Former crown prince sees "revolutionary climate" in Iran (Roundup)

Jun 22, 2009, 16:12 GMT

Washington - Iran's one-time crown prince Reza Pahlavi said Monday that week-long protests in his country were supported by much of the military and clerical establishment and could end up bringing down the entire Islamic government.

Pahlavi, who has sought an end to the Islamic regime since his father was deposed in the 1979 revolution, said he had sources within the military and intelligence that were ready to switch sides.

'It's almost a revolutionary climate,' an at-times teary-eyed Pahlavi told reporters in Washington. 'Let me assure you, (the movement) will not die because we will not let it die.'

He appeared at the invitation of the National Press Club.

Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in Iran, defying the government, in sometimes bloody demonstrations of what they believe was a fraudulent June 12 election victory by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi, a former prime minister, has demanded a rerun of the election and vowed to continue the protests.

Pahlavi, who was exiled from Iran and now lives in the United States, warned that a failure of the protest movement would encourage more 'extremism' in Iran.

He said resistance among security officials 'has already started,' with some refusing to carry out orders to suppress the protests, but he could not give an indication of the extent of the internal discord.

Ahmadinejad has the strong backing of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has called for people to stop demonstrating or face a possible crackdown.

Pahlavi said Khamenei had sealed his own fate by backing Ahmadinejad: The protest movement had shifted from a simple call for a new election to a wider demand for an end to the entire Islamic regime.

'It was an ugly moment of disrespect for both God and man,' Pahlavi said. 'It will not stand, and at the end (Khameinei) will not stand.'

Pahlavi said that Moussavi, who was part of the 1979 revolution, would soon have to decide whether he, too, will seek a complete overhaul of Iran's regime.

'You can't at the same time hold allegiance to the regime and at the same time hold allegiance to the people,' Pahlavi said. 'This is no longer tenable.'

Pahlavi for years has advocated a secular parliamentary democracy for Iran, and made no claims on Monday for reviving the monarchy.