Thoughts on the current political situation in iran?

I have written pretty extensively on Iran, pre- and post- revolution, in other contexts (here and elsewhere).  And this is a perspective some may be familiar with if you've encountered some of the things I've said before.  Here is the relevant timeline, abbreviated of course: 

• In 1951, Mossadegh was appointed to be prime minister by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. 
  
• Mossadegh was a nationalist reformer, and introduced a number of political changes, several of which were widely popular among Iran's cities, youth and rising professional class. This is important because at the time, Iran was little more than a feudal economy.
  
• As a part of Mossadegh's "reforms," he unilaterally nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company --- i.e., British Petroleum's predecessor --- including its assets, wells and refineries.  Months later, Iranian oil exports essentially ceased (which continued well into 1952) as a result of this decision. 
  
• Mossadegh blamed sabotage, but in reality it was because he didn't know how to run the wells or refineries.  
  
• By  late 1951, opposition to Mossadegh's "reforms" had grown. 
  
• While always unpopular with Iran's religious/conservative elements; his so called progressive reforms translated into rapidly deteriorating economic conditions inside Iran. 
  
• The youth "activists" who once stood behind him became dissatisfied with what they regarded as a frustration of their vision for the future of Iran.  As such, they were united with the religious/conservative elements in their opposition to Mossadegh. 
  
• Mossadegh blamed British intelligence for his unpopularity among both groups.  However, at most, British and American intelligence  did little more than encourage forces already in motion and opposition held by a growing majority of the Iranian electorate.  Mossadegh's decision to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and its assets, again, was to blame for the lack of oil revenue coming into the Iranian economy.
  
• The British government tried, repeatedly, to negotiate with Mossadegh, though their efforts at peaceful resolution bore no fruit. Mossadegh took a hardline position against the British and in October 1952, declared England an enemy of the people of Iran and ended all formal diplomatic relations. 
  
• The United States had largely ignored Mossadegh, up to this point.  Washington regarded this as England's crisis, though once Mossadegh severed diplomatic ties with the UK concerns, Washington feared Mossadegh would turn to the Soviet Union for support.
  
• Washington's concern was not, contrary to several speculative, revisionist accounts, to protect British access to Iran's oil --- as that would have been counterproductive to their own interests. American-interested Saudi Aramco doubled production and gained considerable market share of global oil exports after Mossadegh's nationalizing the Anglo-Persian Oil Company --- directly benefiting the United States.
  
• In 1953, the United States and British Intelligence coordinated primarily to finance what is now known as Operation Ajax.
  
• This measure was intended to restore the Shah's rule, dismiss Mossadegh and replace him with Fazlollah Zahedi and Abbas Farzanegan --- who would restore the Iranian economy and resume Iranian oil production, reversing Mossadegh's expropriation of British assets.
  
• However, as a condition of restoring the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's assets, the former British monopoly on Iranian oil was ended and international competition was permitted. The Shah argued that this helped reduce British influence in Iranian politics, and created economic conditions for vast public infrastructure spending and modernization.
  
• From 1978-1979, a series of events took place that resulted in Shah Reza Pahlavi's overthrow and replacement with the current theocratic Iranian government (and its successor leaders).  
  
• This so called "revolution" was the result of naive leftist students who were exploited and manipulated into believing that they were somehow "allied" with the religious/conservative elements of Iran's political environment.   
  
• The Islamist right of Iran claimed that they and the leftist students they manipulated had a common enemy in "Western imperialism," which they passed off as causing Iran's economic decline following Mossadegh's nationalizing the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.  
  
• Mossadegh's actions were the sole proximate cause of that economic downturn; not "Western imperialism" or other such nonsense.  Yet, the 1953 actions were cited by Iranian religious extremists who led Iran's so called "revolution" as evidence of western influence in Iran's domestic politics, and continue to profoundly exaggerate the CIA's role in interfering with Iranian domestic politics to this day.
  
• It turned out that the students who conspired with Iran's religious fundamentalists were sold a bill of goods. They wanted more of Mossadegh's secular nationalist reforms; instead they got fundamentalist theocracy, a tragedy yet to be rectified to this day.
  
• Most Iranians do not have the kind of deeply held animosity towards the United States that figures of the Iranian government have articulated. They, especially the older generation of Iranians who remember life before 1979, see Khamenei's nonsense for exactly what it is.
  

I regard these events as tragic.  Invariably, this could have been avoided.  Yet it was not.  And we are here.  The Iranian people live with this history every day, though with the younger generations' increasing connection to the outside world I expect to see the day that the current regime is destroyed.  I expect to see the day when Iranian-American relations normalize, where we trade with Iran once more as we did before Mossadegh's catastrophic series of failures.  

It is only a matter of time.  However bad things are now, there is cause for hope in the years and generations to come. 

This is a pretty good timeline.

Lemming Wrote:

From what I've read, women's rights were improving under the Shah of Iran, but the improvements made, went to the wayside, after the Shah fell from power.  I've also heard that the Shah's regime had numerous flaws, as well as a large amount of corruption. 

Both of you are correct, and each of the Shah's conspicuously western/liberal ideas and policies as well as the speed at which he was implementing those changes played a role.  The Shah, for example, profoundly expanded women's access to education, employment opportunities and political representation.  Those reforms prompted a tremendous backlash among the religious/conservative elements of Iranian society.  

For his part, the Shah responded to political opposition with violence and repression.  In particular, 1957, "SAVAK" or "the National Intelligence and Security Organization" (read: Iran's "secret police" similar to the NKVD) was basically given carte blanche power to investigate opponents of the Shah, arrest them, indefinitely without filing charges and torture them into confession. 

The problem here wasn't that the Shah expressly ratified all of these practices at the scale they were practiced, so much as SAVAK interpreted the Shah's intent broadley and without restriction.  Disappearances of those suspected to rival the Shah became common, among both leftist socialists who opposed the Shah's economic liberalization (the delusional students who later would be manipulated into supporting the so called Iranian revolution by Iran's religious/conservative elements) and Islamist extremists who opposed the Shah's social reforms.

That being said, in this day and age most of what SAVAK was engaged in between the 1950s and 1970s would fall into the category of "counterinsurgency" and "counterterrorism," as opposed to something like NKVD or KGB-style internal political repression.   Notably, verifiable estimates as to the scale of these repressive measures are hard to come by.  Khomeini accused the Shah of imprisoning somewhere between 100k - 300k people over those decades and having killed more than 100k people --- but this is absurd.  The real figure is probably around 1/100th of that, although this remains disputed.  

While SAVAK's actions are the main source of the "corruption" charge, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's lack of regard for appearances did not help his domestic political standing.  For example, the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire is typically regarded as the straw that broke the camel's back.  While the intent of the celebration was to demonstrate Iran's ancient civilization and history and to showcase its contemporary advances; in reality this spectacular exercise in largess and vanity almost certainly contributed to events that resulted in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. 

What did you think you accomplished with that post?  

hello brothers

after the 1979 revolution, the shah was abolished and Iran was now an islamic republic, some would consider this the downfall of iran, and to be honest i agree 

what are your thoughts and opinions?

some say revolution happened because shah was taking his way too quickly and maybe if he slowed down iran would have been a great country today and many muslims did not like the women's rights part

also here is an interesting video where shah criticizes Britain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imil1iIpIYA1

Are you Iranian?

Iranians are not Arabs. 

What was yours?  What does the fact that you're* Arab* have to do with your claim that you are "brothers" with Iranians*?

Are you from the Middle East?

I have no idea what you're talking about.  Though you don't appear to be in a country that the United States would send drones to.  I have no involvement in any of that.

Back to the prior issue, however, if you should ever wish to dispute the substance of anything I said feel free to do so.  When I wrote the first of my series of posts, I had a joke about how every time I talk about this some arab comes out of the woodwork to accuse me of being some kind of spy for either the American or British government.  Which is absurd, of course.  I can't recall whether I deleted that bit nor not.

Here's the problem:  There are a bunch of academics who call themselves "historians" in the United States and the UK (read: leftist frauds) who have essentially acquiesced to the Ayatollah-promulgated Islamist propaganda-version of Iran's history from the 1950s to the 1970s.  Co-mingled with that nonsense are vapid, specious claims about "American imperialism," a claim that does not even rise to the level of idiocy in view of the Wilson Administration's role in thwarting British imperialism before and after WWII. 

If the United States had exercised anything like the level of influence the Ayatollah claims, Khomeini and his brigade of fake Muslims would have simply disappeared to never be heard from again.  The Shah would have remained in power.  The so called "Iranian revolution" would have never happened.

And Iran would be a vibrant, thriving leader in the region and likely throughout the world.  Iran would likely be more closely allied with the United States than Saudi Arabia could have ever hoped to be. The House of Saud would be a historical artifact.  The list goes on and on . . . .  but it's a pipe dream. 

Sadly, Iran and the world continues to pay for the civilizationally destructive forces Mossadegh's incompetence set in motion. More sadly, the United States did not prevent the catastrophe that unfolded in 1979 as it should have and failed to do so under the watch of a president who was at best asleep at the wheel, at worst an even more incompetent, dangerous, ideologically possessed imbecile than Mossadegh.  

I have no idea what you're talking about.  Though you don't appear to be in a country that the United States would send drones to.  I have no involvement in any of that.

- My green card is safe then.

You'd have to get one first.  And that is unlikely, being that you appear to be from Turkey

--- which should have been excised from NATO years ago.

Here's the problem: There are a bunch of academics who call themselves "historians" in the United States and the UK (read: leftist frauds) who have essentially acquiesced to the Ayatollah-promulgated Islamist propaganda-version of Iran's history from the 1950s to the 1970s. Co-mingled with that nonsense are vapid, specious claims about "American imperialism," a claim that does not even rise to the level of idiocy in view of the Wilson Administration's role in thwarting British imperialism before and after WWII. 

 In truth, we know that no Muslim country has ever prospered under western guidance. 

IMHO, i don't know anything about leftists but the islamist propaganda you speak of is not restricted to Iran. In a way, if what you're saying is true, then the left (or whatever) is pandering to fundamentalist islam all across the globe. This includes Indonesia, malaysia, brunei, saudi arabia, turkey, afghanistan, iran and iraq.

-->@Greyparrot

He forgot about Saudi Arabia lol

many muslims did not like the women's rights part

Co-mingled with that nonsense are vapid, specious claims about "American imperialism," a claim that does not even rise to the level of idiocy in view of the Wilson Administration's role in thwarting British imperialism before and after WWII. 

I'd imagine for near all religions, same as governments. They go through different iterations, versions I mean, of their practice....

I'm sure you know this but what you said doesn't apply to Islam. During the Umayyads, Greek influence was prevalent.

According to muslim historians, they were inevitably removed by argumentation (lol) because succeeding imams found greek-inspired ulamas incredibly erroneous. I think Islam now is the version conceived during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. 

I chose to apostatize specifically for this reason: that I prefer the philosophers of the west rather than the east. My opinion.

I am largely ignorant of Islam.

Religion I'm most familiar with is (General) Christianity, which has seen 'many denominations, changes.

So it's likely I make erroneous comparisons.

Though I suppose Catholics might maintain fairly solid solidarity, and consistency in their beliefs, given their common ties to the Pope and the Catholic Church.

But it 'does seem to me when glancing about history, that religions, depending on the countries practiced in, the leaders, amount of war at times, aggression. End up fairly tolerant at times, or intolerant, but 'depending on time and circumstance.

I've been given to understanding that at various times and locations, Islam has been a religion tolerant of the existence and practice of religions different than it's own?

 "Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error" (Quran 2:256

...I've been given to understanding that at various times and locations, Islam has been a religion tolerant of the existence and practice of religions different than it's own?

 "Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error...

Well, that's a lot to unpack. First of all, the application of that verse requires the obligated help of the Hadith (sayings of the prophet). If you ignore the latter, you're branded as a Quranist  which means you're not really a muslim. Since you've said a lot about history in your post, I'll end the implications of being a Quranist here and move on to more relevant things.

In medieval times, it is perhaps the most tolerant. Non-muslims (though branded derogatorily)

are only obligated to pay Jizya (non-muslim tax) and they enjoy equal protection under muslim empires. If you look up medieval publications, Jewish authors tend to co-write with Muslim authors.

Unfortunately, that's where tolerance ends. For new converts, especially women, you are forbidden to leave Islam.

You will always be branded a muslim and

any attempts to convert out will inevitably lands you a one way-ticket to senior clerics/scholars.

Even if you disagreed with their attempts to revert you back to islam, you're just inviting yourself to be slapped with a death sentence.

You've made exceptional posts in the thread. Thanks, I think I will subscribe. Your posts are all very useful but I want to say a few words about your statement below: