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In an interview with "Maybrit Illner", Reza Pahlavi criticized the attitude of Europeans towards the Mullah regime in Iran.
ZDF
In an interview with Maybrit Illner, the Shah's son Reza Pahlavi expressed his determination to fight against the Iranian mullah regime. In the subsequent ZDF talk show on the "oil shock", an economist made it clear that a crisis of unimaginable dimensions is heading our way.
"There is no way back!", the Iranian opposition politician in exile Reza Pahlavi is certain. The people of Iran are "more determined than ever to continue fighting this regime", emphasized the Shah's son in an interview with Maybrit Illner, which was broadcast in advance on ZDF-Talk on Thursday evening. "The fight will continue, whether the world helps us or not," he said, because: "We are not paying the price for freedom so that the world says: 'Forget it' and we try to make a deal with the current regime. That cannot be the answer - nor should it be."
Pahlavi made no secret of his disappointment with the "Western world and above all Europe": "The free world has retreated from this regime and not the other way around - this must be reversed". Illner's interview guest criticized the fact that there was too little pressure on the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards. He dismissed the fact that he was also controversial because his father had taken brutal action against Kurds and left-wing progressives: "There was no situation like this before, that is a false narrative," he told Illner, adding: "Every single citizen must be supported equally - that is the future we are hoping for and working for."
This is precisely what he would have liked to have discussed with members of the federal government during his visit to Berlin. However, the latter had made itself "vulnerable to blackmail" due to the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and was being "held hostage by Iran". Instead of receiving Pahlavi, the black-red coalition had reopened diplomatic talks with Tehran.
The presenter took this criticism to the talk show panel, which discussed the question "World in oil shock - is the government underestimating the crisis?" in the evening. "An opposition politician is not our first port of call," countered the head of the Federal Chancellery, Thorsten Frei (CDU), but rejected the accusation that he was open to blackmail - even if the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz posed a challenge for Germany's struggling economy.
That was putting it mildly. "It's a crisis with dimensions that we can't even imagine yet," said economist Isabella M. Weber, comparing it to a tsunami, the damage of which cannot be estimated. "It's not just an energy crisis, it's a food crisis, a fertilizer crisis," she said. Critical raw materials and semiconductor production are also affected.
The fact that the German government is doing "business as usual" in the face of this dimension is incomprehensible to Green Party Chairman Felix Banaszak: "Where is the Chancellor's speech, Saturday evening at 8.15 pm on ARD and ZDF, in parallel?" He missed a classification of world events, as Angela Merkel would have done after the start of the COVID pandemic. Robert Habeck would also have addressed the population on a weekly basis after the Ukraine attack.
According to Banaszak, the fact that Friedrich Merz is not addressing the people is because he is "afraid of them", the Chancellor is afraid of "confronting this difficult reality and impositions", the Green co-leader insinuated. People are very willing to adapt their behavior, "but they expect a federal government that will do its job." What is needed now is orientation and clarity, "and Friedrich Merz is not providing this clarity with regard to the international situation".
"He's doing it all the time," Frei contradicted - much to the astonishment of Illner, who made people sit up and take notice with a "Really?". Frei was convinced that people were looking for and finding ways to save money on their own. One should not react to all challenges with public money, but must adapt the structures. This is why anti-trust measures have been initiated. He described the controversial fuel discount and the equally controversial 1,000 euro premium as financially viable, unbureaucratic instruments.
"If I set a price for petrol, I'm taking action against these incentives," said economics professor Moritz Schularick, explaining a contradiction to the savings claim. Instead of making petrol cheaper, the electricity tax should have been reduced or abolished. This would have allowed the crisis to be used to promote renewable energies.
"The fundamental issue is the real shortage," said economist Weber, who also saw little merit in the measures. 20 percent of globally traded oil would be missing, and in this situation price could be a mechanism to deal with the shortage. She called for Europe-wide coordination, a kind of "purchasing club", "to defend the price and provide a fair distribution mechanism".
At the same time, alternatives such as public transport should be offered very cheaply or free of charge to make them more attractive. Otherwise, she warned, there would soon be a crisis of inequality that would "divide and directly undermine our society at a time when democrats need to stick together".
In such an existentially threatening situation, "everything must be mobilized to deal with it and to transition the energy system from fossil dependency to renewables." If these resources are not mobilized, "then we are gambling away our future", she warned the German government.
Journalist Helene Bubrowski added that the answer could under no circumstances be to incur more debt. In addition to structural and targeted cushioning measures, people must therefore be prepared for the fact that things cannot go on as before. The journalist's appeal: "Let's face reality - with all seriousness and impositions that cannot be cushioned."
