POLITICO:

Western governments should create a “strike fund” to support a wave of industrial action across Iran that will paralyze the state and hasten the end of the regime, according to the son of the country’s former leader.

Reza Pahlavi, whose father was the last shah of Iran and was ousted in the 1979 revolution, believes Donald Trump’s nuclear talks with Tehran will fail to deliver peace in the region. But he sees a chance for America and Europe to help the country’s grassroots opposition to overthrow its clerical rulers from within.

In recent years, anger at the regime’s repression and economic mismanagement have boiled over in unusually large public protests. Tehran’s standing across the Middle East has also been heavily dented by the fall of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and by Israel’s devastating strikes against Hamas and Hezbollah.

With Iran on the back foot, Pahlavi saw an opportunity for Western powers to intensify support for the regime’s opponents and potential defectors. In an interview with POLITICO, he called for cash to be released to help people engage in peaceful civil resistance, with a series of “organized labor strikes that could paralyze the system and force it to collapse.”

Such a “strike fund” could be drawn from frozen Iranian assets, he said. “Paralyzing the regime as a result of work stoppages and strikes — which is the least cost to the nation provided we can fund it — this is something that can happen in a matter of months.”

The specter of mass strikes is a potent one in the context of Iran’s revolutionary history.

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