When the Iran Freedom Congress (IFC), a bold new diaspora opposition venture, convened in late March for its two-day inaugural event in London, expectations and spirits were high. One by one, a remarkably diverse array of Iranian émigrés—from leftists to constitutional monarchists to feminist activists—took the stage to lay out their vision for a future Iran. The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran had brought renewed urgency to forming a viable, organized opposition, and there was a sense among those gathered that they could surmount their long, bitter differences.
As the conference’s programming wrapped up on the second day and former political rivals were exchanging mobile numbers in hopes of solidifying their newfound connections, an urgent announcement cut through the hopeful atmosphere. An angry mob of monarchists, backers of former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, had surrounded the building, screaming at and even assaulting those attempting to exit. Attendees were trapped inside the historic Church House Westminster building for an hour, waiting for the Metropolitan Police to ensure security and escort them out through the back door.
“It was surreal that while meeting in the middle of London, just by the palace, you have to escape from some lunatics,” said Majid Zamani, executive manager of the fledgling venture. “That’s somehow the story of Iranian politics, basically.”
Protesters wave the Lion and Sun flag during a rally in support of exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi in London on March 29. Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The melee outside was a stark reminder of the long road ahead for the IFC in its bid to represent the diverse, fractious opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. U.S. and Israeli leaders have both declared regime change as the endgame of their war, a prospect that now looks unlikely but that nevertheless thrusts the diaspora opposition into the limelight: as policy whisperers to Western governments, as the voice of repressed Iranians inside the country, and at times as representatives of Iran on the world stage.
The monarchist faction has battled rivals in the diaspora for years, targeting moderate anti-war activists, policy analysts, and journalists it accuses of collusion with the regime. It has waged that campaign through social media harassment and pro-Pahlavi news outlets such as the London-based television network Iran International.
But since Iran’s early January uprising and the subsequent war, the Pahlavists have become more confrontational and thuggish. The same month that monarchists crashed the IFC, the anti-Islamic Republic activist Masood Masjoody was murdered in Canada by two followers of Pahlavi, apparently for his outspoken criticism of the son of Iran’s last shah. Monarchist demonstrations in European and U.S. cities have become increasingly militaristic, with Pahlavists dressing in fatigues and brandishing the flags of SAVAK, the shah’s notorious secret police, in Germany’s Regensburg earlier in May.
A demonstrator in army fatigues attends a protest in support of Pahlavi in London on May 3. Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Whether the war flares up again or not, it has become clear to many in the diaspora that Iran needs a kinder, gentler, and more palatable opposition. This is the gap the IFC is aiming to fill.
Zamani, a wealthy businessman who left Iran in 2022 and the IFC’s main funder, was moved to start the initiative when he heard that U.S. President Donald Trump had decided to wage war on Iran without consulting any serious diaspora experts, he said. Zamani saw that a major segment of the diaspora, critical of the regime but neither monarchist nor pro-war, had no platform or voice. Strident, well-organized monarchist communities in the West were successfully petitioning governments to harden their policies on the Islamic Republic, but a silent majority had no vehicle to express its views.
“When Trump said, ‘Help is on the way,’ I thought to myself that Iranian people have no say in all this; that history is in the making for Iran and we as Iranians are nobody in this,” Zamani said. “And it really hurt.”
Pahlavi flashes the victory sign as he stands on stage next to his wife Yasmine Pahlavi during a demonstration of the Iranian opposition in Munich on Feb 14.Michaela Stache/AFP via Getty Images
The IFC, which started up in January driven by a commitment to pluralism, is still figuring itself out. The nascent group officially presents itself as a purely civic organization seeking to promote mutual understanding and coordination among disparate Iranian opposition factions. It is spearheaded by senior figures formerly close to Pahlavi, who have spent years dealing with Western officials, remain in touch with elites inside Iran, and view the present monarchist strategy as dangerously counterproductive and more likely to cause ambivalent regime insiders to retrench.
One leading figure, Shahriar Ahy, is a shrewd political strategist who mentored Pahlavi for decades. He warned in a widely discussed January interview with BBC Persian that the opposition needed to change course. The Pahlavi camp’s loudest voices threaten retribution to and prosecution of regime collaborators and trumpet a government-in-exile ready to displace the Islamic Republic upon its fragmentation or collapse. “The correct strategy in such conditions is to divide the enemy, not to show a face that makes the enemy think the gallows await all of them,” Ahy said.
Ahy cautioned against pursuing a parliament-in-exile or opposition structure that would fall apart trying to agree over a future cabinet, a goal that is at present fantastical and has failed repeatedly in the past. He saw a vision like what the IFC is pursuing, a coalition of broad forces that seeks to create rifts within the regime elite and incentives to break away, as the more productive strategy. “It is enough for them to sit together and say, ‘You are doing this; I am doing that. How can we make these actions more synergistic?’ without a single executive apparatus,” Ahy said.
But some members of the IFC—such as Kambiz Ghafouri, a journalist based in Finland who earlier this month was elected to be a board member on the IFC’s five-person presidium—hope to shape the coalition into a sort of government-in-exile, ready to rule Iran should the time come for a political transition. “Otherwise, there would be no reason to form such a congress,” Ghafouri said. Meanwhile, he believes, the international community should recognize and enter dialogue with the opposition, while isolating the Islamic Republic by expelling its ambassadors and diplomats.
The presidium members were elected by the organization’s assembly, made up of about 100 people. Elections for a 13-person “central council” took place earlier this month. The two bodies are akin, some members said, to a legislative and executive branch, respectively. The IFC is certainly structuring itself like a political organization with governing ambitions.
One key way the IFC seeks to distinguish itself is through more progressive, inclusive membership. Naeimeh Doustdar, a journalist based in Sweden who sits on the IFC’s presidium, joined the movement because the monarchist opposition was sidelining feminist voices, she said. Doustdar said she had long been harassed by supporters of Pahlavi, who are notorious for misogynistic attacks on Iranian women journalists and activists. “Women who express disagreement, they are targeted more harshly than men,” Doustdar said. The Pahlavists “don’t believe in pluralism, and they don’t believe in giving women a role in politics,” she said.
Doustdar pointed out that Pahlavi has removed the “Women, Life, Freedom” slogan from his bio on the social platform X, and that his organization and supporters have effectively abandoned the ethos of the 2022 Iranian women’s rights movement that mobilized the diaspora opposition globally. Pahlavi increasingly surrounds himself with a clique of aggressive male advisors who, she said, mimic the hypermasculinity of far-right populists.
The former crown prince has hitched his political future to these authoritarian forces, but the tactics are driving moderates and feminists to find an alternative opposition umbrella. “Before the Women, Life, Freedom movement, I got more attacks from hardliners inside Iran, the ideological supporters of the regime,” Doustdar said. “But now, there are no hardliners, only Pahlavi supporters. It’s a real change.”
A female Kurdish fighter walks in front of a Kurdish flag, following an Iranian drone attack near Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, on March 14. Ismael Adnan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The graybeards in the IFC, long-time opposition figures in the diaspora, also noted in the early days of the war that the Trump team saw Pahlavi as lacking credibility or sufficient links to the opposition inside. They saw potential for a new opposition coalition that was willing to work with leading dissidents and players inside the country.
The IFC has successfully courted Kurdish nationalists with ties to militant groups in Iran and neighboring Iraq. Zamani, who transferred his businesses to partners when he left Iran, also aims to leverage his connections to Iranian elites close to the system, persuaded that the IFC needs to have entry points and ties with decision-makers inside.
In January, Pahlavi’s team came under fire for putting out unsecure QR codes and Google Forms to log defecting members of Iran’s security forces and government, of which he claimed there were more than 50,000 (and later more than 100,000). Zamani sees the better approach as coaching business elites on how to oppose the regime through civil disobedience while maintaining their business interests. “If we have stronger support from inside, we will be taken more seriously from the international community,” Zamani said. “And if we have enough connections with the international community, of course, the elites will see us as more effective. It’s a two-way system.”
While getting Western governments fully on board with his program proved difficult for Pahlavi, the IFC may have an advantage. The group is still working on its official international strategy and has not yet formally engaged any governments. But many of the IFC’s members come with informal links to major global powers that give it a built-in edge, said Mehrdad Marty Youssefiani, a founding member of the group and Pahlavi’s former chief of staff. Youssefiani, like Ahy, has cultivated relationships with influential politicians, diplomats, and activists across the West and the Middle East for more than two decades. This makes it easy to get decision-makers on the phone—and potentially influence their policies. “Those with various proximities are able to capitalize on those relationships,” said Youssefiani, who also works for the pro-Israel think tank Middle East Forum in Washington. “When the time comes, those relations are part of the assets of the IFC.”
The Iranian diaspora in the West has indeed achieved notably high status, with many earning great wealth and prominent positions in business and government. But that affluence has historically not translated into significant influence on Iran policy, said Dina Esfandiary, lead Middle East analyst for Bloomberg Economics. When it comes to the major issues vis-à-vis Iran that Washington has considered over the years—such as whether to tighten the sanctions regime or offer relief, back nuclear negotiations, and pursue military options—U.S. policy has long been shaped by Israeli interests, she said, rather than the counsel of Iranian exiles. “The Iranian opposition was just useful insofar as what they asked for fit in with what the United States was going to do to begin with,” Esfandiary said.
With the war at a stalemate and the Islamic Republic resiliently in place, though, there is growing demand for fresh policy views more connected to realities on the ground in Iran, said Alireza Nader, a Washington-based policy analyst who used to be close with Pahlavi. Movements and organizations such as the Pahlavists, the pro-engagement National Iranian American Council, or the cultlike People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran each represent very narrow segments of the Iranian diaspora, he explained, but a group like the IFC could pique more interest in Washington.
“For any American decision maker, they would want to meet with a group that has some legitimacy,” Nader said. “And I think if there’s a broad coalition of democratic groups and forces, there’d be a very big appetite for it.”
Pahlavi, alongside Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel (R) and Prince Reza, attends a ceremony marking Yom HaShoah at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem on April 17, 2023. Menahem Kahana/ AFP via Getty Images
To avoid repeating Pahlavi’s failure in leading the Iranian opposition, the IFC must tread especially carefully on its ties with Israel. Pahlavi’s alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and especially his controversial visit to the Jewish state in April 2023, alienated many in the Iranian opposition who are concerned that aligning too closely with Israel’s security interests both hobbles the former crown prince as a nationalist broker and pushes him toward positions that fail to serve Iran.
In late March, Middle East Eye reported that a pro-Israel public relations firm headquartered in Florida was working to promote the IFC. Zamani said that the story was damaging for the IFC’s reputation, and he acknowledged that getting too close to Israel would threaten the congress’s legitimacy as an independent movement. “It’s not only Israel; any government who tries to be somehow influential in our internal dynamics of the IFC, we will absolutely reject and resist,” Zamani said.
But those internal dynamics, too, may pose a problem going forward. In a statement posted on Facebook, Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan official Asso Hassan Zadeh said he had withdrawn his candidacy from an IFC election earlier this month in protest of what he characterized as the organization’s sidelining of minority political parties in favor of creating a “centralized and assimilatory” state parliament, which could lead the Iranian opposition to “reproduce the very same approaches that have condemned Iran to tyranny for a hundred years.”
The Kurdish party remains in the IFC for now, but it is waiting to see how the congress’s positions shape up before participating at a leadership level. Disagreements over tactical issues have slowed the group’s decision-making, said Arash Azizi, an Iranian academic based in New York who attended the IFC’s London event. For example, he said, the group failed to pass a resolution condemning the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran due to resistance from hardline, pro-intervention ethnic parties including that of Hassan Zadeh, even though most within the IFC oppose the war. “We can benefit from them, and they can be an important part of any coalition, but so long as we have points of agreement,” Azizi said.
Zamani, though, remains optimistic about the IFC’s ability to hold its diverse coalition together. “You have great legitimacy because a lot of people are at a table, but it would be difficult to have efficiency because there are very limited issues that you could get a decision on,” Zamani said. “But I think this is a problem with any congress or any political system that is created.”
Ultimately, navigating internal friction and courting global powers may not prove to be the IFC’s steepest hurdles. The real test for this movement will be whether it can win over the trust and backing of the Iranian people themselves. “The path to a free and democratic Iran actually runs through Tehran, not Washington or Jerusalem,” Bloomberg Economics analyst Esfandiary said. “So what matters is to build a plan to galvanize Iranians inside and outside the country, to demonstrate that you have an alternative that’s viable and that Iranians are going to want to support.”
