Opinion of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

[Intell]

Pure HP, I don't even see how he's a better alternative, only liberalism tells us that.

[TDAS04]

Pure HP, I don't even see how he's a better alternative, only liberalism tells us that.

Under the Shah, people could generally live as they pleased, as long as they weren't seen as a threat to the government.  The same cannot be said of the the theocracy that followed.

That does not excuse the Shah's brutality.  He was bad, but the Ayatollah was unquestionably far worse.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well we all know how Andy Warhol would vote on this matter...

[Zioneer]

The Shah's biggest mistake was hoping the countries oil wealth would sustain them, and he used the petrodollars to take out massive loans. My Dad was in Iran in the 70's and said the decadent wealth was  beyond garish

He was not only spending much (on a borrowed money indeed), but he was also spending like an idiot. It's quite telling that his country struggled with accepting shipments because there were no suitable port facilities to unload and no suitable roads to transport.

Also, he bought a s**tload of weapons which were then laying in magazines, because his army was not trained for this. His solution? Train his people? No, just hire foreign contractors to operate it. It's almost as funny as Gaddafi purchasing a lot of anti-aircraft missile launchers just to have them stand by the coast, unmanned.

Really? Wow, that's pretty idiotic. You'd think a wealthy dictator who wants to get richer would fund infrastructure to ensure his country (and thus himself) can get richer. So he was an incompetent dictator, as well as a brutal one?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Pure HP, I don't even see how he's a better alternative, only liberalism tells us that.

Under the Shah, people could generally live as they pleased, as long as they weren't seen as a threat to the government.  The same cannot be said of the the theocracy that followed.

That does not excuse the Shah's brutality.  He was bad, but the Ayatollah was unquestionably far worse.

I assume you mean Khomeini and I'm inclined to agree, especially with him plunging the country into a devastating war (I don't want to excuse the Iraqis here, but the Iranian regime did a lot to provoke the war and then prolonged it for years after already expelling Saddam's forces). However, it's interesting that Iranian people got more political freedom after 1989 then they had under the Shah.

I'm not sure though if the new regime's secret police was worse than SAVAK. I mean, it's really hard to top the SAVAK.

[MATTROSE94]

Massive HP. The Shah of Iran was little more the an incompetent and brutal dictator who mercilessly slaughtered his political opponents and sought to enrich himself at the expense of ordinary Iranians. According to a 1976 report by Amnesty International, Iran under the Shah had the highest number of political prisoners, the lowest level of press freedom, and the overall worst human rights record in the entire world. I would have enthusiastically supported his overthrow in 1978, but would have favored the secular democratic opposition led by Shapour Bakhtiar coming to power instead of Ayatollah Khomeini.

[Ljube]

Massive FF.

Think back of his Iran (those of you who are old enough), then look at it now.

[Green Line]

Keep in mind that although Mosaddegh was democratically elected, by the time of the coup democracy in Iran had basically ceased to exist.  Mosaddegh dissolved the Parliament in 1953 thanks to a rigged election in which 99% of the voters supposedly voted to make him a virtual dictator.  The coup only became a certainty after the dissolution of Parliament pushed the Shah over the edge.  

Of course, the direction that the Shah took Iran in the aftermath of the coup was bad in many ways, but the act of the coup itself is not something I have a problem with.

[MATTROSE94]

Keep in mind that although Mosaddegh was democratically elected, by the time of the coup democracy in Iran had basically ceased to exist.  Mosaddegh dissolved the Parliament in 1953 thanks to a rigged election in which 99% of the voters supposedly voted to make him a virtual dictator.  The coup only became a certainty after the dissolution of Parliament pushed the Shah over the edge.  

Of course, the direction that the Shah took Iran in the aftermath of the coup was bad in many ways, but the act of the coup itself is not something I have a problem with.

Did the Shah lead the initial efforts efforts behind the 1953 coup and convinced the US and the UK to support it, or was he pretty much co-opted by the US and the UK into supporting it? Either way, I feel that the coup was a bad decision and still believe that the Shah was one of the worst leaders in Iranian history and one of the most infamous dictators of the 20th Century. On a side note, I do like the Shah's father Reza Shah Pahlavi and feel that he was one of the better leaders in Iranian history despite his authoritarian nature.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

HP. Besides the dictatorial stuff, spent his kingdom's entire budget on toys his army couldn't operate, and cockamamie development schemes that, combined with a total mismanagement of oil revenues, threw the country into economic chaos.

TL;DR: Talked a big game about enlightened monarchy. In the end was unenlightened and was a horrible monarch.

[MATTROSE94]

HP. Besides the dictatorial stuff, spent his kingdom's entire budget on toys his army couldn't operate, and cockamamie development schemes that, combined with a total mismanagement of oil revenues, threw the country into economic chaos.

TL;DR: Talked a big game about enlightened monarchy. In the end was unenlightened and was a horrible monarch.

I agree with you 100%. The only policy initiated by the Shah of Iran that I would have supported was the "White Revolution," which gave Iranian women the right to vote, instituted some land reforms meant to help peasants, improved religious freedom for non-Muslims, and increased access to education for ordinary Iranians. As opposed to genuine concern for the plight of the Iranian people, the true motives behind the "White Revolution" were to further enrich the Iranian royal family and preserve the Shah's power however. Other than some efforts at reform during his reign, the Shah of Iran was little more than a brutal dictator who only cared about his own interests at the expense of everyday Iranians.