Iran's exiled opposition is struggling to unite. Royalists supporting Reza Pahlavi are competing with activists such as Alinejad, Boniadi and Esmaeilion, while protesters inside Iran continue to push for change.

Tehran

Iran's exiled opposition consists of various groups and individuals, including royalists supporting Reza Pahlavi, human rights activists, and ethnic minority advocates. Although these figures briefly formed an alliance in 2022, longstanding divisions and skepticism about leadership ambitions quickly undermined their unity.

Despite these challenges, most opposition leaders avoid open confrontation to focus on their shared goal of ending the Islamic Republic. The true level of support for any opposition group within Iran is difficult to measure, as many activists remain imprisoned and significant activism continues inside the country.

Iran's exiled opposition remains deeply divided

Reza Pahlavi's supporters have become the most vocal Iranian opposition in exile. Many of them are royalists who want him to ascend the throne his late father, Iran's last Shah, was forced to flee during the Iranian revolution in 1979. It's a goal Pahlavi himself says he does not share, but one that has divided the opposition for decades. His followers are very committed, very passionate, sometimes also radical and very aggressive. But what you have, and that's a pretty recent phenomenon, around the circles supporting Prince Pahlavi, you have Iranians who are not royalists and who are not supportive of him who say, okay, if it's for the sake of unity, then we prefer him in a transition phase in Iran. To a degree that's also true for many of the other prominent figures in the Iranian diaspora. Like Masih Ali Nejad, an Iranian-American journalist and women's rights activist who has campaigned against compulsory hijab laws since she had to leave Iran in 2009. And Nazanin Bonyadi, an Iranian-born British actress and human rights advocate who has used her public profile to urge international support for protesters and women's rights in Iran. Then there's Hamid Ismail Youn, a Canada-based dentist who turned into an advocate for justice after his wife and daughter were among the many people killed in 2020 when Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight minutes after it took off from Tehran. Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning Iranian lawyer who has spent decades championing democracy and human rights from exile. And Abdullah Motadi, head of the left-wing Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan. He advocates a democratic transition and the inclusion of ethnic minority perspectives from exile in Iraq. In an attempt to unify the opposition in exile, they all joined a loose alliance with Pahlavi in 2022. One that quickly unravelled amid growing scepticism over his personal ambitions. And while those doubts persist, most have avoided open confrontation in the name of unity against a common adversary. In the past it was also a strategy of course of the regime and I think it is also happening now to divide the opposition by focusing on one of them, on one of the groups that would alienate the others. So there are many tactics and many strategies going on to divide the Iranian opposition abroad. And then there's the one group none of the others want to have any business with. The Mujahedin-e-Khalq, led by its Paris-based leader Mariam Rajavi. An Islamist-Marxist organization that presents itself as a democratic alternative to the Islamic Republic, yet remains deeply controversial among Iranians because of its armed past, its alliance with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and its cult-like leader-centric structure. Inside Iran, where no reliable polling exists, the true level of support for any opposition faction remains impossible to measure. Certainly Iranians in Iran are, I think, not just looking to the diaspora for their future. They're the ones that are suffering an inordinate amount of physical, emotional and economic pain. And there are plenty of activism and ideas and agency that exists inside the country. But many Iranian opposition figures and leaders are in Iran's jails. For now, the opposition both in and outside of Iran shares one common goal. The end of the Islamic Republic. Should that be achieved, they will have to figure out what or who should follow it.

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Breakdown