[FARS]

Here are a couple of articles that will help clarify your questions.

“Shah” really designates a dynastic ruler or a King.

The late Shah was decreed a Shahanshah or Emperor, which in the old days meant he would have had other kings as vassals. He was granted the historcial mantle

In fact Persia was the only country to ever capture a Roman Emperor.

The late Shah’s father, Reza Shah was so fed up with a weak and ineffective Qajar dynasty, whose teenage Shah lived mostly in Paris (Mossadegh was a prominent member of that family and wanted to restore the Qajar dynasty rather than all the altruistic labels attached to him as a nationalist) that Reza Shah wanted to form a Republic and take over as an elected President!!!

The Members of the Iranian Parliament and Senate - energetically supported by the Islamic clergy - absolutely refused and told him he HAD TO take over as the Shah and voted him into power as a Shah. After which he put back a country that had splintered into tribal territorial self-ruled components without any central government control - into one where the Central Government again took charge.

Albeit subject to the influential interference of both the British and Russians, who continued to call the shots till he began to stand up to them.

Luckily he commanded the Cossack Brigades of Iran and had one of the best local fighting forces who were loyal to him and gave him a bit of sting when he demanded something from the British and Russians.

http://noiri.blogspot.com/2004/03/jimmy-carters-illegal-demands-on-shah.html

http://noiri.blogspot.com/2004/03/who-is-ayatollah-khomeini.html

Also check out the food crisis in Iran (and video)

http://noiri.blogspot.com/2008/05/ever-fewer-iranians-can-afford-to-buy.html

[Chode]

Ohh WOe is me... Whys everybody pickin on me???

[xJones]

I've always read that Mossadegh was overthrown by the CIA. Of course this was mostly written by Iranians in the U.S., the same ones that screamed and yelled about the Shah's Savak, and then got stuck with the Ayatollah's goons after they went home following the Revolution.

But there is a great deal of evidence that the CIA tossed Mossadegh, and there was everlasting resentment afterward. It's a pity they couldn't toss Khomeini.

[sinanju]

“Khomeinis’ real father,William Richard Williamson, was born in Bristol, England, in 1872 of British parents and lineage. This detail is based on first-hand evidence from a former Iranian employee of the Anglo- Iranian OilCompany (later British Petroleum: BP), who worked with and met the key players of this saga. This fact was supported by the lack of a denial in 1979 by Col. Archie Chisholm, a BP political officer and former editor at The Financial Times, when interviewed on the subject at his home in County Cork, Ireland, by a British newspaper.”

____________________________________________________________________________

That’s one heck of a wild story. Ayatollah Khomeni’s dad actually being a brit who went native (a la Harry St. John Philby of the Magic Kingdom) and bore children of a Kashmiri Indian woman. The statement that Khomeini could barely even speak Farsi is certainly a new one and glaringly obvious if true. I don’t see how that could be covered up or explained away.

“Islam and Revolution” appears to be the only approved writings to be found on Amazon. I am certainly curious to know if his nuttier early tracts can be had in English.

His numerous coldblooded statements over the years are a matter of record, certainly. His willingness to keep the Iran-Iraq war going for years after Saddam offered peace (”The road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad”) and pour out several hundred-thousand lives pointlessly is also well known.

Wahabism, Salafism, Deobandism, Khomeniism. Baskin-Robbins thirty-one flavors of Theo-tyranny. You may take your pick, you’ll end up in the same cesspit whichever one you follow. I call down the curses of Hell on those State Dept. grandees who insisted Sharia law be included in the new Iraqi and Afghan constitutions. After several years of painstaking, highly-intellectual scholarly study I have come to the conclusion that what Sharia law amounts to is a handful of self-appointed thugs in black turbans and their gangs of bully-boys claiming divine authority to push people around. No more and no less, and I submit that anyone who thinks your average Iraqi, Afghani, Iranian, Saudi or Pakistani actually likes being subjected to this any more than you or I would be is a racist who believes that Middle Easterners are mentally inferior and prefer to live with a boot on their necks.

[BIGLOOK]

In Japan, during the Tokugawa period, there was a policy called Sankin ko tai, an 'alternative attendance' or 'visit and hostage' system to keep the Daimyos in line. Wives and relatives would reside with the Shogunate while the Daimyos ruled their fiefdoms. Visitations were allowed generously as long as the Daimyos remained in good grace.

Carter's administration allowed the mullahs to keep the embassy staff hostage for 444 days, with no visitation, no contact and no rescue. This situation reduced the President of the US to the status of an errant and weak daimyo in the eyes of the mullahs. Now to save face (or create a legacy), Carter suggests we revisit the past in the belief of a different outcome.

Hmmm.....not a bad idea. Let's nominate former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife to head to Tehran as the new ambassador and CIA station chief.

[potlatch]

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks FARS.

[Savage Beast]

Any chance that the Persian people will get tired of being "Arabs" and call for a Restoration?

[Savage Beast]

Any chance that the Persian people will get tired of being "Arabs" and call for a Restoration?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!