Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas, calling for the complete dismantling of the Islamic Republic and presenting himself as the leader to guide Iran through a democratic transition.
Pahlavi took the stage to a standing ovation and chants of “Javid Shah” (long live the king) and drew repeated applause throughout a speech that combined a sharp indictment of the Tehran regime with a detailed vision of Iran as a future strategic partner of both the United States and Israel.
“A free Iran is within reach right now,” he told the crowd. “But as we all know, freedom never comes free.”
Included in his address was a call for a new regional architecture in the Middle East, one in which a post-Islamic Republic Iran normalizes relations with Israel.
Pahlavi invoked the Abraham Accords, proposing their extension into what he called the “Cyrus Accords,” named for Cyrus the Great, the Persian king he credited with issuing history’s first charter of human rights and whose legacy, he argued, stands in direct contrast to the current regime.
“Imagine a new Middle East where Iran is a friend of Israel,” he said. “Where the Abraham Accords are extended into the Cyrus Accords.”
A vision for the future VS the present reality
The prince drew a sharp line between that vision and the present reality, stating that the Islamic Republic persecutes religious minorities, storms underground Christian churches, and executes converts, conduct he described as a betrayal of Iran’s millennia-old tradition of tolerance.
On the economic case for a free Iran, Pahlavi pitched the room directly. A strategic US-Iran partnership, he argued, could generate more than one trillion dollars for the American economy over the next decade, drawing on a nation of 93 million people he described as highly educated, entrepreneurial, and pro-democracy.
“A free Iran represents the single largest untapped economic opportunity of the 21st century,” he said. “Finally unleashed.”
He framed the current moment as a historic opportunity created by the Trump administration’s military strikes – referring to Operations Midnight Hammer (June 2025) and Epic Fury – which he said had destroyed more than 80% of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, obliterated its nuclear sites, and killed former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“For decades, every American president since Jimmy Carter chose to try to manage this looming threat rather than resolve it,” Pahlavi said. “Each of them has failed.”
He was, however, unsparing on the question of any partial settlement with remnants of the regime, after rumors that US President Donald Trump is willing to sit down with members of the current regime to end the conflict.
“The Islamic Republic cannot reform itself. You cannot reform a snake. Venom is in its DNA,” the prince said. Any arrangement leaving elements of the regime in place, he argued, would produce only a temporary calm before a return to terrorism and nuclear blackmail.
“Those who have spent 47 years sowing chaos cannot be trusted to bring about stability,” he said. “If we do not finish the job, the threat posed by this Islamic Republic will not be solved. It will only be made worse.”
Pahlavi also gave a clear-cut account of the January uprising, in which he said he called on Iranians to take to the streets.
The response, he said, was the largest wave of protests in Iran’s modern history, sweeping all 31 provinces, met by a regime response he described as leaving more than 40,000 dead and 300,000 wounded, with internet access cut off for what was, as of Saturday, 29 consecutive days.
“The final blow will be delivered by the Iranian people themselves,” he said. “When the right moment arrives, as in January, I will call on them to rise up again.”
Pahlavi confirmed he has accepted calls to lead Iran’s democratic transition, describing a coalition spanning monarchists and republicans, and a digital defection platform through which he said thousands of military officials, including some senior officials, have registered their readiness to join him.
He closed with a direct parallel to the American moment.
“As 2026 marks the 250th birthday of the United States, it is my hope and my belief that history will also remember 2026 as the year of Iran’s rebirth,” the prince told the crowd. “President Trump is making America great again. I intend to make Iran great again.”