Explanation: The Crown Prince has been announcing his readiness to return to Iran as soon as the Islamic Republic falls for several decades now - and it's not much more likely that the Islamic Republic falls now that the last seven times (miracles do happen sometimes; one hopes after Trump et co lose interest, though). While the Crown Prince talks a good democratic game, I'm wary of any monarchists. The popularity of the monarchy and the crown prince is uncertain - he certainly has legitimate support in the diaspora, but is far from the consensus position his supporters sometimes claim. Figuring out support for the monarchy under the tightly-controlled totalitarian regime of the Islamic Republic is an exercise in futility, but also unlikely to be overwhelming.

But we do a little memeing here - in the constant struggles between the Roman and Persian Empires, a common tactic of the Romans was to obtain a claimant to the Persian throne and release him with the appropriate support to weaken the Empire and secure the eastern border.

The Persian Empires (Sassanid and Parthian) sometimes tried the same, but could never really get ahold of a good claimant to the position of Roman Emperor - in part because a good claimant to the position of Roman Emperor was predicated on how 'Roman' they could portray themselves as, more than blood relation to the previous ruler. All the same, they supported already-extant claimants during Roman civil wars for the same political reason - better to have someone indebted to you on the enemy throne, and the enemy polity weaker, than the status quo!