Reza Pahlavi Quotes

81 Sourced Quotes

Last summer, the people of Iran achieved something unprecedented in the history of the 31-year-old Islamic Republic. For the first time, the Iranian people coordinated mass-scale demonstrations against this totalitarian theocratic regime. These demonstrations and protests continue even today, questioning – well beyond the election results of last June – the very legitimacy of the regime and the so-called Supreme Leader Khamenei.

Reza Pahlavi
At this crucial moment in the life of our country, I would like to offer my blood to save the inviolability of our dear native land.

Reza Pahlavi
I don't doubt ever that this regime will end... There is no question about that. The question is when and at what cost and how can we help expedite the process to reduce the toll and the cost to our nation.

Reza Pahlavi
It is evident that a lot of mistakes and excesses have been committed before the revolution. I don't deny it, on the contrary - there was evidently a lack of political liberty. I don't deny either that the revolt was popular, but those that spearheaded the revolution didn't want this result, Iran has regressed for twenty-two years. I prefer to speak of the future, history will judge what happened in the past.

Reza Pahlavi
Things were not perfect, but most Iranians recognize now that at least we were moving forward, and Iran's international status reflected this.

Reza Pahlavi
The choice of future government should be left to the Iranian people to decide in a free election... What form it ultimately takes is up to them. The essential point to me is that there is no way we can achieve our aspirations as a nation unless we have a secular regime, as opposed to this theocracy... Without a clear separation of the state and religion you cannot have the beginning of any form of democratic system.

Reza Pahlavi
I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks you could stop the regime from developing nuclear weapons... What you would do is delay it but then give the regime the scope to retaliate. This would be poison. The cost would be huge for the people of Iran. Instead of bringing the state to the point of an uncontrolled explosion with no plan in mind, there is a better alternative... We propose a national congress that clearly sets out our proposals for changing the regime... You can support this, or try your chances with military action without a clear idea of the outcome.

Reza Pahlavi
My father voluntarily left the country to avoid bloodshed. He ordered the Army not to engage in skirmishes with the population. The transition happened rather peacefully. The difference now is the regime is calling on all possible coercive forces including civilian guns-for-hire. They are trying to hang on more violently as we go along. But despite the crackdown, you must admire the degree of discipline for people not to retaliate with violence. That's amazing.

Reza Pahlavi
The regime maintains its suffocating grip over the citizens by using brute force and repression of dissent. Gruesome acts of public executions are barbaric methods and chilling reminders of the fate of dissenters in Iran. Through fear and humiliation, the regime commands submission. Public stoning of women and the execution of underage youth are revolting reminders of the regime's callous disregard for human life, dignity and civility.

Reza Pahlavi
I encourage investment in technologies that increase communication with the Iranian people. America in particular needs to increase the available mediums of dialogue with the Iranian people by strengthening the ability of the Iranian people to access news and information and to overcome the electronic censorship and monitoring efforts of the Iranian regime... This renewed dialogue would allow the world to demonstrate its solidarity with the democracy-seeking Iranian people. It would also improve the accuracy of the information received from Iran. But perhaps most importantly, improving these technologies would allow the Green Movement within Iran to communicate, organize and mobilize much more efficiently.

Reza Pahlavi
Nothing bars the world from having a line of dialogue with the opposition and that, strangely, has been absent.

Reza Pahlavi
Western classical music, to be sure, is not part of traditional Iranian culture, and yes it's elitist. But the fact that the Tehran symphony Orchestra and the Roudaki Hall have survived the vagaries of these past three decades is yet another evidence that the forces of darkness, the cult of death, martyrdom and superstition has not conquered the spirit of our nation.

Reza Pahlavi
Those who belong to the establishment need to know that no harm would come to them if they walk away. Otherwise, we end up with a Syria-like reality where those in power hold on for dear life.

Reza Pahlavi
For three decades the regime has been effective in squashing its citizenry and monopolizing all communications with the outside world. That must end. Let us remember that the iron curtain could also not have fallen without the tacit support of the free world. Iranians too deserve this same kind of help.

Reza Pahlavi
The current regime is, by any measure, the standard-bearer and global poster child for militancy, brute autocracy and corruption. If they are in fact students of my father, his ultimate act of refusing suppressive bloodshed in favor of exile should be their test.

Reza Pahlavi
External sanctions against the regime do not suffice. You have to bring into your calculation … an element of pressure from within... And the only way [to] do that is by strengthening the hand of the people inside the country.

Reza Pahlavi
To the realpolitik cynics who say Islamist theocracy is a reality we have to live with, I respond: funny – they never said they can live with YOU! To those who say the theocrats can reform if we are nice to them, I say you do not know the difference between Islamist revolution and secular ones. Those who believe they speak with the absolute authority of Allah demand absolute submission.

Reza Pahlavi
I don't rely on any sources other than my own compatriots.

Reza Pahlavi
Of course [the opposition] can be supported! I mean, for God's sake, from Solidarity in Poland to the ANC in South Africa… there was a great degree of support. But they [the Poles and South Africans] did it. It was not some foreign country doing it.

Reza Pahlavi
The ruling clerics have repeatedly accused those of us striving for a secular alternative of leading a campaign against religion. This is, of course, not true. On the contrary, I would argue that it is in fact in the interest of religion and the clergy itself to have a separation of religion from government. Many of our high-ranking, non-governmental clergymen have attested to this fact for many years. Since the advent of Islam in Iran, the biggest harm done, not only to people, but to the faith itself, has been under this so-called Islamic regime – which I frankly prefer to call the anti-Islamic regime!

Reza Pahlavi
Almost 50 million of the country's 70 million population are young people under 30 years. They have access to information about what is going on in the world. They understand just how bad are the things now occurring in Iran. I think soon my countrymen will realize that the present regime does not care about ordinary people but cares exclusively for itself. Besides, we have opposition cells throughout the world, since many Iranians left their homeland after the revolution. With them, as well as with the opposition inside the country, we are in close contact.

Reza Pahlavi
My preoccupation is not running for office. We are trying to liberate our country first. Then I am ready to serve my compatriots in whatever capacity. If they want me to play a more important role, so be it.

Reza Pahlavi
Our youth have defied and derided a regime which is not mindful of their future but is obsessed with the hereafter. The Iranian youth keep defending their right to live their age and the epoch in which they are born; that is to say in a world flourished by science and learning, and not mourning and martyrdom.

Reza Pahlavi
Our youth are, on a daily basis, pushing the envelope in their quest for self-empowerment... My call for civic duty is embedded in my profound desire to ensure that the old [victim] psyche be forever abandoned and replaced by a new sense of national pride in self-determination and rule.

Reza Pahlavi
Sometimes people ask me who are the future leaders of Iran... I say I don't know who they are, but I know that they exist by the thousands. They are the artists and engineers; they are poets and businessmen; they are entrepreneurs and they are there — waiting to inherit this future... And it is, by God, our obligation, our duty to the nation, to help them the best way possible to minimize the toll and the cost of change.

Reza Pahlavi