NBC News host Norah O’Donnell pressed Pahlavi on whether it was “responsible to be sending citizens in Iran to their deaths” through these calls and whether he bore some responsibility for their deaths.

“This is a war, and war has casualties,” Pahlavi responded.

“In fact, in order to preserve and protect and minimize the death toll, minimize innocent victims, yet again, being killed by this regime, action is needed. The regime is going to try and brutalize its citizenry as it has always,” he said.

The exiled crown prince then argued that he didn’t choose his position as the de facto leader of the opposition, but rather it was thrust upon him.

“I didn’t ask the people to come to the streets to fight against the regime because I wanted to,” Pahlavi said. “They asked me to step in to help them and to be their voice in the outside world, to do everything that we can so we make this uprising successful this time. And I think we have some serious leaders that understand.”

He also continued his strategy of courting Trump with praise to the detriment of former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

“They know he’s no Barack Obama or Joe Biden, and that’s why they do have a higher expectation,” Pahlavi said of the protesters.

An intervention on the side of the protesters would be the decisive factor, he argued, and such an intervention would be in the strategic interest of the U.S.

“The game changer for the whole region is Iran. And Iranians are fighting this fight not just to liberate themselves,” Pahlavi said. “They know that as a result of Iran’s liberation, the whole world will breathe easier, that the stability that the whole world is looking for will finally be achieved, because unlike this regime that has always hated America and its allies, the Iranian people are supportive and want to be a friend of America and the rest of the world.”

Preempting fears of a chaotic regime change failure, such as those which occurred in Iraq, Libya, or Syria, Pahlavi argued that this situation would be different, as an alternative has already been fully planned and laid out. This includes a transition team of “lawyers, jurists, economic experts,” and other important experts, and defections from “members in the military, paramilitary forces, and the civil bureaucracy that will be able to be part of the solution in the future.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Pahlavi reaffirmed his willingness to die for the Iranian people, a feeling he said hadn’t faded since he went into exile after his father’s ousting in 1979. He pointed to his having volunteered to fly as a pilot in the Iranian Air Force during the Iran-Iraq War, though the Islamic government rejected him.

“I was prepared to die then; I’m prepared to die now,” Pahlavi said. “There’s no greater cause for the liberty and what is my life when I think you have millions of young Iranians who today call my name.”

IRAN ‘PREPARED FOR WAR’ BUT HOPING FOR NEGOTIATIONS WITH US

He then relayed a personal anecdote of a monarchist protester who was wounded during the protests but found encouragement to go back because of him.

“This young girl, who a doctor in Tehran was operating on because she was shot in the face with bullets that had broken her jaw. The doctor said, ‘Where are you going?’ She said, ‘I’m going back to the street. I’m going back and I’m going to the streets … and I wait until Reza, my leader, comes back and saves us,’” Pahlavi said.