Analysts say supporters of Reza Pahlavi, the Virginia-based son
of the last Shah of Iran, see a role model in Ahmad Chalabi, head of
the Iraqi National Congress who is backed by powerful figures in the
Pentagon as a future leader in Baghdad committed to a secular,
pro-western democracy.
Mr Pahlavi and Mr Chalabi share similar backers in Washington,
but the exiled heir to the Peacock Throne is at a far earlier stage
in terms of winning funding from the Bush administration and
influencing policy towards Iran, one of several areas where the
Pentagon and State Department are fiercely divided.
The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank that
hosted an Iran conference this week, is home to several analysts
pushing both the Pahlavi cause and Mr Chalabi.
Michael Ledeen of AEI wrote recently that Mr Pahlavi was the
suitable leader for the peaceful transition from dictatorship to
democracy, describing him as "widely admired inside Iran, despite
his refreshing lack of avidity for power or wealth".
Reuel Marc Gerecht, who advocates threatening the clerics in
Tehran by military means, says nostalgia for the Shah's son has
grown inside Iran.
"The neo-cons are working very hard to get an Iranian group to
front what they are doing in Iran," said one politician who asked
not to be named.
"They are working hard to put Iran on the Bush agenda before he
focuses completely on the economy ahead of the [2004] presidential
election."
Like Mr Chalabi, the exiled prince has courted support from
Israeli lobby groups in Washington, such as the rightwing Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs whose board he has
addressed.
In some ruling circles in Israel there is a strong sense of
nostalgia for the days before the 1979 Islamic revolution when
Israel and the Shah of Iran enjoyed a close alliance.
In Congress, the monarchists have also found an audience. Draft
legislation sponsored by Sam Brownback, Republican senator for
Kansas, would channel tens of millions of dollars to royalist
television and radio stations that beam calls for insurrection from
Los Angeles to audiences in Iran.
Mr Pahlavi, who has advocated a referendum in Iran on the return
of the monarchy and says he is committed to democracy, arouses mixed
passions in his homeland as well as among the exiled community
concentrated in California.
More important for the moment is the support he enjoys inside the
office of Douglas Feith, under- secretary of defence for policy,
according to administration insiders.
Nonetheless, Mr Feith recently blocked a proposal from within his
office to draw up a blacklist of non-US companies doing business
with Iran, with the intention of barring them from US government
contracts in Iraq.
However, reports that Pentagon officials were compiling a
blacklist sent a shudder through big European and Asian companies.
Executives said some were now reconsidering investment plans in Iran
in the light of new opportunities presented by Iraq and the
heightened risk of doing business with Tehran, a member of President
George W. Bush's "axis of evil".
The perception among "hawks" within the US administration of
Iran's moderate president, Mohammad Khatami, as a bogus and failed
reformist was reinforced on Thursday by reports that
hardline clerics had blocked his parliamentary legislation intended
to stop the judiciary from staging political trials.
The veto by the Guardian Council followed the rejection of a bill
to stop stringent vetting of candidates in parliamentary
elections.
