Reza Pahlavi defends Israeli strikes on Iran, blames Khamenei for civilian deaths

Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Iran’s last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, defended Israeli airstrikes on Iran, claiming that Israel never intended to target civilians. He accused Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of using ordinary Iranians as human shields.

In an interview with the BBC, when asked whether he considered Israeli attacks on his country “a positive thing,” Pahlavi did not condemn the civilian casualties.

Instead, he placed the blame on Khamenei and the Iranian government, stating, “I am not saying the targeting was meant to hurt the Iranian people. The targeting was meant to neutralise the regime's threat. Clearly, it wasn’t the intention of the Israeli government to attack Iranian civilians.”

Despite Israel targeting multiple civilian sites in Iran, including a strike that killed 60 people, among them children, in a residential building housing the family of an Iranian military general, Pahlavi continued to shift responsibility for the deaths.

In a separate interview with Fox News, he said, “What angers me the most is that Khamenei is using my compatriots as human shields while he himself is hiding like a rat in an underground tunnel.”

While he expressed sympathy for the loss of innocent lives, he maintained that the responsibility lies with the regime, stating the conflict is “Khamenei’s war, not Iran’s.”

“We are now faced with a great opportunity. In the past three days alone, the regime has become tenfold weaker. The Iranian people clearly see that the playing field has leveled for them, and this has provided them with an opportunity to rise up and get rid of the regime,” he added.

The Pahlavi family and their allies have long been active in opposing the current Iranian government and continue efforts to overthrow it.