Just imagine a British-style democracy in Iran... and consider some of the tragedies that do not happen. A democratic Iran might not have been able to avoid war with Saddam Hussein, but it would have avoided the life-wasting attacks upon the tyrant's armies. Democracies may not like wars, but that doesn't stop them from winning the wars that they get into. The Iranian Armed Forces deliver a smashing defeat to someone who in reality became one of the most vicious tyrants before he could become the monster that he was. Saddam Hussein might never dare gas the Kurds as he did.
Without the Iranian Revolution Saddam would never have gone to war with Iran. Saddam thought he would be facing an internally divided Iran that because of its foreign policy would be unable to obtain resupply from either superpower. He also expect that the Gulf states would back him because of concerns about the revolution spreading to their own Shiites. To a degree he was correct, but the war did help to unite Iran. Without the Iran-Iraq War, the Revolution might have collapsed on its own in a few years.
