The best hope for peace in the Middle East would come from creating democracy in Iran, the former crown prince, Cyrus Reza II Pahlavi, told an audience in the ICC Auditorium on Wednesday.
“Iranians are the most natural ally of the free world,” Pahlavi said at the event, which was sponsored by the Georgetown International Relations Club, the Iranian Cultural Society and the Delta Phi Epsilon foreign service fraternity.
Pahlavi aimed his criticism at the Iranian elections, describing the situation as a “hoax and circus” created by the ruling clerics.
“There is freedom of opinion in Iran,” he said. “The problem is, there is no freedom after your opinion,” eliciting laughter from his audience.
But democracy, he said, would have to come from within, and he stressed his opposition to any military action against Iran. He credited the December National Intelligence Estimate—which expressed confidence that Iran’s nuclear weapons program had been halted since 2003—with creating “a much more sober atmosphere” to counter the “media-based hype and frenzy” of possible U.S. military action.
Pahlavi, a U.S.-trained pilot who lives in Potomac, Md. with his family according to his personal website, is also wary of direct external support of opposition groups and funding from foreign governments, because “it always comes with strings attached,” Pahlavi said.
During the question and answer session, one student told Pahlavi that her father had been tortured for six months under his father’s government. Another Iranian student emotionally asked him to return to lead Iran, saying that, while Pahlavi is little known in Iran, the people were “hungry for leadership.”
Pahlavi sidestepped a student’s question on whether he would hold office in a democratic Iran, but did not rule out the possibility, saying his focus was “to liberate Iran.”
Carolyn Kraemer (COL ’09) said she was struck by the diversity of opinions that Pahlavi drew from the questioners. Hailey Flynn (SFS ’08) agreed, expressing surprise at the honesty of the discussion.
“I was expecting a bureaucratic talk,” Flynn said. “But he was very frank and open.”
