Reza Pahlavi at CPACLeandro Lozada/AFP/Getty Images
Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose President Donald Trump’s war in Iran. Those numbers go even higher when the prospect of boots on the ground is included. The war has even repelled some of Trump’s biggest supporters in the MAGA world, who thought he was serious when he promised during his 2024 campaign that he wouldn’t engage in foreign wars if elected.
But none of those schisms were on display Saturday at CPAC, the nation’s oldest conservative political convention, when Reza Pahlavi took the stage. The son of the last shah of Iran was given rock star treatment and greeted with roars of approval from an audience filled with Iranian-Americans who back Trump’s attack on Iran.
“Can you imagine Iran going from death to America to God bless America?” he asked the raucous crowd. “Well, I, too can.” He pitched Trump’s war as an opportunity for Iranians to finally throw off 47 years of oppressive theocratic rule, and offered up himself as the chosen one who would lead the country through its transition to freedom.
“Unlike the regime that worships death and destruction, the Iranian people celebrate life and liberty,” he said. “That’s why I can imagine an Iran that exports engineers instead of extremists, startups instead of suicide bombers, energy instead of hatred.” With echoes of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” motto, Pahlavi said, “I can imagine in the Middle East where Iran is no longer a source of chaos, but an anchor of stability that does not fear its people, doesn’t threaten its neighbors, doesn’t isolate itself from the world. Imagining this is not difficult, because this is exactly what Iran once was, and what it can be again.”
The moment was surprisingly moving. Hundreds of exiled Iranians, many with children in tow, were clearly longing for Pahlavi to deliver change for the good. Yet the crown prince’s future—as well as exiles who hope to return to Iran—rests almost entirely on Trump, which seems like risky business. After all, Trump has the attention span of a gnat, and already he’s facing a revolt from his own party over the war.
Media stars like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan have been openly breaking with Trump for betraying his campaign promises. At CPAC, where most speakers seemed largely supportive of the war, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) sounded a discordant note, saying, “A ground invasion of Iran will make our country poorer and less safe. It will mean higher gas prices, higher food prices. And I’m not sure if we would end up killing more terrorists than we would create.”
Some Republicans in Congress like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have joined with Democrats to try to pass a war powers resolution that would limit the president’s ability to wage war in Iran. Gas prices are skyrocketing as Iran continues to strangle the critical Strait of Hormuz, an outcome that seems to have taken Trump by surprise.
Faced with increasing opposition at home to the war, Trump has suggested that “me and the Ayatollah” might jointly oversee the operation of the strait, a partnership that would seem anathema to Iranian exiles in the US.
At CPAC, Pahlavi seemed to recognize the limits of America’s support for regime change in Iran through military action. “What we ask of America now is simple: Stay the course,” he pleaded. “Pave the way for the Iranian people to finish the job.”
The crown prince framed himself as the leader of an Iranian MAGA movement, and his supporters openly pined for the restoration for the shah. In that sense, they seemed much like American conservatives imagining a better past that never was. After all, Iran wasn’t exactly a model of democracy before the 1979 Iranian revolution. While he may have been a modernizing force, Pahlavi’s father was an authoritarian monarch who oversaw a one-party state that also engaged in torture and human rights abuses. Many of the Iranians I met at CPAC were far too young to remember life under the shah, and they seemed to view pre-revolutionary Iran with sepia tones.
“Iran, as it was before 1979, you know, we had a great country,” Sara Paras told me. “We were progressing. But now with the Ayatollah and Islamic regime, they are just destroying our country.” Paras, 29, is an enthusiastic backer of Pahlavi. “He is the representative of the people of Iran. He wants the same thing that the Iranian people want, too. They want freedom.”
While Pahlavi seems to have a large following of Iranians inside the US, Trump and his aides have reportedly called him the “loser prince” because they don’t believe he has much support inside Iran, a country the suburban Maryland resident hasn’t visited in 50 years. At CPAC, however, Pahlavi pushed back on such criticism. “I have unified a broad coalition of dissidents, republicans, and monarchists, left and right,” he said. “Men and women of all ages, religions, and ethnicities. Even people who were former political opponents have joined the movement to free Iran under my leadership.”
One thing Pahlavi didn’t promise to deliver in Iran: immediate elections—though he has said that those will happen eventually.
“The Iran story is not yet finished,” he said, concluding his speech. “Great civilizations outlast even the most vicious occupiers. With your help and with the courage, sacrifice and heroism of Iran’s greatest youth, our best latest chapter is being written right now. When it is done, a free and democratic Iran will stand alongside the United States as a partner, ally, and a friend. President Trump is making America great again. I intend to make Iran great again.”
