Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi has mounted a forceful and deeply personal attack on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, accusing Iran’s clerical establishment of betraying the very faith it claims to defend. Calling on the country’s majority Shia population to rise and “reclaim faith,” he described the 86-year-old leader as the “false prophet of our time,” in one of his sharpest denunciations of the Islamic Republic yet.
Positioning his message amid a period of mounting unrest and simmering anger within Iran, Pahlavi addressed the nation in deeply evocative terms, beginning with the words, “my devout Shia compatriots.” He argued that the Islamic Republic had, from its very inception, ruled in the name of religion while delivering hardship and repression. “From the very first day, the Islamic Republic seized power in your name and in the name of your religion, and to this day it has produced nothing but poverty, misery, and crimes against humanity,” he said.
