Tehran’s Trojan Horse

When protesters flood Iran’s streets demanding freedom, who benefits from convincing the world they’re chanting for a new Shah? As a fourth major uprising erupts across the country, a familiar deception is underway—one where the clerical regime and its supposed nemesis, Reza Pahlavi, share a common interest: erasing the democratic alternative from the narrative. 

Protests began last weekend when shopkeepers and bazaar merchants launched an impromptu strike against an economic crisis that pushed inflation above 42 percent. Within days, demonstrations spread to universities and dozens of cities, with protesters explicitly calling for regime change. 

We’ve seen this before. Just over three years ago, the killing of Mahsa Amini by morality police sparked what many called the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic since 1979. That uprising, like those in January 2018 and November 2019, featured one unmistakable slogan: “Death to the dictator, whether Shah or Supreme Leader.”

This isn’t ambiguity. It’s a clear rejection of both forms of tyranny. 

So why are international outlets now reporting that protesters are chanting in favor of Reza Pahlavi, the would-be heir to the deposed monarchy? 

More troubling: why has almost no major outlet investigated whether these monarchist chants are genuine, where they originated, or who benefits from their sudden appearance? 

Pro-democracy activists have been warning for months that this would happen. On Wednesday, a Kurdish activist wrote on X: “This is 100% reliable: IRGC cooperation with Pahlavi’s cult. The Revolutionary Guards in Marivan instructed their mercenaries that if protests start, they should chant in favor of Pahlavi.” 

The same activists have documented manipulated video clips with mismatched audio, lip-sync errors, and conspicuously absent ambient noise, suggesting new soundtracks laid over unrelated footage. Some outlets acknowledged that AI-generated and unrelated videos were circulating alongside genuine protest clips. Yet somehow, the false narrative persists. 

This pattern isn’t new. After every major uprising, the regime deploys the same playbook: promote Pahlavi as the only alternative, fragment the opposition, and convince the West that Iran’s choices are limited to mullahs or monarchy.

It’s a lie designed to paralyze. 

The National Council of Resistance of Iran has long explained this strategy. Tehran believes its grip on power is more secure when opponents—and their international supporters—are convinced that the only options are the current theocracy or a return to the Shah’s authoritarianism. Both outcomes preserve elite control. Both exclude genuine democracy. 

But reality on the ground tells a different story. 

This uprising, like its predecessors, shows clear organizational patterns pointing toward a pro-democracy movement with deep roots inside Iran. The NCRI’s main constituent group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), has developed a nationwide network of “Resistance Units” that played major roles in the 2018, 2019, and 2022 uprisings. These units popularized the anti-Shah, anti-Supreme Leader slogans. Emerging evidence suggests they’re driving the current movement’s rapid spread.

Even regime media admits this—albeit unintentionally. Fars News Agency, closely tied to the Revolutionary Guards, reported that Maryam Rajavi used social media to call for “a chain of protests.” The same outlet described groups of “five-to-ten committed activists” leading crowds toward political slogans—a near-perfect description of the Resistance Units. 

Ironically, Fars was also describing IRGC tactics when it noted small groups steering crowd chants. The difference? The PMOI has successfully channeled public anger toward regime change in four successive uprisings. The IRGC has failed to manufacture genuine monarchist sentiment—so allied institutions fabricate evidence instead. 

Maryam Rajavi’s ten-point plan offers what neither the mullahs nor the monarchy ever provided: free elections, separation of religion and state, legal protections for women and minorities, and dismantling the regime’s nuclear weapons program. Hundreds of Western lawmakers—including parliamentary majorities across Europe and the United States—have endorsed this vision and recognized growing support for it inside Iran.

This is the alternative Tehran desperately wants to bury.

The regime understands that a fragmented opposition is a controllable opposition. Promoting Pahlavi—a figure with no organizational base inside Iran, no democratic credentials, and documented communications with the IRGC—serves this purpose perfectly. He absorbs diaspora attention, creates the illusion of choice, and distracts from the organized resistance that actually threatens the regime’s survival.

International media must stop helping Tehran. 

If Iranians appear to be chanting for Pahlavi, look closer. Check the audio. Verify the source. Ask who uploaded the clip and why. And if it turns out protesters are actually chanting for democracy—as they have consistently for seven years—ask the harder question: why is the regime so committed to replacing one message with another?

The Iranian people have made their position clear. They reject the Supreme Leader. They reject the Shah. They demand a democratic republic built on the sovereignty of their own votes. 

The least the world can do is listen to what they’re actually saying.

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Ambassador Kenneth Blackwell was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva.

This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.