During the cold war, nuclear deterrence gave the West an advantage: the Warsaw Pact’s conventional forces were quantitatively superior and nuclear arms acted as an equalizer in the European theater.

In the Persian Gulf today, it is the US that has overwhelming conventional superiority. Should the Islamic Republic get the bomb, it will equalize that superiority and deter a high-intensity conventional attack. The nuclear shield will, thus, open the hands of the Islamic Republic to expand low intensity violence -- a.k.a. terrorism -- in furtherance of its constitutional mission of exporting Islamic Revolution. Hamas, Hizbullah, the Mahdi Army, the Badr Brigade and the like will then look ten feet taller than their intimidated moderate rivals.

As one witness after another comforts Congressional leaders that the Islamic Republic can be deterred, I do not hear the riposte that even their best scenario means unshackling terrorism, let alone their worst! Nor does the administration seem to be able to lead Congress away from such harmful and deceptive advice, because it is ill-equipped to deal with unconventional states.

Washington’s foreign policy is shaped by the State Department that understands diplomacy and the Defense Department that understands war. Both institutions are legacies of the state-centric view of the world which was consistent with the reality of international politics right after World War II – but not today, not after the Cold War.

The Departments of State and Defense were not structured to help “velvet” revolutions, which have been the most significant patterns of positive change in the world since the Cold War. The problem is that the US does not have a third foreign policy department; one that understands, and can deal, with the peoples of the transitional world, not just their failed states.

Is it all lost then? Are we back to war or surrender? Far from it! We haven’t focused on the greatest ally of the Free World in the Moslem World: the people of Iran. Three Iranian social groups, the women, youth and ethnic groups, as well as four professional and working groups, educators, lawyers, journalists and industrial labor, have been at the forefront of protests against and defiance of the Islamic Republic. Two of the top three Iranian cities, Tabriz and Mashhad, as well as other major cities, such as Sanandaj, have been out of government control, for days at a time.

The principal reason why the vast majority of Iranians who want to reclaim peace and prosperity have not succeeded against the Islamic Republic is because they are prevented from communicating – with each other, and with the free world.

Inside Iran, the government controls mass media with an iron fist. Even “Bloggers” with a limited audience are arrested, let alone published journalists – and there are more of them in jail than anywhere in the world.

A must have for Iran’s pro-democracy movement is media that can connect Iranian activists inside Iran with each other. As I have mentioned before, there are a thousand circles of protest in Iran, but no nationwide medium to connect them. Since the government will not tolerate such a medium inside Iran, it has to be done from outside.

As some of you may know, there are a few under-funded amateur-video type satellite television stations, beaming into Iran from the West. But they cannot even afford decent old movies, let alone produce meaningful programming.

Then there is the Voice of America Radio and Television, and a forthcoming TV channel by the BBC. Although much improved, their governmental mission statements and cautious bureaucracies have not, and are not likely to, make a serious impact in Iran.

What is needed is engaging programming that builds audience share by truly reflecting the needs, grievances and resistance of Iranian women, youth, ethnic groups and the professional groups. Given needed resources, modern technology makes it quite possible to have two-way communication between the politically active audience inside Iran and a medium outside which can connect them to each other. That is what it takes to mobilize the Iranian people – without whom, we are back to war or surrender.

I never miss a chance to reject military action against my homeland.

I am against war. I hope you are too, and I can not believe that you would be for surrender. Thus, we are left with regime change vs. behavior change. And as indicated earlier, that is a false choice. So what is the right choice?

Like most totalitarian leaders, Iran’s Supreme Islamist leader wakes up every morning wondering if the morale and ideological glue of his security forces will hold. To strengthen their spine, he feels he has to take tough, uncompromising stands against his ideological adversaries – liberal democracies in general, and the United States and Israel in particular.

The reckless self-righteousness of his “other-worldly” ideology will continue this course, until a final collision. This behavior will not change unless he wakes up one morning with an even greater fear: seeing the Iranian people joining hands and rising up against his theocratic tyranny.

Unlike forgetful analysts in the West, he knows the Iranian people have changed their regimes many times before, when they had far less reasons to do so. He watches carefully for the signs of history repeating itself. Once he sees those signs, and only then, will he change his behavior.


That is why idealism and realism, behavior change and regime change do not require different policies but the same: empowering the Iranian people.

This is my political mission in life. I ask for your support, and thank you sincerely for sharing some of your valuable time with me.

[Rasputin]

رضا پهلوى:از آمريكا شاكي هستم ، چرا رژيم ايران سقوط نمي كند؟!

رضا پهلوى گفت: ما منتظر بوديم كه سياست تغيير رژيم در ايران جواب دهد ولي امروز آمريكايي ها هم از اين مساله مايوس شدند و طرح مذاكره با دولت ايران مي چينند ... اين براي ما اسفناك است.

به گزارش باشگاه خبرنگاران يك پايگاه اپوزوسيون خارج نشين در گزارشي از سخنراني رضا پهلوي در انيستيتوى هادسن امريكا آورده است: من امروز شكوائيه اي را عليه دولت ،كنگره ،پنتاگون و سناي آمريكا دارم كه سالهاست كه به ما اميد تغيير رژيم ايران را داده ايد و امروز خودتان هم نااميديد به ما پاسخ دهيد چرا؟

شاهزاده غمگين در ادامه تاكيد كرد: تغيير نظام ايران اتفاقي بود كه ممكن بود بزودي در سايه حمله امريكا به ايران روي بدهد، ولي اكنون حمله جاي خود را به مذاكره و التماس داده است. اين مساله معادلات بسياري از ما را بر هم زده است.

[Rasputin]

کيهان خبری از سايت روز درج کرده که بر مبنای آن بوش در چک با رضا پهلوی و عباس فخرآور ملاقات کرده و قرار بوده با سازگارا نيز ملاقات کند که گويا صورت نگرفته است. کيهان اين خبر را تحت عنوان "شاهد از غيب رسيد" منتشر کرده و در متن هم آن را گواهی بر صدق اتهامات جاسوسی در دستگيری های اخير گرفته است. اين در حالی است که رابطه رضا پهلوی با آمريکا هرگز پنهان نبوده و هيچکس از جمله خود رضا پهلوی هم آن را انکار نکرده است و اگر گله ای داشته از کم لطفی آمريکابوده که چرا گاهی ديگران را براو ترجيح داده يا چرا او را به قدرت نمی رسانند. رابطه امير فخر آور هم با ريچارد پرل و مقامات کاخ سفيد و وزارت امورخارجه آمريکا وسيا مخفيانه نيست و خودشان عکس های مربوطه را در رسانه ها پخش ميکند و انواع و اقسام اپوزيسيون ايران نيز اعم از دمکرات و سوسياليت و اصلاح طلب و برانداز او را طرد کرده اند. همچنين سازگارا بورسيه بگير موسسات محافظه کاری است و کمتر کسی از او به عنوان آدم مستقل ياد کرده چه برسد غير مرتبط با مقامات آمريکايی.

به عبارت ديگر کيهان ارتباطات علنی و آشکار عده ای را که خودشان هم منکر اين ارتباطات نيستند،َ شاهد گرفته تا اتهامات دستگاه قضايی رژيم به عده ای ديگر را اثبات کند که خود منکر وابستگی به دستگاه های جاسوسی آمريکا و يا برنامه های کاخ سفيد برای براندازی هستند. تابه حال همه فکر ميکردند کيهان برای اتهام زنی خبر جعل ميکندو نيازی به شاهد و سند و مدرک ندارد. حالا معلوم شد مکانيسم اتهام زنی و اثبات گناه در کيهان و دستگاه قضايی جمهوری اسلامی پيچيده تر و از اين قرار است که فاصله شقيقه با اعضای پايين بدن را کم کرده و بعد از ,قرين, کردن اين بخشها کارکرد آن ها را به هم وصل ميکند.

متن خبر کيهان
شاهد از غيب رسيد (خبر ويژه)

روز آنلاين نوشت رضا پهلوى و عباس فخرآور دو تن از فعالان ضدانقلاب در خارج از ايران با جرج بوش رئيس جمهور آمريكا در پراگ پايتخت چك ديدار كرده اند. اين پايگاه اينترنتى وابسته به اپوزيسيون انجام اين ملاقات را يكى از حوادثى دانست كه در حاشيه اجلاس سران جى 8 در پراگ اتفاق افتاده و به نقل از ,وفا مستقيم, خبرنگار تلويزيون صداى آمريكا اعلام كرد محسن سازگارا نيز به همراه رضا پهلوى به دعوت شده بوده است.
روز آنلاين نوشت: , تلاش خبرنگار روز براى تماس با اين دو تن بى نتيجه مانده اما مسلم شده رضا پهلوى در چك حضور دارد. بعدازظهر سه شنبه فرستاده راديو آمريكا گزارش داد فخرآور- كه چند سالى است به آمريكا پناهنده شده- و نيز در پراگ است اما سازگارا به پراگ نرفته است. ,فخرآور در برنامه هاى راديو آمريكا خود را به عنوان نماينده جنبش دانشجويى معرفى مى كند,.
روز ادامه داد: ,صبح سه شنبه ديدارى هم بين بوش و رضا پهلوى صورت گرفته و آنها درباره وضعيت ايران گفت وگو كرده اند,.
خبر اين ديدار در حالى از جانب روز نت منتشر مى شود كه در هفته هاى اخير و به دنبال دستگيرى چند متهم به جاسوسى و براندازي، برخى جريان هاى شناخته شده ضدانقلاب در داخل و خارج از ايران تلاش فراوانى براى اثبات بى ارتباطى خود با آمريكا مى كنند.

[Rasputin]

راديو فردا مصاحبه ای با رضا پهلوی فرزند شاه سابق را پخش کرد. بنابر گزارشی که از اين مصاحبه در راديو فردا منتشر شد از او سوال شد:, آيا تغيير رژيم در ايران به بهای مداخله مستقيم خارجی هم قابل قبول است و آيا رژيمی که زير فشار خارجی روی کار بيايد، مشروعيت کافی خواهد داشت يا نه,
پهلوی در پاسخ گفت: , اگر نظامی که روی کار می آيد، بر اساس خواست مردم باشد، مشروعيت لازم را کسب می کند,
پدر و پدر بزرگ رضا پهلوی هم با کودتا و مداخله خارجی سلطنت خود را حفظ کردند و هردو معتقد بودند ,بر اساس خواست مردم, هستند. رژيم اسلامی هم که با فريب دادن مردم روی کار آمد و بازور بر سر کار مانده است، ميگويد ,بر اساس خواست مردم, است. ,خواست مردم, پديده ای است که خواص عجيبی دارد. کودتا، مداخله خارجي، استبداد ديني، استبداد غير ديني، حمله نظامی و هر نوع زور حکومتی سبب ظهور آن شده به آن عزت می بخشد و آنرا مداوما بر زبان دولتمداران و سياست ورزان جاری ميکند. اما همان لحظه ای که ميخواهد به نوک زبان مردم بيايد، فورا از اوج عزت فرو می افتد و توسط ساواک، واواک، باتوم، گلوله و حتی بمب و راکت به عالم غيب رانده ميشود.

متن مصاحبه در سايت راديو فردا

http://www.radiofarda.com/Article/2007/06/06/o1_interview_reza_pahlavi.html

[Rasputin]

رضا پهلوي: رژيم سابق اشتباه كرد

فرزند آخرين پادشاه ايران با حمله احتمالي اسرائيل به ايران مخالفت كرد.

رضا پهلوي در گفت و گو با روزنامه اسرائيلي هاآرتص" تهديدات محمود احمدي نژاد، رييس جمهوري ايران درباره نابودي اسرائيل را بسيار جدي دانست اما تاكيد كرد كه اسرائيل بايد از حمله به ايران خودداري كند.

وي افزود: آن (حمله) چيزي نيست كه باعث هراس رژيم شود، آنچه رژيم را مي ترساند مخالفت ها از داخل است كه بايد تقويت شود. يك حمله از خارج مي تواند اختيار كامل براي انجام هرگونه اقدامي را به اين رژيم بدهد و حتي به بيداري ملي گرايي منجر شود.

رضا پهلوي كه در حاشيه برگزاري يك گردهمايي از عوامل مخالف رژيم ايران در پراگ، پايتخت جمهوري چك، سخن مي گفت، اضافه كرد: معتقد نيستم كه رژيم سابق هيچگونه اشتباهي مرتكب نشده بود اما شما بايد شرايط آن زمان را به خاطر آوريد، آن روزها، ايام جنگ سرد بود و اين احساس در ايران وجود داشت كه اتحاد شوروي مي خواهد ما را به كشور دست نشانده خود تبديل كند. مي توانم درك كنم كه چرا مردم به سمت انقلاب رفتند .

فرزند شاه مخلوع ايران كه در تلاش براي مطرح كردن خود است ، در پاسخ به اين سؤال كه آيا وي از بازگشت نظام شاهنشاهي به ايران حمايت مي كند، گفت: مردم خود تصميم خواهند گرفت. در واقع يكي از گزينه ها "سلطنت مشروطه (پارلماني)" است كه متناسب با خلق و خوي مردم ماست. در جوامع ناهمگن، سلطنت نماد همبستگي و اتحاد است.

رژيم سلطنتي در انقلاب 57 توسط مردم ايران سرنگون شد .

رضا پهلوي ادامه داد: وي از مواضع اخير رهبران غربي به ويژه اظهارات رييس جمهوري جديد فرانسه درباره ايران احساس دلگرمي كرده است.

رييس جمهور فرانسه اخيراً گفته است كه بايد از دستيابي ايران به فناوري هسته اي جلوگيري كنيم .

پهلوي مدعي شد: فشار بيشتري بايد به رژيم وارد شود، از طريق تحريم هايي كه بدون آسيب رساندن به شهروندان به سيستم ضربه مي زند. ايراني ها بايد متقاعد شوند كه جهان به حد كافي جدي است كه آنها را در طول مسير تنها نگذارد.
وي البته توضيح نداد چه تحريمي وجود دارد كه مردم ايران را متضرر نكند .