Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi said in an interview with Reuters that the US-led war against the Islamic Republic was a “necessary step” to prevent further bloodshed and give Iranians a better chance of ending clerical rule.
In the interview recorded in Paris on July 14, Pahlavi linked the military campaign to the January 8 and 9 protests, when demonstrators answered his call for nationwide action and were met with a brutal crackdown.
He said the scale of the violence showed that Iranians could not be expected to return safely to the streets while the forces responsible remained capable of crushing another uprising.
“We cannot expect people to be able to safely return to the streets to take on the final battle” without protection or the means to neutralize forces hostile to them, he said.
Pahlavi argued that US and Israeli strikes had weakened the Islamic Republic’s repressive apparatus and helped “equalize” the balance between the government and protesters.
“The campaign that started as a result of the massacre — that led to the intervention by the Israelis and the American forces to strike the regime — was an element that was perhaps a necessary step to avoid further bloodshed,” he said.
The protests began in late December after a sharp fall in the rial deepened economic and political discontent. As demonstrations spread, Pahlavi called on Iranians to take part in nationwide action on January 8 and 9 by gathering in the streets or chanting from their homes.
Millions joined the protests across Iran before security forces opened fire on demonstrators and authorities imposed sweeping internet restrictions.
Documents, medical records, field reports and testimony reviewed by Iran International indicate that at least 36,500 people were killed on January 8 and 9, making the crackdown one of the deadliest episodes of state violence against protesters in modern history.
Pahlavi said the killings demonstrated the limits of peaceful protest against a government willing to use overwhelming force against its own population.
“On January 8 and 9, people went to the street still peacefully, just chanting the slogan,” he said. “When that happens, you cannot expect that by the same method of nonviolence, you can achieve the same result with the way this regime is behaving.”
The United States and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran on February 28, striking Revolutionary Guards facilities, missile and drone units, military command centers and other state targets.
Pahlavi said the attacks had weakened the institutions responsible for suppressing dissent and could help prevent another massacre.
“When you have the mechanism of repression of the regime weakened as a result of those strikes, those are added help,” he said. “Those are the kind of outside interventions that may be required.”
He said the intervention could ultimately save lives that would otherwise be lost in another confrontation between protesters and the security forces.
“It’s really a matter of trying to protect more lives from being lost under this regime that is demonstrating that it has no limit in terms of how far it’s willing to go to kill its own citizens,” he said.
Pahlavi nevertheless stressed that foreign governments should not decide who would govern Iran after the Islamic Republic.
“It is not for a foreign government to decide who or what should be the alternative for Iran,” he said. “That’s up to the Iranian people.”
He said his campaign, which began after the 1979 revolution that overthrew his father, had always centered on Iranians’ right to determine their own political future.
“I’ve never asked for any kind of endorsement from any leader or governments,” he said.
‘A bridge to destination’
Pahlavi has presented himself as the leader of a temporary transition rather than a candidate seeking to predetermine whether Iran should become a monarchy or a republic.
“My position as a transitional leader is, I’m not the destination, I’m a bridge to the destination,” he said.
He said his role would be to act as a neutral arbiter and oversee a political process in which Iranians could debate and choose the country’s future system.
“I’m not taking sides, either for a monarchy or for a republic,” he said. “My job is to make sure that there’s a healthy debate and that in the end people decide what it is that they actually would prefer to have as the final form.”
Pahlavi said his coalition included former leftists, republicans and people once affiliated with groups that opposed his father’s government.
He said former members of the three major leftist groups Tudeh Party, the Fadaiyan-e-Khalq and the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) had joined his movement, presenting that as evidence that the opposition had become more unified.
“I don’t know how far more can you stretch the tent, including those people, to prove that in fact there is much more unity than ever, certainly inside Iran,” he said.
He added, however, that there were three groups with which he would not cooperate: supporters of the Islamic Republic, the MEK as an organization and separatists.
“There are certain lines that I’m not going to cross,” he said.
Pahlavi also rejected violence, intimidation or criminal conduct by people claiming to support him.
“I believe in pluralism. I believe in tolerance. I believe in civility, in debate, in argument, in comportment, respect, and no hostility of any kind,” he said.
He said anyone who violated those principles would not be considered a supporter and should face legal consequences if their conduct was criminal.
Pahlavi also acknowledged concerns over statements made by people associated with his political team, saying stricter internal protocols were being introduced.
He said those close to him would have to exercise greater caution because their remarks could be interpreted as representing his movement.
‘A democratic culture’
Turning to Iran’s political future, Pahlavi said most Iranians wanted secular democracy, the rule of law and protection of human rights, but warned that building a democratic political culture would take time.
“What I think will take some time, and I mean that in the most honest way possible, is to bring about a democratic culture,” he said.
Pahlavi also clarified earlier statements about contacts with members of Iran’s security forces.
He said individual members of the Basij, the Revolutionary Guards and the regular military had contacted him discreetly over the years to express opposition to the Islamic Republic.
He denied, however, that he had been in direct communication with the IRGC’s senior command.
“It’s not like, in fact, talking to the IRGC command. Not at all,” he said.
Pahlavi said he had advocated for the IRGC to be designated as a terrorist organization for at least a decade because of its role in repression at home and military operations abroad.
He described the Guards as the central institution keeping the Islamic Republic in power and said increasing pressure on it remained a key part of his political strategy.
Pahlavi is the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Shah, Iran’s last monarch, who was overthrown in the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic to power. The royal family left Iran shortly before the revolution, and Pahlavi has lived in exile since then.
The complaints came as the energy ministry called for consumers to reduce electricity use by at least 10%, warning that high temperatures are expected to push demand above 75,500 megawatts in the coming days.
"Electricity has been out since 2 a.m. and it's now 5 a.m. We still don't have power," one resident in Islamshahr, near Tehran wrote.
Average temperatures, the ministry said, are forecast to reach around 41 degrees Celsius between July 14 and July 18 and remain unusually high through the following week. It urged households to set air conditioners to 25 degrees Celsius, switch off unnecessary electrical appliances and move heavy electricity use outside peak hours to preserve grid stability.
The outages come against the backdrop of a widening structural energy deficit. The latest Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute found Iran's electricity generation increased by only 1% last year and natural gas production by 1.3%, a sharp slowdown from the previous decade and well below the pace needed to meet rising demand.
Years of underinvestment, delayed infrastructure projects and international sanctions have left the country increasingly unable to meet its own energy needs despite holding some of the world's largest oil and gas reserves.
Residents report outages across Iran
Accounts shared pointed to repeated outages in Tehran province, Alborz, Khuzestan and Fars, with many residents saying electricity was cut for two to three hours at a time.
"Power in Fardis of Karaj went out twice on Thursday – first from 7 a.m. to 7:50 a.m. and then again from 10 until 12:10 p.m.," one resident wrote.
Another in Shiraz said electricity was cut shortly after 1 a.m. on Thursday, while residents in Karaj, in the vicinity of Tehran, also reported another evening blackout.
Several messages came from the southern Khuzestan province, where temperatures regularly climb well above 40 degrees Celsius during the summer.
"They've started the two-hour power cuts again in this unbearable heat," one citizen wrote. "Then they ask what we're supposed to do if power plants are hit."
Another resident questioned why shortages persist despite the province's energy resources.
"With this intense heat in Khuzestan, why should a country this rich suffer shortages of water and electricity?" the resident wrote. "They've started cutting both for at least three hours a day again. Inflation has already broken people's backs."
One person in Masjed Soleyman, Khuzestan province, described losing both electricity and water for three hours, ending the message with a call for public protests.
Food, water and daily life affected
Several said the outages were disrupting everyday life beyond the inconvenience of losing air conditioning.
"I went through so much hardship and debt to buy meat and fish," one resident wrote. "By the time I got home, the electricity went out and we've been without power for three hours. The meat I struggled to buy is spoiling."
Another wrote: "Every day it's either the water or the electricity, or they dig up the streets and take forever to fix them. We live in a city with abundant oil, yet there's poverty and unemployment."
The energy ministry said climate studies show the southern provinces of Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khuzestan, Sistan and Baluchestan and Ilam experience the country's longest periods of extreme heat, placing the greatest strain on the electricity network during the summer.
Officials said reducing air-conditioner settings by one degree and improving energy efficiency could significantly lower demand, urging consumers to conserve electricity to help maintain supplies during the prolonged heatwave.
Messages from Shiraz and Mashhad also described overnight or daytime power cuts, while another resident complained that either electricity or water was being interrupted almost daily.
Officials say prolonged high temperatures have sharply increased electricity demand, particularly in southern provinces, where cooling accounts for a large share of consumption.
Energy experts cited by state media say raising air-conditioner settings by one degree Celsius could reduce cooling demand by roughly 2.5%, while improving the efficiency of cooling equipment and buildings could further lower electricity consumption.
The case stems from protests on January 8 at Alikhani Square in Isfahan, where authorities said four Basij members were killed.
According to the lawyer, 59 people were initially arrested after the incident.
The lawyer said 23 of those detained were sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison, even though they were not accused of directly taking part in the deaths and appeared to have been added to the case to strengthen the prosecution’s broader narrative.
Twelve others were sentenced to death.
The lawyer said the Supreme Court upheld the death sentences on July 5 and the case has now been sent to the sentence enforcement branch of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court, raising fears that the executions could be carried out soon.
The prosecutor in the case is Mohammad Nakhjavan, according to the information received. The judges are Mohammad Barati-Dorcheh and Mohammad Tavakoli, also known as Vakili.
Tavakoli previously served as a judge in the “Khaneh Isfahan” (Isfahan House) case, another protest-linked case in Isfahan that ended with the execution of Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi and Saeed Yaghoubi in May 2023.
The lawyer said the defendants in the Alikhani Square case were denied access to independent lawyers during the trial stage and were represented by court-appointed attorneys.
The lawyer also said the court blocked defense lawyers from accessing the full case files.
The 12 protesters sentenced to death are mostly very young men. Three were born in 2007 and were around 17 or 18 at the time of the January 2026 protests. Several others were born between 2004 and 2006, and one is an Afghan national. Two brothers are among those facing execution.
The judiciary has not publicly responded to the allegations about denial of access to independent counsel and case files.
The case fits a pattern seen in several protest-linked capital cases in Iran, where the reported deaths of security personnel or pro-government forces have been followed by broad arrests, charges carrying the death penalty and claims by families, lawyers and rights groups that defendants were denied fair trial guarantees.
Rights groups have warned that Iran’s use of death sentences in protest cases has become a tool of intimidation, particularly after periods of unrest, with executions used to send a message far beyond the individual defendants.
Amnesty International said in February that at least 30 people were facing the death penalty over alleged offences linked to the January 2026 protests, including eight people sentenced to death after expedited and “grossly unfair” trials.
The Center for Human Rights in Iran said in April that at least 22 political prisoners had been executed in six weeks, including 10 people detained during the January protests, in cases it said were marked by secretive proceedings, torture, forced confessions and lack of due process.
Human Rights Watch said the January unrest was met with mass killings, arbitrary arrests and severe communications restrictions, with thousands of protesters and bystanders believed to have been killed after protests escalated on January 8.
The new Isfahan case raises the number of protest-linked prisoners facing imminent execution and adds to fears that Iran’s judiciary is accelerating capital punishment in cases tied to the January uprising.
