Exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi spoke on a panel at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2026, before an audience that included Iranian diaspora journalists and activists, including CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Amanpour’s questioning of Pahlavi raised his supporters’ ire. The exchange was one of the more important outcomes of the conference, if only because the backlash from supporters of Pahlavi against Amanpour represents the key divide in the diaspora opposition to the Islamic Republic.
Amanpour was born to an Iranian father and an English mother. She spent her formative years in the United Kingdom and has been a CNN foreign correspondent throughout her professional life. Her work has included reporting from Iran, alongside dozens of other countries. If anything, Amanpour is a typical Western journalist, politically to the left and envisioning a liberal democratic vision for Iran’s future.
Pahlavi has not endorsed monarchy, nor demanded to sit on the Peacock Throne.
During the conference, she posted a video on Instagram and dismissively referred to Pahlavi as “the pretender to the throne” and “a person who calls himself the main opposition leader in exile.” Subsequent criticism toward Amanpour is valid since her assertions were false. Pahlavi has not endorsed monarchy, nor demanded to sit on the Peacock Throne. His claim to the leadership of the opposition is legitimate, with his name—and his only—widely shouted in Iran. But Amanpour’s actions were unprofessional; her fear of the monarchy’s restoration is telling.
A second challenge to Pahlavi came from a French journalist, who asked him about the injustices of his father’s rule. Though the questioner was not Iranian, it reflected a misgiving about Pahlavi. Pahlavi’s poor response, dodging the question, fueled Iranian critics who worry that his supporters wish to restore absolutism.
Pahlavi’s supporters’ over-the-top attacks on Amanpour and other critics does not reassure that the crown prince leads a liberal movement. Goldie Ameri, a prominent supporter, was among those trying to defame the critics. Of Amanpour, she tweeted: “Those of you who have been tuning in to Iran Revolution Live on YouTube every day already know that CNN’s Amanpour loves the Islamic Regime occupying Iran. Why else would she be defended by her Jihadi sugar daddies on the front page of Islamic Regime media outlets?”
Pahlavi’s supporters even target Nazanin Boniadi, an actress and activist, who is among the classiest members of the opposition. Iran policy analyst Navid Mohebbi attacked Boniadi on January 27, 2026, claiming that she promotes criticism of the Pahlavi era. This is neither a sin, nor is it entirely accurate: She has reposted Pahlavi critics but does not promote direct criticism of Pahlavi. After she asked Pahlavi in Munich about a post-Islamic Republic, former national football team captain Ali Karimi, a staunch Pahlavi supporter, attacked her character and dismissed her as a dancer. This unleashed a stream of online attacks on her. Increasingly, Pahlavi’s supporters seek not only to muzzle criticism, but to ban anything short of praise. Such a pattern builds on a trend of illiberal conduct by Pahlavi’s closest aides.
Journalists, analysts, and activists are not shrinking violets. Punishing dissent will not eliminate it or change minds regarding Pahlavi. Rather, Pahlavi and his inner circle should consider the sources of dissent.
Skepticism of Pahlavi has two sources. The first is rooted in history and his family’s authoritarian rule, often rooted in knee-jerk leftism. The second largely comes from assimilated diaspora who use America as a point of reference and concerns the illiberalism of his movement and advisers. Amanpour embodies both.
The irony is that little of the dissent is about Pahlavi himself.
Pahlavi long ago denounced the authoritarianism of his father, but he is inexplicably tolerant of his supporters’ radicalism and illiberalism.
The Iranian opposition divide is not between monarchists and republicans, or right and left. It is between Pahlavi’s supporters and critics. The first camp has Middle Eastern sensibilities and is drawn to strongmen, personalities, and prosperity. The second camp is Americanized and attracted to liberal principles and freedom. Ironically, Pahlavi has spent his adult life in the United States and falls in the second camp.
Pahlavi has always promoted a liberal democratic vision. His mannerisms and public statements affirm he is a liberal democrat. Pahlavi long ago denounced the authoritarianism of his father, but he is inexplicably tolerant of his supporters’ radicalism and illiberalism.
In Democracy in America (1848), Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that people care more about equality than freedom. Iranians in Iran want to overthrow the Islamic Republic out of a sense of injustice, which they associate with the social freedoms and wealth of the regime’s ingroup and their own struggles in the outgroup. Liberalism does not drive all of them. Pahlavi’s movement in the diaspora reflects the Iranian people who have grown less liberal since the Green Movement.
It would take an extraordinary statesman to institute a lasting liberal regime in Iran, and Pahlavi, as decent as he may be as a man, does not appear to be that person. But there is still hope for a free Iran. The Islamic Republic is an autocratic regime incapable of reform. A future regime could be imperfect, but one capable of evolving over time. Pahlavi could ease its transition, though, if he urged his supporters to welcome dissent and debate rather than squandering his opportunity by appearing to tolerate, if not encourage, the petty nastiness conducted by his office and vocal followers in his name.
