Reza Pahlavi Quotes

Sanctions in themselves can not be enough, because if you weaken society, while you weaken the regime, it has less means to really combat [the government]. If [the opposition] is reinforced and reinvigorated, then the whole dynamics of the situation is changed.

In the name of Almighty God, in accordance with the Iranian Constitution and its amendments, I solemnly declare that from this day, 9 Aban 1359 (31 October 1980), as I enter my twenty-first year, I am ready to assume my responsibilities and obligations as king of Iran... From today... I solemnly swear before the glorious Iranian tricolor flag, and on the Holy Koran, that in my high office I will dedicate my whole life to protecting the independence, national sovereignty and legitimate rights of the Iranian people.

Access to information has been very restricted by the regime, but we can affirm the discontent goes well beyond Tehran and the major cities.

A regime that has a Constitution which denies the sovereignty of the people and where candidates are selected by the regime and the Parliament can not vote into laws its own proposed bills, is not a system representative of the people. This regime interprets divine laws as it pleases and elections are like those held under the Soviet or Saddam's regime. All this is to make the world believe that they enjoy a certain degree of legitimacy. Elections must be boycotted. To vote for this regime is to prolong its survival. Not to turn out will be the demonstration that the people rejects this theocracy. What the people is asking for is a secular Constitution based on the Universal Charter of Human Rights. Reformists couldn't do anything. We have lost ten years. Time has come for change.

I calculated the amount of time I spent with my father during my entire life... the total amount of time I had with him, if you add up the hours, was about two months. My father was a busy man... we had very few opportunities to really sit down and talk as father and son.

Of course Iranians don’t hate Israel. The regime wants you to think so. Our nations share a biblical relationship since the times of Cyrus, who helped the Jewish people in their hour of need. This is our hour of need. We’re asking Israel’s help to free us from our tyrannical regime. Are you going to help us, or are you going to bomb us?

Barack Obama is hell-bent on engaging the Iranian regime just to prove that he’s not George Bush. That doesn’t help the problem. That’s not what people expected in Iran... The people of Iran are asking for help, and Obama cares about showing Khamenei that he can reason with him. That was Jimmy Carter’s mentality in 1979 and that’s still the mentality in 2012.

It is critical to understand that the clerical regime sought – and continues to seek – to challenge America and its regional allies as a convenient way for it to deflect attention from its abhorrent policies of ongoing repression and terror against my fellow Iranians. While our precious national resources are being utilized by the clerical regime to export revolution, the Iranian people are being left without access to basic necessities, rapidly losing a standard of living that was once the envy of many around the world, and they live in a state of perpetual tyranny.

My message to the rank and file of the IRGC and to the nation’s military and security forces is to part ways with this criminal regime and join the Iranian people in their revolution

The current regime is trumping the Shiite-Sunni card, pitting national minorities at each other’s throat. However Iran is a country which for centuries accorded welcome to people of different nationalities and faiths. So when we come to power, national minorities will have their rights guaranteed. The present regime creates too many complexities like terrorism, economic instability, nuclear menace, extremism. When it clears the stage, 90 percent of world problems will be resolved.

President Reagan knew that he would not get behavior change from the Soviet regime unless he seemed serious about changing it. The actual change was a happy byproduct, which spelled the end of the Marxist mystique. East-European youth backpacked their way to the West to tell fellow students about the wide chasm between the deceptive promise of Marxism and its wretched reality. Long lines to take Marxist courses disappeared in Universities, from Buenos Aires to Paris. Similarly, I am convinced once the people bring down the clerical regime, with Iranian journalists, intellectuals and students free to travel, they will have the same shattering impact on the appeal of Islamist theocracy throughout the Moslem world.

The regime's response to [U.N.] Security Council Resolution 1696 was predictable, as it was simply a variation of double talk-a tactic they have now mastered to an art form. What does the regime's offer to "seriously talk" really mean? Will it seriously discuss its violations of human rights at home? Will it seriously discuss its patronage of regional militancy? I think not. [This] is a race against time. Will it get the bomb first, thereby bullying the world into appeasement, or will there be an actual convergence of domestic and international pressures [on the regime]?

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.

I think [Israel attacking Iran] would be a very disastrous event if it were to occur. I have long stated that I think this would be a lose-lose proposition by and large, especially when there's a much better alternative in play, which will be much less costly and far more legitimate than trying to bring any change as a result of any kind of external measures, particularly of the violent and military kind. You have in place the best natural army in the world: namely, the Iranian people themselves, who have bravely fought this fight for years, without any help or support from anyone in the international community. Today, they are already committed to that struggle and I think this is a much better way to put pressure on the regime and abide by international rules. It's a much better way to help the Iranian people bring about whatever changes they want in Iran and nothing is being done about this while everybody contemplates striking the country just because they don’t have faith in diplomacy, which was doomed from the very beginning. I think there's still a chance for a lot of serious fundamental change that will bring an end to all the threats if Iran wants to change from this regime to a democratic nation. If it invests time and effort in helping the movement of the young people in Iran today and be supportive of their demands; be supportive of what they want; engage them after 30 years of limiting engagement to only members of the regime and its representatives. I don't think that's far too much to ask for those of us who are fighting for freedom. What I am saying is that in my opinion, not using this opportunity and going straight to conflict would be historically criminal. That option has to be given its chance but the time is limited and the window of opportunity is now. I hope that many key governments will decide to commit some of their policies to give a chance for this movement to succeed before jumping to conclusions that the only familiars we're left with are either capitulation or attacking Iran.

One has to look at the fundamental nature of the clerical regime in order to understand its true and ultimate intentions. Since its advent in 1979, the regime’s leaders – starting with Khomeini himself – set out to export their radical ideology to the region and beyond. The primary mission (raison d’être) of the regime is to convert other regimes to its own mold with the goal of establish a modern-day Islamic Shi’ite Caliphate. It is so stated and defined in its Constitution as well as that of the Pasdaran’s (Revolutionary Guards).