Another Fox interview with the Iranian Crown Prince has dropped.
The standard wishcasting on his part about the imminent toppling of the Mullahs by the Iranian people & asking for international support for regime change aside, some new things he said which stood out to me were:
1. Pahlavi claims (citing his own sources within Iran) that the Mullahs' hold on power is crumbling and that more Iranian officers, intelligence officials & bureaucrats have been telling him they're ready to defect within the last 48 hours. Yuge if factual, there being a large number of regime defectors is a red alert that the regime they used to serve is getting close to falling (either to revolution, as in his own father's Iran ironically, or civil war, ex. Syria circa late 2011-early 2012 when the FSA was starting to form). However this is difficult if not impossible to verify, since the Mullahs have imposed an information blackout across the country including cutting the Internet (already mentioned on this very thread, with charts showing Internet usage in Iran suddenly dropping like a rock thrown from a soaring jet).
2. He doesn't sound like he actually wants Trump to blow up the Fordow facility if it can at all be avoided, it comes across like he actually wants the Mullahs to fall first so that Fordow can be spared. The excuse he gives is so that there's no devastation (ie. the potential nuclear fallout fucking everyone else over), but I cannot imagine a pro-Western Iranian gov't wouldn't also really like to keep nuclear facilities around for peaceful, American/Israeli-approved use. Suffice to say though, at this point I think he's gonna need a bigger
for that one. A MUCH bigger
.
3. He says he's ready to step in as a transitional post-Mullah leader but does not need the official title of Shah for that job, specifically states that trying to restore the monarchy ASAP would be 'putting the cart before the horse'. My assessment remains unchanged, this dude probably does actually want to become Shah Reza II but he's willing to keep playing the long game (he's played it for long enough already after all) and only seek the throne through gradual, legitimate-seeming channels (presumably including acquiring the Iranian people's support & trust as a non-monarchic transitional leader, winning elections to a post-Mullah presidency/prime ministerial office, getting monarchist parties to win parliamentary elections, etc. before trying a restoration referendum or w/e).
