What would you say about a person who keeps interviewing for a job opening that is never available? Over the decades, the Iranian version of a dauphin, Reza Pahlavi, has been doing just that. Offering his services to the regime change fanatics in the Washington Beltway (and Whitehall), he pops up whenever tensions escalate between Tehran and Washington.

That is the assessment of Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah and marionette for the US, of Anthony Anchetta in his informative article for Current Affairs magazine. He details the role of Washington’s willing puppets, usually migrants from countries targeted by the US and Britain for regime change.

I wrote about Venezuelan celebrity dissident Maria Corina Machado here, and her role as a puppet-in-waiting for the United States attack on her nation. Celebrity dissidents are a curious bunch; parroting the talking points of Washington and London, they place the interests of the Anglo-American financial oligarchy above those of their respective nations.

To be clear, the Pahlavis, the ex-Royal dynasty that ruled over Iran for decades, were placed in power through foreign interference. Indeed, Rena’s father and grandfather were selected as compliant agents by foreign powers. Britain in the case of granddaddy Reza Shah Pahlavi (who ruled from 1925 to 1941), the United States in the case of his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Shah (ruling from 1941 to 1979).

The father, his authority reinforced in 1953 after an American and British backed coup d’état, relied on a secret police service – Savak – which earned a reputation for brutality. Interrogations were carried out using torture, rape and electric shocks. The Iranian monarchy was a solid ally of the US and Israel during the Shah’s tenure, and Iranian oil flowed easily into the hands of Anglo-American oil companies.

The 1979 revolution toppled the pro-American Pahlavi dynasty, and since then Tehran has been politically disobedient towards Washington and London. Reza Pahlavi has made a career out of denouncing the Tehran mullahs, hiding his regime change agenda behind a mask of secularism.

The Iranian opposition in exile, such as it is, is a fractious, squabbling, bickering collection of political groups. Their only unifying feature is hostility to the government of Tehran. The main preoccupation of the diaspora Iranian opposition is threatening each other with violence should any group deviate ever so slightly from the MAGA regime change policy.

Pahlavi himself visited Israel in 2023, under the watchful guidance of the then Israel intelligence minister Gila Gamliel. Pahlavi is continuing in the pro-Israeli footsteps of his father. That is interesting, because in early 2024, when an Islamic State offshoot carried out coordinated attacks inside Iran, Pahlavi was on hand to basically rationalise those bombings.

Exculpating the responsibility of an ISIS-affiliated group is an eye-opening exercise, given Washington’s unceasing rhetoric regarding the threat of terrorism.

Numerous articles have been written regarding the defeat of Iranian influence in Syria, following the toppling of the former Ba’athist government in that nation. Others much more knowledgeable than me have tackled this difficult topic. I cannot claim to provide superior knowledge or intelligence on such matters.

I can state however, that the new authorities in Damascus, the militants of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), were deliberately cultivated and groomed for the task of regime change by London. Transforming the HTS organisation from terrorists to politicians is no mean feat, considering that HTS has its origins as an Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliate.

The HTS uprising against the former Syrian regime was successful; it is the modern-day Syrian equivalent of the Sudeten German uprising in the late 1930s in former Czechoslovakia. Both uprisings, organised and supported by a foreign power, relied on political forces that advocated a form of ideological extremism; takfiri jihadist fanaticism in Syria, fanatical pan-German racism in the Sudeten case.

Remember the evil dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, who has remained in power all these decades in the former Soviet republic of Belarus? He was on our television screens for quite some time in 2020, because he was going to be the next villainous ogre to be ousted in a Western backed regime change operation. Was there a Belarusian equivalent of Reza Pahlavi or Maria Corina Machado? A Belarusian politician singing the tune that Washington wants to hear?

You bet there was – entering the stage as the smiling face of the liberal opposition was Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, portrayed as a modern day Joan of Arc by the mouthpiece of American capitalism, the New York Times. Showered with money, political backing and fawning media coverage, she was the toast of London, Washington, Paris and other imperial capitals. She was going to overthrow the evil Lukashenko, removing a pro-Russian ally, and steer Belarus on a pro-Western course.

Unlike Hollywood movies, where every scene is scripted, choreographed and rehearsed, reality does not always go to plan. Her government in exile is collapsing, five years on from the heady days of 2020. Plagued by financial scandals, corruption, personality clashes, and even allegations of taking money from the Belarusian equivalent of the KGB, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s career as a regime change leader lies in tatters.

No longer the feted darling of the West, even former allies have abandoned her. Her United Transitional Cabinet could not even unite its constituent bickering factions, let alone masses of Belarusian voters. There is no schadenfreude at this lamentable, pathetic situation. We have to maintain a clear-eyed focus on the failings of yet another EU-US supported astroturf project.

Such a fiasco should compel us to re-examine our practice of using celebrity dissidents as proxies of Anglophone power. They do not have their countries’ best interests in mind, but rather view their lucrative careers as satraps within the Anglo-American fold as the ultimate priority.