Momentous news on the 13th day of the new Iranian Revolution. Millions turned out last night in response to Reza Pahlavi’s call to occupy the streets throughout Iran, and despite the Islamic regime’s attempts at intimidation by mobilizing its Islamic Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) military units to open fire in several cities on the still largely unarmed protesters, it utterly failed in its half-hearted attempts at repression.
Tonight, even larger crowds are back out on the streets demanding the death of the regime and the return of the Shah, and the IRGC seems nowhere to be seen. Numerous government buildings, mosques, and IRGC bases have now been broken into and/or set on fire, and the rats are now starting to flee the sinking ship that is the Islamic Republic. The Foreign Minister has already decamped to Lebanon with his entire family and no plans to return; and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) reports that other senior figures in the political and military leadership are reaching out to Reza Pahlavi to try and secure whatever they can in a post-Islamic Iran.
And speaking of the exiled Crown Prince, the Independent has this reasonably balanced look at his life and plans for Iran:
The self-declared shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi has claimed he is a “steward of a national transition to democracy” amid the escalating protests in Iran against the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Pahlavi’s name is being chanted through the streets of major Iranian cities including Tehran and Mashhad, with phrases “Pahlavi will return” and “Seyyed Ali will be toppled”.
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“In recent days, protests have escalated in nearly all provinces and over 100 cities across Iran. Protesters are chanting my name alongside calls for freedom and national unity,” he said.
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Despite his compliments towards Trump, the president has ruled out meeting him as he suggested the US was not ready to back a successor if the Iranian government were to collapse.
“I think that we should let everybody go out there and see who emerges,” Trump told The Hugh Hewitt Show podcast.
“I’m not sure necessarily that it would be an appropriate thing to do.”
Damn, that’s one of the few intelligent things Trump has had to say about Iran (or anything else lately).
The self-described alternative leader for a democratic Iran is also close with Israel, which has sparked criticism.
Notably, in 2023 Pahlavi controversially met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His visit came with mixed reactions as some touted him as a bridge builder for appearing with a kippah and denouncing antisemitism.
Others argued it was hypocritical to meet with Israeli officials as the army clashed with Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.
OTOH, one of the more popular slogans being shouted in the streets now is “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, my life is for Iran” — so don’t assume that the Iranian people are anywhere near as anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian as the Islamic regime has been since its inception.
Meanwhile, CBS News has this fairly thoughtful analysis of the impact Pahlavi’s calls for his compatriots in Iran to rise up may be having:
"It seems as though his call for people to come out in masses today and tomorrow could be a turning point," Mona Yacoubian, Director and Senior Adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told CBS News on Thursday. "This is a regime that is not afraid to use lethal force. But the question is, to what extent, if they become overwhelmed, if the protests become overwhelmingly large and if there are elements in security forces, police, and so forth, kind of at that local level, who themselves are suffering the effects of this economic crisis and who decide not to shoot at people: These are the kinds of questions I think that we need to watch."
Another longtime observer of the regime inside the country, referring to Pahlavi's call, said in written comments to CBS News on Thursday that, "the moment we're all waiting for is 8pm this evening ... If there is widespread participation — impossible to ignore — it could be a turning point."
"If the chanting at 8 o'clock is really loud — ear-deafening, and in chorus, and eye-catching [ie impossible for authorities to ignore], then from Friday on it will be assumed the protests are a real force and they will gain momentum — and then we are heading for the unknown," they said.
I think we’ve reached that turning point, since the only real countermeasures the regime has attempted thus far (apart from random shootings that killed dozens or possibly even hundreds in the last 36 hours) are to simply shutdown the internet and turn off all the streetlights (to make it more difficult to video, even though the numerous burning vehicles and buildings seem to provide more than adequate illumination?) /s
And just in case anyone thinks Polymarket or the other betting platforms are any more accurate at predicting geopolitical events than any real-world analysis, consider that the odds assigned to a collapse of the Islamic regime in Iran by either the end of January or the end of March have barely moved in the past 18 hours or so since I last checked — despite all the amazing news now coming out of that nation.
Some other news/commentary sources besides Tousi TV that I’ve found useful in covering this Iranian Revolution:
Samis Update/Business Basics
Professor Gerdes Explains
Professor Tim Wilson
Crux
One source definitely to avoid though is the slickly produced Global Lens that purports to give a “fair and balanced” look at all things geopolitical, but in reality seems designed more to promote the views of the Islamic regime. This latest, supposedly showing pro-regime demonstrations taking place (which actually did take place back during the Woman Life Freedom protests in 2022-23) really takes the cake for utter mendacity.
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1st UPDATE: The Independent is now carrying live updates on the revolution in Iran, and includes a very provocative comparison on its place in the pantheon of previous revolutions:
This Iranian uprising could be as pivotal as the French Revolution
As violent clashes continue across Iran, the end of the Islamic regime could prove even more consequential for the world than the fall of the Berlin Wall. A far better comparison would be the storming of the Bastille, says Mark Almond – and it may prove just as bloody
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Of course, the Islamic Republic has survived protest waves in the past...
But this time, it feels different.
Not least since the war with Israel and the United States in June last year, a cultural revolution among people born after 1979 has seen the abandonment of the obligatory headscarf by many women, not all of them young, in the big cities. It’s a visible sign of the Islamic regime’s weakening control.
As well as the violent street protests across most of the country, now in their 13th day, the dramatic fall in attendance at ordinary mosques across Iran can also be seen as a symptom of the widespread rejection of “official” Islam – a kind of silent strike.
In the past, the high price of oil gave the Islamic regime resources to keep its security forces, and core parts of the population, loyal. Sanctions mean that cash is draining away. Support, too. In the city of Abadan, the regime’s police units laid down their arms and joined the protesters.
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Looking back to how the Shah fell in 1979, an event that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic, it is important to remember that, in addition to the mass street protests, it was strikes by oil workers and shopkeepers in the bazaars in Tehran that paralysed economic life.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which triggered huge political and economic change across a divided Europe, and the largely bloodless revolutions in Soviet bloc states that it precipitated, are less of a precedent for how an Iranian revolution might unfold. A better comparison might be the storming of the Bastille in 1789.
The article then goes on to make that case comparing the current anti-Islamic Iranian Revolution with the original French Revolution (well worth the read), and emphasizing that at its heart this really is about an extreme rejection of the type of political Islam imposed on the people of Iran for the past 47 years, and a call for the creation of a truly secular, pluralistic, and democratic society — free from the stench of corruption and oppression that is the hallmark of the mullahs’ and ayatollahs’ brutal regime.
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2nd UPDATE: Believe it or not our least favorite tech-bro billionaire, Elon Musk, has actually rendered not one but two significant services to the revolutionaries in Iran recently:
- He has enabled his Starlink satellite system to be used by the thousands of Starlink terminals smuggled into Iran over the past several years so the revolutionaries can get around the regime’s severance of all internet and cell phone communication within the country over the past two days; and
- He has changed the flag emoji for Iran back to the pre-1979 Lion and Sun flag on his X/Twitter platform — forcing all accounts associated with the regime to delete their flag identifiers entirely!
