Once known to his followers as "Reza Shah Dovom", Crown Prince Reza's gradual tranformation into the demystified and ordinary "Shahrvand" began with this badly timed interview with Pro Green Activists in 2009 in front of the NY UN Headquarters in protest to then President Ahmadinejad's Presence  .

Watch Part One Here

Watch Part Two Here

Why Pre mature ? Only a monarchist activist would understand my argument ... I don't expect to convince those who are more than happy to see the gradual oblivion of the monarchist movement eversince the heir to the peacock throne downplayed his symbolic oath as Reza Shah Dovom to people of my generation old enough to remember that moment when in Cairo he took an Oath on the Holy Koran to protect, defend and restore the 1906 Constitution in accordance to his father's last will.  

In his urge to present himself as a "concerned Citizen" Shahrvand Reza undermined his genuine monarchist constituency by embracing the Green Movement. This was the beginning of a long list of clumsy moves which cornered him on the long run and turned him into an ambiguous advocate of "Republicanism" in total contradiction of his father's last will. One compromise to the Republican camp followed another and with each interview the impression he left on those like me who supported him all along had a bitter taste of betrayal. 

"Shahrvand" Reza  did not realize ( or did he ? ) that by embarking on this strategic position he was not only undermining all those who for more than 3 decades were supportive of his illustrious dynasty but also had expressed a genuine loyalty and love towards him and his family.

The suspicious feeling that he was being used as the "useful idiot" by the very enemies of his father's dynasty has only increased with time only to become a conviction in the minds of all those who were striving to see him restored as the legal King of our land .

This bitter impression has nothing to do with Crown Prince Reza's deemed personal beliefs ... Nothing he say's in this interview is wrong ... it isn't actually ... it's just that from a purely political perspective it was neither appropriate nor wise.  To begin with based on the Oath he took and by loyatly to that Oath and paternal will it was not up to HIM to make so many ideologcial concessions which have so hurt the cause of the monarchy today. It was not up to HIM to indulge in a philisophical discourse on his own legitimacy nor to come up with such blunt observations about history or the Constitution he vowed to restore but to allow his genuine Constitutionalist supporters to speak for him and allow the natural Bi Polar Debates take shape within the Diaspora on key issues related to his future role.

Any wise politician or leader would have realized that  the Pro Green infatuation that took the Diaspora by Storm would be short lived ... that ideological differences linked to our experience of history would emerge at one point and people would be held accountable for their views. Instead the Once King turned "Citizen" of a no man's land provided the perfect opportunity to have our monarchist cause become the target once again of a well funded coalition of anti Shah elements ranging from the leftists to the mossadeghis to the ex revolutionaries and Qajar Closet Commies some old enough to have taken part in the revolution, others whose pedigrees contributed to the Shah's downfall and today have become the spokesperson's of the Diaspora in mainstream media and deemed "civil society" organizations like NIAC or PAAIA to name a few of these IRI "sell outs" which today occupy the ENTIRE political scene and are even influential in shaping America's foreign policy and probably even future of a Post IRI Iran with their Pro Jomhurykhah narrative  ...

Thus By Questioning his Oath 3 decades earlier he only reinforced his Dad's enemies in the Diaspora and whatever historical discourse or ideological debate which could have emerged that would give a chance to Monarchists and Constitutionalists to offer a united front exploded into thin air ... Hence all the bitter divisions which this Shahrvand is largely accountable for ...

This ambiguous stance linked to his own lack of conviction in his own legitimacy was subtly  recuperated by ALL those who have since "revised" our contemporary history and that of the revolution to fit their Pro Jomhurykhah narrative ( stephen kinzer, Scott Anderson Cooper, Abbas Milani etc ) ...

By suggesting that a new Constitution should be drafted ( when all Crown Prince Reza needed to say was that any undemocratic aspect of the former constitution would need to be merely  amended by a Constitutionalist Council and then submitted to approval by the new parliament but that the framework of the constitution would remain unchanged as a sign of royal continuity and legality as an alternative to the Islamic Republic constitution) . After all even the die hard mossadeghis respected two facts: That Iran's 1906 constitution was legal and that our National Flag was the Shiro Khorshid.

Instead of taking the opportunity to remind people of their historical heritage and how the former constitution was unfairly dumped by the people back in 1979, he himself has contributed to declaring it as illegitimate by depicting it as obsolete.   He not only  threw the  constitution he vowed on the Holy Koran to restore  into the dustbin of history but he disavowed his Oath and commitment to people of my generation as irrelevant compared to the younger generation which he praises but hardly educates on the virtues of the Monarchy in a country like Iran. Yet that is precisely his role as custodian of an institution which he inherited and to whom he owes his very own legitimacy. He didn't need a mandate to do what he was born to do and that was defend the Legitimacy of the 1906 Constitution over the current one upheld by the Islamic Republic and all those reformists who wish to merely reform it rather than replace it.

Ultimately Shahrvand Reza's pre mature and badly planned political adventurism only undermined our efforts as monarchist activsts to propose a different narrative to what has become mainstream thanks to the Pro NIAC lobbies and the Leftists and Mossadeghi coalition which today are EVERYWHERE while we monarchists are disappearing as a movement to oblivion.