Exiled Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi Returns to Munich, Calls for Military Action Against Tehran
From a 250k-person rally to the Munich stage, Reza Pahlavi makes his most forceful case yet for intervention. Is the "Lion and Sun" rising again?
Reza Pahlavi strode back onto the world stage this weekend, delivering his most forceful call yet for Western military intervention in Iran and declaring it was "time to end the Islamic Republic."
The exiled son of Iran's last shah, speaking at the Munich Security Conference after a two-year ban, warned that Tehran was "buying time" through nuclear talks while Iranians died. He urged the Trump administration to abandon diplomacy in favor of action.
"The regime is simply buying time yet again, but every day that goes by, more people could die," Pahlavi told a packed townhall Friday titled "Breaking or Repeating the Cycle? Iran's Next Chapter." Military strikes, he argued, could accelerate the regime's collapse and save lives.
The 64-year-old opposition leader outlined his vision for rapid transition to secular democracy, a sharp challenge to the clerical government that has ruled Iran for nearly five decades. Iranian officials were barred from this year's gathering.
On Saturday, Pahlavi took his message to the streets. At Munich's Theresienwiese fairgrounds, he addressed what police estimated was a crowd of 200,000 to 250,000 protesters in what he had designated a "global day of action." Pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flags rippled across the square as demonstrators chanted for regime change. Similar rallies were planned for Los Angeles and Toronto.
The scene marked a dramatic reversal from last year, when Germany twice invited Pahlavi to the conference, then rescinded both invitations. Pahlavi accused Berlin's Foreign Ministry of caving to pressure from Tehran, writing on X that Germany had "silenced the voice of the Iranian people." The conference organizers never publicly explained the withdrawals.
Pahlavi last attended the Munich gathering in 2023. His return comes as international focus on Iran intensifies, with U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations underway and domestic unrest roiling the country. Pahlavi said he had accepted the "challenge" of leading a democratic transition based on support from protesters inside Iran.