The German federal government, along with foreign‑policy officials from the Union and the SPD, is approaching the question of the former Shah’s son Reza Pahlavi’s possible future role after the end of the Mullahs’ rule with caution. The Foreign Office said that it had noted Pahlavi’s expressed willingness to head a transitional government, but it stresses that it is ultimately up to the Iranian people to decide who governs them.
Jürgen Hardt, the CDU/CSU Bundestag’s foreign‑policy spokesperson, told “Der Spiegel” that he had met Pahlavi but that a new government in Tehran should not be formed through meetings abroad. Hardt praised U.S. President Donald Trump for stressing that the Iranian populace must decide how to shape their own future, and he added that a vision of a “democratic, modern Iran with inclusive participation of women and minorities” would likely find support.
SPD spokesperson Adis Ahmetovic noted to the same magazine that many exiled Iranians, including those living in Germany, are currently siding with Pahlavi for reasons of conviction or pragmatism. He described this trend as part of the present opposition landscape yet stressed that the Iranian opposition is overall plural and diverse, with various actors and social groups holding different ideas about how a future political transformation should be carried out. For him, the essential point remains that the decision about the country’s future lies with the Iranian people.
An earlier FDP chief of staff, Bijan Djir‑Sarai-who was sent from Iran to a relative in Germany as a child-also told “Der Spiegel” that the German government should recognize Pahlavi as the face of Iran’s freedom movement. He believes that only he can organize the country’s transition to democracy.
Pahlavi, the eldest son of the late Shah, has been in exile since his father’s overthrow in 1979, primarily living in the United States. At one point his father appointed him crown prince, and today, at age 65, he claims a leadership role within Iran’s fragmented opposition. During the recent mass protests and the US‑Israel offensive, Pahlavi appeared as a guest at the Munich Security Conference in early February and delivered a speech to a crowd of more than 200,000 people at a large opposition rally.