Erbil, Iraq — Israel has been hammering Iran’s nuclear and military sites for a week. To reach their targets, Israeli warplanes must cover about 1,000 miles, traversing as many as three countries, including Iraq, which sits right on Iran’s western border. For decades, Iranian groups opposed to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic rulers have organized in exile across the border in Iraq, including ethnic Kurdish factions that have become well organized, and armed.

Kawsar Fattahi is a leader in one of the opposition parties that’s been outlawed in Iran and labelled a terrorist organization by the authorities in Tehran.

“The regime is weakening day by day,” she told CBS News. Fattahi believes the government led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could collapse under the pressure of the Israeli assault. If it does, she said it would be just deserts for the Islamic hardliners who have ruled the nation with an iron fist for almost half a century.

“Okay, the war is bad. People are dying. But it’s still not that much killing [as] the Iranian regime itself do,” she told CBS News, arguing that Iran’s leaders have killed more Iranians themselves over the decades than the Israelis have with a week of blistering warfare. Iranian officials have only acknowledged about 220 deaths from Israel’s strikes, but the Washington-based Human Rights Activists in Iran group, which relies on a network of sources in the country, says the death toll is really over 650, with more than 2,000 others wounded.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei makes the remarks in Tehran, Iran, on May 20, 2025. Iranian Leader Press Office/Handout/Anadolu via Getty

Ayatollah Khamanei, the 86-year-old who’s ruled the nation of 90 million people for nearly four decades, is only Iran’s second supreme leader since the 1979 revolution that brought the conservative, deeply anti-American Islamic Republic to power. The revolution toppled a pro-Western, but deeply corrupt and repressive royal family which had led Iran to a secular and relatively prosperous nation in the region.

Many older Iranians can still remember those pre-revolution days, and many younger Iranians, even with their censored view of the outside world, crave the freedoms that the regime has brutally stifled.

The regime is deeply unpopular with many Iranians, and that has manifested in mass protests on several occasions over the last decade, including those calling for an end to forced Islamic dress codes and other restrictions on women. The demonstrations have been met with deadly force.

Iranian opposition wants support, but not U.S. “boots on the ground”

Seeking to tap the vein of simmering discontent inside Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appealed to Iranians to rise up against their own government again — saying now is the time, with the regime at its weakest thanks to his country’s assault.

“Brave people of Iran, your light will defeat the darkness,” he urged last week after launching the attacks.

Due to the war, the “Iranian regime have lost their control to suppress people, because a lot the leadership of IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] have been killed,” she said. “Now the power of suppression are weakening inside Iran, so it can lead people to come street again.”

But Fattahi told CBS News that Iranians do not want Israel, or the U.S., to engineer regime change in Tehran. She said that while American airstrikes might help further weaken the government, Iranians want to topple their leaders — and decide who replaces them — on their own.

“We do not want their boots on the ground, obviously,” she said. “We don’t want [a] made-up state.”

Members of The Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, an exiled Iranian opposition group based in northern Iraq, are seen during daily military training at their camp in Zer Qwez Village, northern Iraq, in a Dec. 27, 2018 file photo. YOUNES MOHAMMAD/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty

What kind of support do Fattahi and her group want from the world’s biggest military, then?

“Don’t compromise with the regime, because they are killing people,” she said. “World would be a better place without the Iranian regime, for all of us.”

She said Iranians, with enough support from the international community, are ready and willing to build their own new government, and “we want a democratic Iran. We want a secular Iran.”

She said her party was already having discussions with U.S. officials.

“We are negotiating,” she said. Fattahi wouldn’t get into the response her party was getting from the White House at this stage.

Iran’s exiled crown prince says “discussions about a post-Islamic Republic Iran have begun”

Kurdish groups aren’t the only Iranian exiles eager to see the back of the clerical regime, however, nor the only ones likely to be talking with officials in Washington about what comes next.

Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last royal leader, the shah who was toppled in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has also lived for years in exile, and he has also been an outspoken critic of the ayatollah. Pahlavi, who lives in the Washington D.C. area, has indicated in interviews this week that he wants to lead a political transition, and that he’s been in discussions already about his country’s future.

“Informed sources inside the country who have been in contact with me say that the regime’s command and coordination structures are breaking down at a remarkable pace,” Pahlavi said in a message posted on social media Friday. “On the other hand, the international community is realizing that the Islamic Republic has no future and that our discussions about a post-Islamic Republic Iran have begun, which could accelerate and facilitate the regime’s fall.”

Iranian-American protesters gather in front of the White House during a rally on April 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Participants wave pre-1979 Iranian flags alongside American flags, calling for an end to the Islamic Republic, and one man holds a large poster of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. MATT KARGAR/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty

It remains unclear how much support the son of the ousted shah, whose family is seen as being close to the U.S. and Israel — or the exiled Kurdish groups — might actually garner among Iranians. It’s also unclear how many Iranians still in the country might feel confident enough to take to the streets again, or when that point could be reached, given how swiftly and violently previous popular uprisings have been put down.

Any U.S. military involvement in the offensive against the regime could bring that point closer, but Khamenei has warned that such a move would be met with “irreparable damage” for the U.S.

U.S. military bases across the Middle East are possible targets for Iranian retaliation, along with the roughly 40,00 American troops based at them.

In 2020, Iran attacked an American base here in Iraq with ballistic missiles. CBS News was there just days later to witness the extensive damage, though no U.S. service members were killed. Now, Israel has superiority in Iranian airspace, which it has used to take out missile sites and drones. Iran’s regional proxy groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, which have long posed a threat to U.S. bases in the region, have also been seriously depleted by months of Israeli strikes.

Still, it’s unclear just what Iran, even in its weakened state, could be capable of.

and contributed to this report.

Aftermath of an Israeli attack on the Shahran oil depot in Tehran June 15. Photo: Stringer/Getty Images

Editor’s Note: This story was published before the U.S. bombed Iran on Saturday evening.

As the U.S. finds itself on the precipice of a potential war with Iran, the same cast of characters who cheered on the Iraq War in 2003 are once again talking up “regime change” like it’s not a recipe for chaos, quagmire, and disaster. These include such foreign-policy luminaries as Bill Kristol and John Bolton, along with Republican lawmakers such as Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, the latter of whom doesn’t even know how many people live in Iran but is pretty sure it’s in our interest to collapse their state. While the “America First” faction of MAGA Republicans is furious at the idea, regime change in Iran still has many fans in the GOP, and Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser under former president Barack Obama, warned the New York Times that there are even some Democrats who are drawn to the notion.

It’s a stunning resurrection of an idea that has been thoroughly and repeatedly discredited over the past quarter-century. No matter how much Americans would like to be able to bend the world to our will, our track record in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria shows that U.S. attempts to topple and replace hostile foreign governments never result in the emergence of peaceful, stable democracies that are grateful to us for freeing them from their autocratic oppressors. How on earth can anyone imagine that regime change will succeed in Iran: a country with more than twice the population of Iraq or Afghanistan, a millennia-old history of unwelcome foreign interventions, and a deeply entrenched and complex political system?

From the beginning of his political career, President Donald Trump himself campaigned on ending “forever wars” and not getting the U.S. involved in any more intractable foreign conflicts. Now, Trump is more or less solely responsible for deciding whether to involve the U.S. in another war in the Middle East, which many Iran hawks hope will realize their longtime ambition of toppling the hated Iranian regime.

Trump, who says he will decide whether to bomb Iran within the next two weeks, appears rightly wary of blundering into an open-ended conflict with implications for the entire Middle East. Of course, it’s hard to be sure just what Trump intends when he blusters about “unconditional surrender,” muses about assassinating Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and apparently believes Iran’s regime is weeks away from having a nuclear weapon, which U.S. intelligence agencies continue to assess is not the case. But whether out of fear of upsetting his isolationist base or because he has genuinely absorbed the lessons of past misadventures, Trump is for now not rushing to war.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no such sense of caution. Netanyahu made it clear from the beginning that he hopes to weaken the Iranian regime to the point of collapse and has urged the Iranian people to rise up against it. He has taken his regime-change agenda on a publicity tour of U.S. media, bringing it up on Fox News (which he knows Trump watches) and telling ABC News that he’s not ruling out killing Khamenei. The Israeli PM wants us to believe not only that Israel’s bombing campaign can bring about the end of the Islamic Republic but also that this would be a good thing for the Iranian people and the world.

But Netanyahu doesn’t really have a strategy for regime change in Iran. He is only concerned with getting rid of the current regime, not so much what comes after it. If he can dismantle Iran’s nuclear program and topple the Islamic Republic, he will count that as a win. Michael Makovsky, president and chief executive of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (which supports war with Iran), called this strategy “regime collapse” rather than “regime change,” which he acknowledged is still a toxic term in Washington. The regime-collapse strategy does not seek to establish a new government in Tehran but merely “to pressure the regime every way possible so that the Iranian people bring it down.”

This is an insanely reckless strategy. It rests entirely on the premise that Iranians will rise up and successfully overthrow their government while investing nothing in that success. It simply assumes that if the regime is weakened enough, it will collapse and something better will magically grow in its place.

Some Iranian opposition voices agree with the assessment that the regime is the weakest it has been in decades. In a recent essay at RealClear Defense, Iranian democracy-movement scholar Fariba Parsa argues that the Islamic Republic is facing a collapse of legitimacy, with widespread popular opposition and discontent over economic stagnation, the cost of living, and state corruption. Its network of regional proxies has been decimated, its military capabilities are inadequate, and its nuclear program has become a liability, as literally no other country is in favor of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

In this context, some Iranian activists welcome anything that helps bring the government down, even Israeli or American bombs. But others deeply mistrust these countries’ intentions; it is doubtful that many Iranians buy Netanyahu’s claims of having their best interests at heart. The more destruction and the more civilian deaths Israel causes in Iran (already in the hundreds and sure to grow), the more hatred and resentment Iranians will feel toward Israel and the harder it will become to leverage the Israeli campaign into a popular uprising, even if elements of the opposition tried to do so.

Pro-democracy activists in and outside Iran have said the Israeli war does not help them, and many Iranians are leery of any radical change. Furthermore, they do not share the perception of outsiders that the regime is weak enough to overthrow right now. And Israel’s actions hurt the opposition rather than help: As one Iranian journalist told CNN, “Now the regime has free rein to label anyone it wants as an Israeli spy.”

And even if the regime does fall, what then? There is no guarantee that what comes next will be better for Iranians, friendlier to the U.S. or Israel, or less determined to pursue a nuclear deterrent. As political scientist Brian Klaas pointed out to NBC News, the Iranian opposition has many factions, including some that are hostile to the West and some that believe the regime is not hard-line enough. If the regime collapses, these forces will fight for control of the country, perhaps violently.

The most likely force to fill that power vacuum is Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the locus of the regime’s hard power and a key political and economic player. The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported that if “Khamenei were toppled or killed, the Revolutionary Guard would most likely step in and dictate a new ruler — and in doing so, assume unprecedented power.” Israel’s offensive has targeted IRGC leaders and assets extensively, but the IRGC remains the most influential force on the ground in Iran.

An IRGC regime would be as bad as or worse than the current Iranian government, either operating as a typical military dictatorship or simply restoring the current theocratic regime. It would certainly rush to rebuild its nuclear program. U.S. intelligence officials believe Iran will likely try to build a nuclear weapon if Khamenei is killed or if the U.S. bombs the underground uranium-enrichment site at Fordow (Israel lacks the necessary weaponry to destroy this site, hence Netanyahu’s eagerness for the U.S. to join the war).

To ensure that a collapse of the Islamic regime is not replaced by anarchy or a military dictatorship, the U.S. and/or Israel would need to prop up liberal, secular factions in the ensuing power struggle; to stand a chance against the IRGC, this would require a long and expensive commitment of funds, arms, and perhaps even boots on the ground. Neither Israel nor the U.S. has any plans or appetite for this. A strategy of regime change or regime collapse puts the burden of rebuilding the country entirely on the Iranian people, who would still face tremendous odds in trying to create a democracy.

To be clear, none of this is to say that Iran’s regime deserves to continue. It is a repressive, corrupt, authoritarian theocracy that exports antisemitism, terrorism, and chaos throughout the Middle East. The Iranian people, like all people, deserve freedom and prosperity rather than misery and oppression. But neither Israel nor America can deliver those benefits, no matter how well intentioned the bombs may be. Toppling the Iranian regime, destabilizing the country, and leaving Iranians to pick up the pieces isn’t liberation; it’s heedless demolition.

Asked whether he wanted to lead a future transition or be a new shah, Mr Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of a toppled shah, said he was not seeking political power. PHOTO: REUTERS

‘Regime change is ultimate solution’ in Iran, says exiled son of toppled shah

PARIS – The last heir to the Iranian monarchy urged Western states on June 23 to accept that the collapse of the current Iranian authorities is necessary to deliver lasting peace and regional stability.

The United States, which bombed Iranian nuclear sites on June 21, has said it wants to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons, not to open a wider war.

Officials in Washington said the goal of the US bombing was not “regime change” but, in a social media post on June 22, US President Donald Trump raised the possibility of Iran’s hardline clerical rulers being toppled.

“Now is the moment to stand with the Iranian people. Do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Do not throw this regime a lifeline. The destruction of the regime’s nuclear facilities alone will not deliver peace,” Mr Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the toppled shah, told a press conference in Paris.

“You are right to be concerned about stopping nuclear weapons and securing regional stability, but only a democratic transition in Iran can ensure these goals are achieved and are lasting.”

The Iranian authorities did not immediately comment on Mr Pahlavi’s remarks.

Mr Pahlavi has lived in exile for nearly four decades, since his father, the US-backed shah, was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

It is unclear how much support Mr Pahlavi has in Iran.

Many Iranians remember the shah’s repressive secret police, Savak, and there have been pro- and anti-monarchy slogans during mass demonstrations in Iran in the past.

Without providing evidence, Mr Pahlavi, who is based in Washington, said the ruling system in Iran was collapsing, and that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his family and other senior officials were making preparations to flee the country.

“This is our Berlin Wall moment. But like all moments of great change, it comes fraught with danger,” he said, referring to the collapse of the wall that divided East and West Berlin in 1989 as the Soviet-led Communist bloc crumbled.

Fragmented opposition

Iran and Israel have been waging an air war since Israel launched air strikes on June 13, saying it wanted to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.

Asked whether he wanted to lead a future transition or be a new shah, Mr Pahlavi said he was not seeking political power.

He said he saw the cornerstone of a transition based on Iran’s territorial integrity, individual freedoms and equality of all citizens, as well as separation of religion and state.

Opposition to Iran’s clerical government is fragmented, with no clear recognised leader and a multitude of ethnic groups.

Mr Pahlavi said his teams were working on a future economic plan and that he wanted to convene a national unity gathering that would include activists, dissidents and groups from across the ideological spectrum to agree on the transition principles.

It would also bring together business leaders, professionals and experts, he said, without giving a time frame.

He said he had also created a platform for Iranian security, police and military officials to join him if they wanted to abandon the government.

Asked about hesitations among some Western leaders over the potential consequences of the authorities collapsing, he said: “It’s not that they need to advocate for regime change. It is that they simply have to recognise that regime change is the only ultimate solution.” REUTERS

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A lot has changed in the past 48 hours of this war.

Before American B-2 bombers struck Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz, the message from the White House was that regime change was off the table. Indeed, the chatter out of Washington and Jerusalem was that the White House was spooked by some of Israel’s messaging.

Defense minister Israel Katz instructed the military to destabilize Iran’s regime and threatened that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “can no longer be permitted to exist” after an Iranian missile hit the Soroka Medical Center in the southern part of the country. Indeed, the operation’s name, “Rising Lion,” is a not-so-subtle nod to the Iranian flag under the Peacock dynasty, which ruled Iran until the Shah was ousted in the Islamic revolution in 1979. The son of the late Shah, Reza Pahlavi, is now calling for a national rebellion. “The Islamic Republic has come to its end and is collapsing. What has begun is irreversible,” he said in a video message from the United States, where he has lived since 1979.

Now, 10 days into the war Israel began against Iran’s nuclear program—the prospect of a regime collapse is very real. President Donald Trump on Sunday evening floated the idea in a post on Truth Social: “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”

This kind of talk has gone out of favor in Washington in recent years. The fall of dictatorships in Libya and Iraq led to confessional sectarian war. The fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt led briefly to a Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo before a military coup. But in Iran, a country that has experienced democratic uprisings five times since 2017, it now seems like a real possibility.

Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah of Iran , declared in a Paris press conference on Monday that the Ayatollah regime is on the verge of collapse and must be overthrown. Pahlavi, who envisions himself leading a democratic Iran after the current theocratic rule, urged Iranian security forces to defect , promising them a place in the new government. He also implored the international community to seize this critical moment and avoid any concessions that might prolong the Ayatollahs’ rule.

3 View gallery Reza Pahlavi ( Photo: Abdul Saboor/Reuters )

“This is a historic moment for our nation,” Pahlavi asserted, emphasizing that Iran has been drawn into a devastating conflict orchestrated by Ali Khamenei and his corrupt government. He accused the current regime of pushing the economy to the brink of ruin, destroying infrastructure, and squandering national wealth on nuclear weapons development. “The base of this dictatorship is shaking,” Pahlavi stated, comparing the current situation to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Pahlavi detailed recent conversations with a wide range of Iranians—from army officers to factory workers—who, he claims, are united in their fight for freedom. He alleged that Khamenei’s family and other high-ranking officials are already preparing to flee Iran, indicating the regime’s final days.

Despite Pahlavi’s strong assertions, there is currently no independent evidence to suggest that the Ayatollah regime is losing control or that its end is imminent.

Pahlavi warned that the world faces a dangerous crossroads. “As long as the regime exists, no country will be safe,” he said. He outlined two potential paths: one leading to chaos and bloodshed, and the other to a non-violent transfer of power. The outcome, he argued, hinges on whether the international community provides any support to the current regime, which he believes would only lead to more violence. He stressed that a secular Iran is the only path to lasting peace.

3 View gallery Ayatollah Khamenei ( Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA/Handout, Reuters )

Offering himself as a leader during this critical transition, Pahlavi clarified: “I am not seeking political power, but to help our great nation navigate this critical hour towards stability, freedom and justice.” He expressed solidarity with the suffering Iranian people, acknowledging their pain and fears. Pahlavi directly blamed Ali Khamenei for the current “war” and the suffering it has caused, accusing him of operating from a bunker and using the Iranian people as human shields.

Pahlavi sent a direct message to Khamenei, promising him a fair trial if he steps down—a level of justice, he noted, “more than anything you have given to any Iranian.” He also extended an offer to other officials: those with blood on their hands will face justice, but those loyal to the Iranian nation rather than the Islamic Republic have a future in a democratic Iran if they join the movement now. To facilitate this, Pahlavi announced the creation of a secure channel for police and government officials to contact him and his team directly, urging them to join the movement.

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Addressing the international community, Pahlavi urged them “not to repeat the mistakes of the past” by offering a lifeline to the current regime. While commending efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program, he argued that only a democratic transition can ensure long-term peace. He warned that simply destroying nuclear facilities would not prevent the regime from acquiring weapons from other states like North Korea, reiterating, “Now is not the time for hesitation”.

While the current Iranian regime is a religious dictatorship, the Shah’s Iran was hardly a benevolent democracy. Although Mohammad Reza Pahlavi admired Western culture and championed secularism for modernization, he was also responsible for imprisoning thousands of political opponents, using a secret police force against dissidents, and indulging in lavish spending while many of his people lived in poverty. This led to widespread hatred against him among the Iranian populace.

3 View gallery Pahlavi during his press conference ( Photo: JOEL SAGET / AFP )

The Shah fled Iran on January 16, 1979, amid bloody protests against his oppressive and corrupt rule. After months of conflict and with the Shah ailing and the military weakening, he fled to Egypt, paving the way for the Ayatollahs, led by Ruhollah Khomeini, to seize power. Reza Pahlavi, who was studying in the US at the time, remained there and, after his father’s death in 1980, assumed the role of head of the royal house. Since then, he has been actively working against the religious regime from abroad.