Iran’s political dynamics are unique but not totally without comparables

Niavaran Palace in Tehran Iran was the residence of the last king Shah Mohammad Reza during the Pahlavi regime. In this video, the visitor says: “Soon the owner of this mansion will return.”
This is fascinating on many levels, but one thing is that like all monarchs, while the last Shah of Iran absolutely helped modernize the nation, he was also accused of siphoning away billions to his private coffers, in his case via his charitable foundation. A couple of articles from 1979 in NY Times & Washington Post that won’t please his supporters but ironically, also show both
a) just how discontent and despondent Iranians have become with the current regime, and
b) how the allocation of resources the Islamic Republic shifts to its proxies in Lebanon, Palestine, elsewhere have infuriated and exasperated the people. 
Whether these articles from 1979 were legitimate works of investigative journalism or mere propaganda from a Carter administration that had run out of patience with a growingly confident monarch who sought to lead Iran to the echelons of world power seems moot decades later. Other sources attribute even more wide-ranging estimates. The chart below is from UK-based The Telegraph, to be fair, the use of the term “dictator” is both offensive and over-simplistic, but the West will be the West… To be clear, these figures all seem far fetched and other reports pegged the number in the millions.

In 2011, Reza Pahlavi himself in an interview with VoA cited a precise figure of $62 million, which was in line with an “estimate range from $50 million to $100 million, according to ABC’s Barbara Walters” But the figure itself is secondary to the frustration that money and economics has always had on Iran and Ancient Persia, the first global world empire.

In any case, due to growing resentment over allegations of financial corruption and impropriety, abuses by his secret service SAVAK, but ultimately also the loss of support from the US & West, the Shah was toppled in 1979 – with clerics seizing power after the Shah’s main worry, Marxists, were used to consolidate power but then abused once they were no longer needed by the Mullahs. 

In the 45 years since, growing unhappiness with the current theocratic democracy has led to a rise in interest in the return of the monarchy, in the shape of a constitutional monarchy. While the ruling clerics in Iran had for a while ignored this movement, some of their recent actions (billboards, media coverage) suggests the regime is at least paying attention to its growing popularity, which can be explained by both the country’s 2500-year history as a monarchy as well as the relative lack of faith and confidence in any politician who has shown a desire and willingness to serve as opposition to the regime, let alone be part of it. Supporters of the exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi never discuss the criticisms the previous Shah faced, but would be well served to address how their vision of a future Iran would prevent such practices (which, again, practically all heads of state could be accused of regardless of the form of government). There’s another elephant in the room, but we’ll leave that for another day.