Source: USA Today
by Alen Amini
“I loved my father, and I still admire his instinctive belief in freedom and justice. But in the years since his passing, I have grown uneasy with how confidently diaspora voices like his continue to shape American debates about Iran. Too often, those conversations are marked by certainty untethered from lived experience and by a readiness for confrontation that carries little personal cost. … Many of the loudest calls for regime change in Iran come from outside the country. Figures such as Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah of Iran who was ousted from power in 1979, are frequently elevated in Western media as potential transitional leaders, even though their level of support inside Iran is unclear and cannot be freely measured under current conditions.” (03/17/26)