Karim Sadjadpour

economic, depreciating currency.

And then very quickly, within a couple days, they quickly went to death to the Islamic Republic.

And they spread throughout the country.

For me, the things that were very eye-opening were...

these slogans of long live the Shah and death to the Islamic Republic in these cities which were conservative strongholds of the regime, in cities like Mashhad and Qom, in the town of Khomein, the birthplace of Ayatollah Khomeini, people were saying Javid Shah, long live the Shah.

So Reza Pahlavi has spent the last 47 years in exile, mostly in suburban Washington, D.C., in Potomac, Maryland.

And, you know, he has been very consistent in opposing the Islamic Republic and advocating democracy.

But it's only been in the last several years that people have begun looking to him for leadership and chanting his name.

I do believe that he could win.

If there were to be a free and fair election in Iran, I think he could actually win an election inside Iran.

So what he said is that he aspires to serve as a bridge between Iranians and democracy.

He's always been consistent in saying, you know, my goal is not to be king.

You know, if people want to vote for a constitutional monarchy, I'm willing to play that role, but that is not my aspiration.

So that's the thing about nostalgia, David, is that you remember things with rose-tinted lenses.

And especially for people who the vast majority of this society of 92 million people were born after the 1979 revolution.

So they don't have direct recollections of the bad things that were associated with the Shah's government, but they see the images of how life was.

They hear the stories which their parents tell them, which, you know, now in hindsight, I think the vast majority of people who participated in the 1979 revolution think it was an own goal.

It was a mistake and their lives were ruined.

were much better.

And so for that reason, I think a lot of people have looked to Reza Pahlavi