Whatever your thoughts on the Trump administration’s war on Iran, if there is ever going to be real change in the country, it must come from the Iranians themselves, not from a regime-change war instigated by outsiders. In Foreign Policy magazine, Mohamad Rimawi discusses efforts to build a pro-democracy opposition within Iran. He notes the formation of the Iran Freedom Congress (IFC), and details a recent meeting in London of the movement’s mostly exiled leaders.
One by one, a remarkably diverse array of Iranian émigrés—from leftists to constitutional monarchists to feminist activists—took the stage to lay out their vision for a future Iran. The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran had brought renewed urgency to forming a viable, organized opposition, and there was a sense among those gathered that they could surmount their long, bitter differences.
Before the Iranian democracy activists could leave the building where they were meeting, they had to wait out a protest by the pro-Shah supporters of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who prefer to restore the monarchy rather than to establish a democracy. The protests were a symptom of the fractured state of the opposition to Iran’s Islamic regime.
Rimawi explains that Pahlavi’s alignment with Israel has turned many Iranians against him.
To avoid repeating Pahlavi’s failure in leading the Iranian opposition, the IFC must tread especially carefully on its ties with Israel. Pahlavi’s alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and especially his controversial visit to the Jewish state in April 2023, alienated many in the Iranian opposition who are concerned that aligning too closely with Israel’s security interests both hobbles the former crown prince as a nationalist broker and pushes him toward positions that fail to serve Iran.
Rimawi concludes by explaining that the real test for Iranian freedom activists is if they can come together to win the trust of the people, and offer a formidable alternative to the Islamic Regime.
Ultimately, navigating internal friction and courting global powers may not prove to be the IFC’s steepest hurdles. The real test for this movement will be whether it can win over the trust and backing of the Iranian people themselves. “The path to a free and democratic Iran actually runs through Tehran, not Washington or Jerusalem,” Bloomberg Economics analyst Esfandiary said. “So what matters is to build a plan to galvanize Iranians inside and outside the country, to demonstrate that you have an alternative that’s viable and that Iranians are going to want to support.”
