Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., told Newsmax on Friday that the Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, assured him that the Iranian people want the U.S. "to enable Israel" to help overthrow the current regime but won't support "American boots on the ground."
Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, left Iran in 1978 to study in the United States but has more recently begun presenting himself as a possible alternative to Iran's current leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Van Orden told "National Report" that he spoke with Pahlavi "for over an hour" earlier this week. According to Van Orden, Pahlavi told him the Iranian people "don't want …American boots on the ground" or "regime change and nation-building driven by the United States of America."
Van Orden said, "What they want from us is very simple: They want us to continue to enable Israel [and] other countries to help set the conditions for the Iranian people to rise up and get rid of this terrorist regime. That's what they want."
Van Orden said Iranians "also want a secular government in Iran. They want the United States and the world to open up the gates of trade with Iran so that they can become a nation that is at peace with their neighbors. That's what they're looking for. And I think that those are all good things."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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