Exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi said the contradictory U.S. and Israeli messaging over what Iranians should do has harmed the opposition and discouraged defections.
Speaking with Dasha Burns at the 2026 Politico Security Summit, Pahlavi criticized President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for dueling messaging regarding whether Iranians should rise up against the government. The failure to formulate a coherent message has discouraged defections and demoralized the opposition, he argued.
“You cannot send mixed signals, on the one hand, say, ‘People need to rise,’ and at the same time, say, ‘Wait, you are negotiating,’” Pahlavi said. “It’s confusing the hell out of everyone.”
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When asked if Trump’s prior rhetoric threatening attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran and wiping out Iranian civilization if a deal was not reached was appropriate, Pahlavi responded that it was not, including it with his criticism of Washington and Jerusalem’s mixed messaging.
Burns brought up Pahlavi’s claim in January that 50,000 Artesh soldiers, the regular military, had contacted Pahlavi to defect from the regime, asking what had happened to them. The exiled crown prince said they were biding their time but that the mixed signals from Washington and Jerusalem had made them more skittish.
“These are people waiting for the opportunity to peel away,” he said, referring back to the complaint about mixed signals.
“Imagine you are a high-ranking member of the Iranian Artesh, or maybe their counterparts within the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]. You know that this regime’s days are numbered, you don’t want to go down with the ship,” Pahlavi said, adding that they didn’t want to face the consequences of being part of the regime from the next government.
“But then they will be hesitating,” he continued. “They say, ‘Well, what if we expose ourselves? What if we commit to join with the opposition, if it’s a half-baked solution?’ What if they’re thinking, ‘Hold on a second,’ they’re trying to cut a deal with this regime, or there might be the survival of this regime, because now diplomacy has led to sort of a temporary system or whatever it is, they would hesitate.”
Pahlavi described the calculation as “rational,” arguing that elites and soldiers embedded with the old regime will be hesitant to defect if they “don’t know if they have firm ground on the other end.”
“It’s a very delicate situation we’re talking about, and that is not just limited to the military and paramilitary structure, that also includes the civil bureaucracy,” he said.
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He argued that the majority of Iranians working with the current government should be a part of the next government to fix the aforementioned calculation in the opposition’s favor.
Reports have revealed that the split on whether to encourage and cultivate a popular uprising is largely between Trump and Netanyahu, with Trump hesitant and Netanyahu bullish on the prospect. Trump has argued that it would be irresponsible to encourage an uprising without the proper military support for the protesters, as it could recreate the massacres of Jan. 8-9, when tens of thousands of protesters were killed by security forces.
Trump claimed that the U.S. attempted to get weapons to the protesters but that Kurdish militants hoarded all of them. Nevertheless, he recently hinted that weapons may be on their way to the Iranian people.
Hours after the war began, Pahlavi urged the Iranian people to stay inside and wait for the opportunity to rise up once the regime was properly degraded.
Criticism of the mixed signals on an uprising notwithstanding, Pahlavi was largely positive in his assessment of Trump’s handling of the conflict. When asked if he was satisfied with how Trump handled the war, he largely responded in the affirmative.
“President Trump is the first American president since the Iranian Revolution that has actually taken the issue to the extent of doing something about it, and I think it’s an action that was welcomed,” he said, pointing to the example of some Iranians renaming streets in the country in honor of the president.
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He cautioned against striking a deal with Tehran, however, saying several times that it was in the regime’s “DNA” to be against the accommodation of U.S. and Western interests.
“It is a menace to the entire free world,” Pahlavi said. “And therefore, when we say that now we have a wounded beast, this is not an opportunity that we should let go. This is an opportunity to finish the job and get it over with.”