Exiled prince says Iran regime has become IRGC-run dictatorship

Iran’s exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi warned Western governments against seeking deals with what he called supposedly moderate figures in the Islamic Republic, saying the system was controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

“You’re falling back into the same trapping that the regime has laid out for decades to make you think that there are some elements that are more manageable and more reasonable that can be dealt with,” Pahlavi said at Politico’s Security Summit on Tuesday.

“The problem is that such a thing doesn’t truly exist,” he said. “They’re just people that ultimately are there to preserve the system.”

Pahlavi said the Islamic Republic had been weakened but that its “radical elements” remained in charge.

“You’re facing now a system that has become a de facto paramilitary dictatorship,” Pahlavi added. “It’s the IRGC that controls ultimately everything, and no one else can resist.”