DISINFO: The West is trying to carry out a colour revolution in Iran
SUMMARY
The West is nurturing the fifth column in Iran and trying to inspire it with the name of the son of the Shah who was overthrown in 1979. Here he is, Reza Pahlavi. Here he is, even with a video message. "Compatriots! The Islamic Republic has come to an end. The repressive regime is falling apart and only an uprising of the people is needed to finally put an end to this nightmare. The time has come to rise up and take back Iran. I will be with you soon."
The style of colour revolutions is clearly visible here. It is like the pseudo-president Guaido in Venezuela, how housewife Tikhanovskaya was tipped to become the leader of Belarus, French citizen Zurabishvili in the presidential chair of Georgia, or some ex-oligarch Khodorkovsky - the ruler of Russia. In any case, the West is betting on the dismemberment of Iran and chaos in the country. This is their favorite.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative framing any popular protests, real or hypothetic, as Western-backed ‘colour revolutions’. Conspiracy narrative relies on the absence of any reasons for such protests.
This is an exploitation of the context around the missile strikes carried out by the US on Iranian nuclear installations on 22 June 2025. The US Secretary of Defence stated that regime change in Iran was not an aim of the operation.
Reza Pahlavi indeed speaks out in favour of a constituent assembly in Iran that would transform the "theocratic monarchy" into a "secular democracy". He lives in exile because the Iranian regime repress any political dissent. Despite this, youth protests in Iran occur regularly - against election fraud and women wearing hijabs. Notorious were also women's protests against the Islamic Republic's ban to attend football matches.
As for other political leaders, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is one of the opposition leaders of Belarus. Contrary to the claim about colour revolutions, protests in Belarus erupted to contest the results of the presidential election in Belarus in 2020, which were not monitored by independent experts, and are largely considered fraudulent by both international observers and a large part of the Belarusian society. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili is a Georgian who grew up in the Georgian diaspora in France, which emerged from political refugees after the Red Army's invasion and the Sovietization of Georgia in 1921.