Far-right praise for shah’s secret police puts Reza Pahlavi on the spot

Key points

• For decades, the Savak was seen as the most hated symbol of repression that kept Iran’s last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in power – and a main driving force behind the revolutionary fervor that toppled him in 1979. Now the deposed monarch’s son, Reza Pahlavi, has been forced to distance himself from the once-dreaded security agency after some of his most vociferous supporters glorified it as the defining emblem in their drive to install him on the throne in a royal restoration.
• Washington-based Pahlavi, 65, who has not been in Iran for 48 years, has portrayed himself as “uniquely positioned” to lead a transition to democracy to replace the current Islamic theocracy, which has been fighting for its survival since February when the US and Israel embarked on a campaign of military strikes, currently stalled amid a current shaky ceasefire and Pakistani-mediated negotiations.
• He thrust himself forward as a potential...