Dressed in a snappy suit, freshly shaven and somewhat suave, he appears the antithesis of the clerical regime that currently rules Iran with an iron fist.
Now 50, Mr. Pahlavi gave himself an unusual gift on his 21st birthday: He crowned himself “King of Kings,” inheritor of Iran’s Peacock Throne.
The fancy title, however, meant nothing. His Majesty lived in Maryland, half a world away from his supposed kingdom. His father had just died in exile, having fled Iran in 1979, at the height of the Iranian Revolution.
Thirty years later, Mr. Pahlavi still lives in Maryland (“strategically, the U.S. made a lot of sense,” he says) and has shed his royal title (although his staff still refers to him as “Prince”), along with beliefs about restoring the monarchy.
Instead, he has staked claim to a new, deeply nebulous title: leader of Iran’s democratic revolution.
