A large crowd descended on the Buchanan Galleries on Saturday in support of the American/Israeli air strikes in Tehran and the Regime’s presidential office.
A counter protest in opposition to American/Israeli military intervention in the wider Middle East, including in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in occupied Palestine, gathered on the Buchanan steps.
Dissidents held signs depicting the son of the last Shah, Reza Pahlavi, alongside flying American and Israeli flags, chanting and jeering to the blaring of upbeat music associated with the ongoing revolution.
The two crowds were separated by a large police presence, tasked with keeping the two sides from clashing.
Sunday’s decisive strikes mark the beginning of what could be a major Western intervention in Iran and the wider Middle East, directed towards reinstating new Iranian leadership, following the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader on Sunday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several of his ministers.
It is not yet clear who will be installed in Khamenei’s place, and to what extent Iranian citizens will be able to decide.
Iran has lived under two successive extremist supreme leaders since the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, with the reigns of Khomeini (1979- 1989) and Ali Khamenei (1989- 2026) under the Islamic Republic.
In late December of 2025, protests against the regime erupted across Iran, catalysed by widened unrest against the regime on top of a deepening economic crisis. Protesters were met with an armed government response, which unleashed mass indiscriminate killings of mostly young Iranian civilians.
The killings sparked global outrage and solidarity with the people of Iran, leading to Donald Trump warning of a military intervention. However, the U.S. and Israel both have undeniable vested interests in their intervention, including the disabling of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the safeguarding of foreign assets in the region.
This has led some observers to question the extent of Iranian foreign intervention by the U.S. and Israel. Many do not wish for the prospective reinstatement of the Shah’s successor, Reza Pahlavi, believing a new Monarchy would only undermine Iranian sovereignty and worsen socioeconomic disparities in the region.
A smaller opposition crowd included individuals of Middle Eastern descent and members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, gravely concerned with solidarity for the people of Gaza.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), as well as several UN special rapporteurs and international governments, have labelled Israel’s military bombardment of the Gaza Strip as an ongoing genocide against Palestinians, funded by the United States. Many of the opposition crowd are also firmly against the Iranian intervention.
Ahmed, a former member of the Strathclyde Palestine Solidarity Campaign, when asked about his thoughts on the intervention, said: “Currently there is a demonstration of pro-monarchists, they want to reinstate the Shah with Western and Israeli intervention, andI’m totally against that”.
Aked what he thought about the regime’s killing of protesters, he said, “Of course, the Iranian Regime needs to reform. I’m not a big fan of the regime myself, but I support the fact that the regime has stood with the people of Gaza.
“As for the Iranian people and what they wish to do with their own country, it’s in their hands, but as long as the West does not intervene, because they benefit heavily from this, as we’ve seen in countless other examples from the war on terror.”
He further added, “You’ve got to remember that there are a bunch of factions within this conflict, there are those that are pro-Shah, there are those that are anti-Shah, and those that are in the middle, so they just want a free and prosperous Iran, which I support, with no Western intervention and no Zionist agendas”.
The next few days and weeks will be decisive for the outcome of what Donald Trump has called “Operation Epic Fury”. Whether this operation encompasses the strategic implementation of a new Iranian leader by the U.S. and Israel is yet to be seen, as the two sides continue to exchange ballistic strikes.
Major Middle Eastern territories, Tel Aviv, Dubai and Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain and Jordan continue to suffer a barrage of Iranian strikes, and the wider conflict could still be far from over.
