Deposed from power in 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran roamed the world as if he was a Flying Dutchman while the mullahs turned his country into the theocratic dictatorship that it is today.
Four decades later, the shah's son told a Washington, D.C., audience that an overthrow of the current regime in Tehran is coming soon and his countrymen would subsequently organize a constitutional convention, organize political parties, and hold free elections.
"It's time to belong to the 21st century," Reza Pahlavi, the one-time crown prince and heir to his father's Peacock Throne, told a standing-room audience at the Hudson Institute Wednesday morning.
Pahlavi would not predict a time when there would be an uprising against the mullahs in Tehran. But he did say that the U.S.-orchestrated killing of Iran's notorious Gen. Qassem Soleimani and the subsequent admission of Iran that it had downed a Ukrainian airliner (leading to the deaths of 176 international passengers) accelerated opposition to the regime.
"This is the regime's latest crime against humanity," said Pahlavi after listing the number of murders ordered by Tehran almost annually for four decades.
But the tragedy of the Ukrainian airliner was different, he insisted, because "with no foreign nationals being killed, we would never have learned the truth … The first line of defense is the media and a free media offers information."
He also praised the Trump administration as "in 40 years, the first to be so vocal in opposition to the [Iranian] regime." President Donald Trump recognized, Pahlavi added, that "this regime is what it is. You can tame a wild horse, but you can't tame a shark."
He also said that Trump's order to take out Soleimani was a "big blow" to the regime. Without directly referring to the Obama administration and its nuclear agreement with Iran, Pahlavi simply said, "anytime you relax pressure [on Tehran], the regime benefits."
Now in private business in Potomac, Maryland, Pahlavi is in touch "with opposition leaders in Iran and the diaspora [Iranian expatriates] in the U.S. and elsewhere." When they overthrow the current regime, he said, their first step would be to hold a constitutional convention to decide the form of democratic government.
"Then, political parties would have to be formed to organize elections," said Pahlavi.
Pahlavi realizes his father ruled as a strongman and he himself has no desire to revive the monarchy and serve as shah in a new Iran.
"There are plenty to play the role and implement further democracy," he said. "I just like to be on this side of the fence."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.