Free Republic

August 19, 1953: The Iranian military, with the support and financial assistance of the United States government, overthrows the government of Premier Mohammad Mosaddeq and reinstates the Shah of Iran. Iran remained a solid Cold War ally of the United States until a revolution ended the Shah’s rule in 1979. Mosaddeq came to prominence in Iran in 1951 when he was appointed premier. A fierce nationalist, Mosaddeq immediately began attacks on British oil companies operating in his country, calling for expropriation and nationalization of the oil fields. His actions brought him into conflict with the pro-Western elites of Iran and...

Nearly half a century after the Islamic revolution that overthrew Iran’s monarchy, a quiet shift has taken place among some of its former supporters. They were once the young revolutionaries of 1979 – leftists, activists, and political prisoners – shaped by the ideological certainties of their time. They spoke in the language of social justice and anti-imperial struggle, convinced they were dismantling a system that could not be reformed. For many, the Shah’s Iran was deeply flawed, and even the idea of monarchy went against their fundamental beliefs. Some paid for those beliefs with years in prison. Others would later...

Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi said the Islamic Republic’s weakening grip on internal repression is bringing closer the moment when Iranians could once again take control of the streets. He said in an interview with Iran International aired on Monday that a final call for nationwide demonstrations to end the Islamic Republic would come once the authorities’ coercive apparatus had been sufficiently weakened. “I think all of us, after 47 years of dealing with this criminal government, are counting the days until this system finally disappears,” Pahlavi said in the interview with Morad Vaisi. “We want to reach the day after...

There is something extraordinary about how a young woman, born and raised in the United States, can become a voice for people she has never met in a country she has never seen, thousands of miles away. But for Iran’s Princess Noor Pahlavi, daughter of the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and granddaughter of the former shah, Mohammad Reza, that is the situation she finds herself in. As the Islamic Republic regime of Iran faces daily strikes and military pressure from the US and Israel, and with its leadership decimated, many are looking to the day the regime falls. And...

Iran has been at war with the United States and Israel for 47 years now. We didn’t start it; they did. But we are finally getting around to finishing it. In the first week of the 2026 action, we demolished over 3000 major targets in Iran, largely succeeding at the goal of decapitating the mullahs’ regime and eliminating their military capacity. Our airstrikes are rapidly wiping out their launch sites, their arms factories, their air force and naval vessels, while making a valiant effort to do all this without causing innocent civilian casualties. (As in any war, there are going...

When anti-regime protests spread like wildfire throughout Iran in mid-October of 2022, the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was quick to lay the blame on the usual foreign suspects. “I say explicitly that these riots and this insecurity were a design by the U.S. and the occupying, fake Zionist regime and those who are paid by them,” he told a class of cadets at a police college in Tehran. He suggested that the ultimate goal of the U.S. and Israel was regime change in Iran. This elicited a response on Twitter from Iranian rapper Hichkas, who defended foreign support for...

Prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when American military bases were hosted by the Shah, there was a separate tier of justice, like the difference between Sharia and Rum courts, to which American military criminal justice cases were referred. [The "Rum" (Orthodox Christians) under eastern Muslim governments, were generally governed by their own religious laws in civil matters. They were considered a minority protected under the millet-like system that allowed communal, self-governing ecclesiastical courts, particularly in religious, matrimonial, and inheritance cases, rather than strict Islamic Sharia. A similar system under British occupation was the Irish "Breton Law" courts in which,...

Fourteen survivors and victims of the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 filed suit against Iraq in federal district court in Washington, D.C., last week, claiming that Iraqi officials gave money and training to Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols. McVeigh was executed last April. Nichols, convicted of manslaughter and given a life sentence in federal court, is awaiting trial in Oklahoma state court, where survivors are determined that he get a death sentence. Nearly a year after McVeigh's execution, the case remains controversial. Families of victims have accused the federal government of shoddy detective work, and some even have claimed...

The Richard Nixon Foundation applies the legacy and vision of President Richard Nixon, America’s relentless grand strategist, to defining issues facing our nation and the world. The Richard Nixon Foundation in association with the National Archives and Records Administration provides financial support to collect, preserve, and make available to the public and for scholars the documents, recordings, and other materials that illuminate the life and times, and the historic legacy of Richard Nixon.

City after city has been reclaimed by jubilant, joyous crowds across Iran in the past few days."This is the final battle,Pahlavi will return"Tonight in Tehran, Iran's capital.pic.twitter.com/C6pyxSIB9M— 𝐍𝐢𝐨𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) January 8, 2026The streets in the capital of Tehran are alive tonight. 🚨SE TERMINÓ DE PUDRIR EN IRÁN🚨Las calles de Teherán completamente tomadas por los manifestantes que piden derrocar al ayatola. pic.twitter.com/PYDysqhIx7— ASB (@GordoLeyes) January 8, 2026Throngs of people, who sometimes seem as if it's the entire population in the street at one time, are marching and cheering, defying the basiji thugs who would brutalize and beat them...

Communications networks go dark right after start of Tehran protests urged on by exiled crown prince; protesters chant ‘death to the dictator’ and ‘death to the Islamic Republic’. Thousands of people in Iran’s capital shouted from their homes and rallied in the street Thursday night after a call by the country’s exiled crown prince for a mass demonstration, witnesses said, a new escalation in the protests that have spread nationwide across the Islamic Republic. Internet access and telephone lines in Iran cut out immediately after the protests began. The protest represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could...

Iranians begrudgingly accepted Islam but refused to accept Arabic as its supposedly divine language. Scholars have argued that it took almost four hundred years before Arabs conquered the entire Iranian empire. In those centuries of turmoil, Iranian Christians and Jews—like Zoroastrians who had been the dominant faith in the empire—were often subjected to the terrors of a local pious Muslim bully. By the fifteenth century, Shiism—one of the main branches of Islam—forcefully became the “state” religion of Iran, but even that did not altogether destroy Christian life in the country. Assyrians and Armenians continued to live in parts of the...

Iran has been gripped by demonstrations amid the country's economic crisis, with social discontent fueling open protest against the regime. Media and authorities have pinned the blame on foreign intelligence services. Thousands of people have protested in Iran in recent days against the dramatic devaluation of the currency, amid an economic crisis that has engulfed the country. What began as a strike by shopkeepers and bazaar merchants on Sunday has become an outcry of political anger, with some even chanting "Death to the dictator!" The spontaneous protests have already spread from Tehran to other cities, such as Isfahan and Mashhad.

The Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pahlavi gives a news conference in Paris to speak about the current situation in the country, the need to support Iranians and his future plan for the nation. Calls on Khamenei to step down, and officials loyal to Iranian people to work with him now. Warns international community not to throw ayatollahs a lifeline. Mostly in English, also in Farsi and French in response to Q&A from international press. Transcript linked below video.

Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last Shah of Iran and the former crown prince, said that plans are in place for a 100-day transitional period if the Islamic Republic regime falls in war with Israel. In a Tuesday video statement in Farsi, Pahlavi sought to reassure Iranians that opposition forces have a plan for the country's future. "Iran will not descend into civil war or instability," he said. "We are prepared for the first hundred days after the fall, for the transitional period, and for the establishment of a national and democratic government - by the Iranian people...

From the oral history collections of the University of Georgia. Recorded in 1983

Since Obama has raised the alarm about alleged Russian espionage activity, it’s appropriate to shine a spotlight on his own administration’s connections to Soviet-era spy rings and terrorist networks. Obama and two of his key advisors, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod, were raised by families with members who are known either to have been in contact with Soviet agents or to have belonged to the Communist Party (CP) at a time when the CP was controlled by the Soviet Union. Associates of Obama’s campaign team and Jarrett’s family interacted with agents linked to the famous pair of spy rings known...

Biden energy loan czar Jigar Shah was a major investor in a struggling green energy company that is in advanced talks to receive a $1.5 billion loan from his office. The Department of Energy’s loan office, where Shah serves as director, is working to fast-track the funding to Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel company on the brink of bankruptcy. But the ties between Plug Power and Shah could add to concerns from lawmakers about conflicts of interest in the federal loan program. Securities and Exchange Commission records detail a long-standing financial relationship between Plug Power and Generate Capital, an investment...

A private trade association founded by the Biden administration’s energy loan czar Jigar Shah has become a gatekeeper for companies seeking billions of dollars in financing from Shah’s office. The Cleantech Leaders Roundtable has seen a surge in its influence and revenue since its former president, Shah, was tapped to lead the powerful $400 billion Department of Energy Loan Programs Office (LPO) in 2021. The group, which didn’t have a website until three years ago, now regularly hosts sold-out receptions featuring Shah for its paying members across the country. Last week, the DOE Loans Program Office and Cleantech Leaders co-hosted...

Carter owes the people of Iran an apology. ... Carter's critics always point to his handling of the Iran hostage crisis as the most glaring flaw in his time in office. During the course of that 444-day nightmare, a student mob held 52 U.S. diplomats and civilians hostage, and no amount of negotiation—or attempted military action—could get them released. Thankfully, that sad chapter finally ended on Jan. 20, 1980, the day President Ronald Reagan took the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol. But Carter's true transgression—the original sin that has complicated and shaped U.S. policy in the Middle East...