By John Irish
PARIS, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Huge protests in Iran have galvanized exiled enemies of the authorities, but despite their hatred of ruling clerics, a bitter schism that predates the 1979 Islamic Revolution still plagues opposition factions.
This division, between monarchists who support Reza Pahlavi, the son of the ousted shah, and a more organized leftist group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, has played out online and even in angry arguments in street protests in Europe and North America.
How far each faction has support in Iran or might be able to shape events there in the future is hard to gauge, although analysts and diplomats have for decades considered both to be far more popular among émigrés than inside the country.
Many other Iranians outside of Iran are also deeply skeptical of both the monarchists and the MEK, but lack an organized opposition network comparable to those factions.
The lack of an opposition movement or a universally accepted figurehead has complicated international approaches to the deadly unrest sweeping Iran, with US President Donald Trump questioning Pahlavi’s support even as he weighed airstrikes.
“What is problematic is that no inclusive organization has been built that can bring together Iranians from all walks of life: religious, ethnic, socioeconomic,” said Sanam Vakil, head of the Middle East at the Chatham House think tank in London.
SUPPORT HARD TO QUALIFY
In the past two weeks of violent unrest, videos from Iranian cities have shown some demonstrators chanting in support of the ousted monarchy and the late shah’s son, who fueled the protests.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who fled into exile in 1979 and died a year later, was a close Western ally who returned to his ancient Persian heritage to frame his rule as a national leader and modernizer. But he resisted democratic change as widening economic disparities destabilized the country.
His 65-year-old son, who is based in the US, says he wants democracy for Iran and has not specified any role he would seek if the current system collapses. His supporters run one of the main Persian-language satellite TV stations broadcasting in Iran.
Reza Pahlavi’s supporters in the West have pointed to videos of protesters in Iran chanting his name as proof of his growing popularity, saying he is the only figure capable of uniting the country if the Islamic Republic implodes.
Among foreign officials and diplomats who watch Iran, there are mixed views on whether the latest protests show Pahlavi’s role is growing.
A Western diplomat said Pahlavi’s name might have been used by street protesters because there were few other recognized opposition figures, but there was no sign he had the kind of domestic support that could make him a future leader.
A European official said a large increase in the number of protests after a call for street action by foreign opponents of the government, including Pahlavi, showed that its stature may be wider than previously understood.
However, any role it would play should be in the context of a broader democratic movement, said analyst and former Iranian diplomat Mehrdad Khonsari. “You need a coalition of people who believe in democratic values to lighten the load and give more confidence to the people,” he said.
REVOLUTIONARY FRAMEWORK
The idea that Pahlavi could be popular in Iran is not shared by the MEK, whose supporters see the pre-revolutionary monarchy as comparable to the current Shiite theocracy.
His supporters online often use the slogan “No monarchy, no supreme leader”.
The MEK is a left-wing, Islamist movement whose cadres carried out bombings inside Iran before and after the revolution, even as mass support grew for rival factions on the streets.
The ruling clerics ousted the MEK in 1981 and it established military bases in Iraq that it used to launch attacks on Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, which many Iranians recall with anger.
It was listed as a terrorist organization in the United States until 2012, but some Western politicians have expressed support for the group, including former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
However, the European official described the MEK as widely despised in Iran, partly because of its behavior during the Iran-Iraq war, and analysts say it has had little presence in the country for decades.
The group’s official leader, Massoud Rajavi, has not been seen since 2002 and is believed to be dead, although the MEK has not acknowledged this. His wife, Maryam Rajavi, heads the organization and its affiliate, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Officials with the group say their supporters are widespread in Iran and active, although there was no public sign of support for the MEK seen by Reuters during the protests.
Monarchists—along with many other Iranian dissidents and Iran’s current rulers—view the MEK with intense suspicion, pointing to its history of violence and enforcement of ideological purity within its ranks.
For many Iranians, the arguments between the Islamic Republic’s theocratic establishment, monarchists who express nostalgia for the 1970s, and a revolutionary group that lost in the early 1980s may seem outdated.
Even as monarchist supporters and the MEK remained prominent among the emigrants, and as the same faces swirled through the upper echelons of the Islamic Republic, Iran’s population doubled in size and became more urban and educated.
Most of the major political movements in Iran after 1979 sought to either strengthen or reform the Islamic Republic rather than sweep it away entirely, until successive waves of protests in recent years called for more comprehensive changes.
“Iranians in Iran believe that they are not only looking to the diaspora for their future,” Vakil said.
(Reporting by John Irish in Paris, additional reporting by Vitalii Yalahuzian; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)