What if the Shah of Iran had remained: 35 years later

FSM ^ | 9/28/14 | Slater Bakhtavar

[freedom44]

In 1979, after a long campaign of political pressure applied by the Carter administration in the United States, the Shah of Iran fell to the Islamic Revolution, ending a tradition of monarchic rule that had persisted in Iran for thousands of years since the rule of Cyrus the Great. The stage was set for the rise of the Ayatollah, and the establishment of a theocracy in Iran that, today, most Iranians do not even want. But what if none of that had ever happened? While a momentous departure from actual history, it is not nearly so far-fetched as it sounds. It isn't difficult to imagine that, beset by strife as the Shah was at the time, the opposition of a major world power like the United States was the final straw that brought the monarchy to an end, and it is not even clear why President Carter chose to engage in such opposition. While there were some human rights concerns taking place under the Shah, as Carter noted, these pale in comparison to the atrocities committed by the sorts of Islamic extremists that have since risen to power in Iran and found a more conducive environment in the Middle East generally. Let's see what else would have been different had Carter relented, and the Shah remained.

[octex]

What if we had let Spain keep Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898? Cuba would be a lot better off than it is under Castro. And we wouldn’t have idiots trying to make PR a state.
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Fully agree with that, VR!

PR is essentially just another US ghetto that gets all the handouts from US taxpayers but doesn’t pay any US taxes.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

Again, thank (or maybe a different verb) you, Jimmy Carter.

[Coldwater Creek]

I have a friend who was a Federal Agent who was assigned t0 the Shah when he was having his cancer treatment and became “friends”. My friend wore a little pin that said Jesus First. One day the Shah asked what it meant. Opened a small window for my friend to witness. He died soon after. So who knows............

[Ax]

I was at the Embassy in Teheran in 1975, working at the “warehouse.” I went from there to Rome. When the “students” came over the wall in 1979, we were trying to support the evacuation of dependents. Several of the Marines from the Rome Detachment were sent to Teheran to supplement the Teheran Detachment. My two very good buds were the last two guys out. They were stopped at several “komiteh” roadblocks, manned by teenagers with AK-47s. A great roar of relief from the evacuees on that PANAM flight when the captain announced that they had exited Iranian air space.