REZA PAHLAVI (رضا پهلوی): Press Conference – Paris, France / Opening Remarks
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Thank you for coming. Thank you for your time, and attention to the cry for freedom and democracy in Iran. The past three weeks, my brave compatriots have paid in blood the price of ripping the façade of acceptability of the regime in Iran, and its legitimacy to speak for the people of Iran abroad. The ensuing murderous oppression can silence the streets, and media blackout can reduce world attention. In the West you may see headlines declaring the end of the protests. Some will say a family quarrel inside the Islamic regime is over and Mr. Ahmadinejad will govern Iran for another four year term. But they misread the situation. Although more demonstrations may pop up, and the 10th anniversary of the student uprising on July 9th is a date to watch, phase one, that is election-related mass demonstrations is over. But let me clarify what phase two, which is the phase of national resistance, will look like:
Viewed as a usurper in his second term, Mr. Ahmadinejad's increasing insecurity at home will compel him to invent foreign enemies, further isolating Iran. Compounded with low oil prices, the need for slower liquidity growth to limit spiraling inflation, with massive capital flight and a drained stock market, and a further hemorrhage of skilled managers, just to name a few problems, he will face insurmountable obstacles in running the day to day affairs of government. He will need a minimal cooperation of the people for the ship of state to sail on. Instead he will find burgeoning resistance everywhere, until his government grinds to a halt.
Disappointed and alarmed, influential clerics, important parliamentary factions and other institutions will question his ability to cope and undermine his authority from within the Islamist state. That final paralysis will mark the end of the second phase.
It is hard to predict the third phase. Will a part of the Revolutionary Guards move in to fill the vacuum created by a collapse of authority and a functioning government? If so, the regime will be reduced to an unsustainably narrow base of support, expediting its fall. Will strikes spread and re-energized mass demonstrations sweep the country, compelling the authorities to yield to public pressure toward a new democratic order? No exact scenario can be written at this stage, but the end is clear.
Fast rewind to today, let's acknowledge that the path is perilous. The regime has just appointed a three-man commission to punish those involved in recent demonstrations. The commissioners are men responsible for tortures and summary executions of thousands of my countrymen some twenty years ago. After all of these years, the sounds of rape, torture and dying in Iran's prisons haunt my countrymen. And now those men are back. Ladies and Gentlemen: >>> Reza Pahlavi | Thursday, July 02, 2009
