Point of No Return   

As the ayatollah regime teeters, and the blood of ordinary Iranians runs in the streets under a brutal crackdown on protests, a figure from Iran’s pre-revolutionary past has become a rallying cry. Is Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s long exile over?

It’s October 26, 1967, and Reza Pahlavi, the seven-year-old crown prince of Iran, moves down the red carpet in Tehran’s Golestan Palace with a solemnity that feels borrowed from someone much older. His uniform is crisp, medals resting on his small chest. He walks deliberately, shoulders squared, eyes forward, mimicking the posture of the courtiers and generals who tower above him.

This is a special day, not just for him, but for his father. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi has already been on the throne for 26 years. He has survived coups, foreign interference, war scares, and the long, grinding work of consolidating power in a country that has rarely known stability. Only now does he feel he has earned the title Shahanshah, King of Kings.

And so, the ceremony unfolds. The crown prince is not merely attending his father’s coronation. He is part of its justification.

As the shah takes his seat on a golden throne, radiant with authority, beside him sits his son on a smaller gold chair — the embodiment of the Pahlavi dynasty’s future.