An Iranian Perspective (now multiple perspectives)

The bulk of this original blogpost was a letter from a friend who needs to stay anonymous. I framed that letter with content from my own microblogging, which was asking questions about Iran. This blogpost was originally built around the first answer I received. Now there are three other answers as well, below the original post.

This post originally said "(cf. this post for how I use microblogs)" but another Iranian contact was very concerned about how I'd done the original framing. So I've brought the content here to the introduction:

• This is a blog. It's where I keep ideas I want to keep track of and/or share, but I don't have time to work up to formal publication. Sometimes posts are interviews I've given and not all was published by the journalists. Sometimes it's funny pictures.
• Microblogging is different. It's more like a conversation in a bar. I expect to be replied to by both friends and random strangers, to get corrected sometimes, and reposted some times. These expectations derive from the fact that I used twitter in its glory days, when people really could share information quickly and bluntly. I keep trying to get back to that experience.

In other words, I have no expectation of resolving Iran's problems here in this post. I made this post to share a perspective I respected and had not previously known. Now there are more of those below. The original blogpost is between horizontal lines – that you probably can't see. OK, it starts from here, and ends just before the paragraph starting "Addendum." [And I really need a new blogsite!]

On mastodon I asked: "Why does DW keep platforming the son of the dictator that created this mess? #iran #shah Iran's exiled crown prince asks Europe's help to end regime "

It was like the second time the shah's son had come up that week. When no one answered there, I tried asking on bluesky (quoting my previous toot, since I bridge both accounts to the other site) and said: 

"Serious question. I don't think I'm alone in knowing so many brilliant Iranian people who despite everything manage to make it into universities – at least all through the Anglosphere. And it's noteworthy Iranian society is sufficiently just that their protests include women more reliably than many." (This is something I often comment on but to no response – I've noticed that even many "Western" countries seldom have as high a proportion of protestors who are women.

By coincidence, some one of the brilliant Iranians I was thinking about interacted with me somewhere else, and I was able to ask about the situation.  Here's what they told me, shown with permission:

[In 2019 I remember] we spoke about Iran, and especially the consequences after the U.S. withdrew from the nuclear deal. I remember telling you how deeply disappointed I felt by Europe’s limited ability to act decisively, given how hard many Iranians had worked and sacrificed to support a diplomatic path.

Since then, the situation has continued to evolve in complicated and painful ways. There were further sanctions under Biden, and at the same time, a hardline president in Iran came to power in a context where many people simply did not vote. After the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, the government took a step back. A more moderate president (a heart surgeon) was elected, and he seemed, at least to many, more honest, although with limited power. He tried to heal society.  The morality police were more limited, and on my last trip to Iran, I saw many Iranian women without a hijab in the street, and I did not wear a scarf at all. It felt like a small breath of air for many Iranian women. 

But then, external pressure escalated again, with Israel’s attacks on Iran and renewed threats from Trump. The regime did not collapse, but the economy did. And the “son of the Shah,” to me, feels like a bitter joke. As you have nicely said, his father left much of this mess behind, and he has been publicly backed by Netanyahu and has had several meetings with him in Israel. The majority of his supporters also includes far-right nationalists with deeply concerning views. He encouraged devastated people who see no hope, no future,  to take to the streets, on the promise that Trump would help. Some violent groups certainly exploited the moment, and thousands were killed. All of this makes the situation even more complicated, and I worry that any foreign attack would make it far worse.

My own view remains that sanctions and the drumbeat of war are not a real solution, and that a deal that gives space for Iranian society to find its way is the only credible route to de-escalation and longer-term change. I also want to note that the regime does not seem to be on its last legs.  They sometimes project an illusion of weakness, but in practice, they remain powerful."

Not much similar, but this reminds me of a 2016 post I made about Syria. May Iran also get a chance at a new start. 

Picture (about Syria, not Iran) from the article: Just look at the lights: Assad’s territory was growing poorer as opposition’s economy advanced [click on the picture for the article.] Autocrats suppressing their own people make themselves weak.

Addendum: What I didn't take time earlier to say was what I thought everyone knew: that the Shah had been put in place by the British, replacing a democratic leader who had been (responding to democratic demand) going to nationalise the fossil fuel companies the British wanted to keep owning. It became very oppressive. The Islamic revolution was expected to be better, and initially freed political prisoners, but eventually proved worse, with even more repression. The most beautiful way to learn this history I know of is by reading Persepolis (1). Anyway, this is why I was surprised and curious about who was choosing the prince to be a spokesperson for the Iranian opposition.

Here are three further perspectives I've learnt:

• On 25 January 2026, the Washington Post published another article about Iran, and I commented again about it on Mastodon. The Post had not backed or mentioned the Shah's son, but did include video of protestors chanting his name. This time I got a response that explained the other position. Apparently the prince is the only opposition leader not in jail, able to do coordinating, and he has promised to hold a referendum on whether Iran should become a constitutional monarchy (like a lot of Europe) or a Republic. While not being entirely trusted, the Prince is seen as almost certainly better than the theocracy, so people are willing to take the gamble.
• On 26 January 2026, during an ice storm that massively disrupted even public transportation in Berlin, I randomly met a woman on a platform from Egypt who had overlapping education with my own (Chicago and Hertie School). She told me (at first reluctantly) that the Iranian revolution was seen as the US having gotten tired of the Shah, and now the current problems are seen as the US interfering again. OK, so this was a narrative I had never heard before, that the US was part of the Iranian revolution.
• Mid February 2026, overheard in a Berlin coffeeshop, someone presumably from somewhere in the "region" of Iran was pumping an Iranian woman for details of what was happening in Iran with the protests. Then he told her "They will destroy all the heavy infrastructure of your country. They will set it back 200, 300 years. This is not really about the US and Iran. It is about the US and China. Iran has been too nice to China."  [note: I wouldn't say it's presently like it was in 1800 in either Libya or Iraq. I'd guess it's more like 1970, but then I'm not there.]
• March 2026 – proper journalism https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/iranian-diaspora-fights-iran-war.html which I got from twitter. A quote:
• "Since the January uprisings and massacres, I had been doing interviews and writing publicly that Pahlavi had no experience and was being positioned by Israel and the U.S. the way Ahmed Chalabi had been positioned before the invasion of Iraq: a diaspora figure of convenience, palatable to western interests, his actual relationship to the Iranian people a secondary concern. For this, I was being called pro-regime. Not by the Islamic Republic but by Iranians, some of whom I had known for years." – Narges Bajoghli,

Again, the fact that narratives exist doesn't make them truths. I'm not supporting any of these narratives, I don't know enough. Rather, I'm reporting what people are saying, and being told. For everyone like me trying to get their head around this amazing part of the world, I hope being exposed to a few more directly-informed perspectives helps that process.