Posted on 07/03/2016 1:07:47 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at familysecuritymatters.org ...
Agreed, but then the leftist politicians started funding public everything, which started driving away manufacturing. New York City was a manufacturing hub, until mayor Wagner in the 50s started spending city funds on education (including CUNY), public housing and other social programs, as well as permitting city employees to unionize, raising taxes in the process; manufacturing started clearing out of there in a hurry.
The claim that the overthrow of the Shah ended that tradition is falsifiable, and easily shown to be false, as a review of the election of Mossadeagh and Operation Ajax can demonstrate.
It all depends on how you define and measure “tradition of monarchic rule.”
So a democratically elected leader is a usurper, and a dictatorial monarch planted on his throne by foreign powers is legitimate... that’s a very interesting moral framework you are proposing here.
Such strident opposition to representative, constitutional government makes you very out of place. In America, our tradition is to greet proposals of monarchism with grapeshot. Perhaps you will be better served by seeking allies among those who share your point of view, such as the Saudis.
If we really have to debate the meaning of plain English in order to determine the veracity of the sentence, we can at least conclude with confidence that it is an insufficient thesis for any article that should be taken seriously.
“we’d respect the office and go along with the Chief Executive while he was in the office.”
I am constrained to point out that Americans who refused to go along threw away our military victory in Vietnam.
IOW, "If you would have peace, prepare for war". It's an old idea, but always applicable.
“Rationale for the intervention included Mossadegh’s socialist rhetoric and his nationalization, without compensation, of the oil industry which was previously operated by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company”
Mossadegh was a Soviet puppet and a depraved tyrant who should have been impaled on a stake.
If he had remained in power, Iran would have nuked us thirty years ago.
Agree. Carter is still a jerk.
Even though under his reign he was definitely Westernized, believed in women's education and rights, all of those you know, LIBERAL things.
Look at what a female could do in 1979, *before* the rise of the Ayatollah, and what Carter brought down upon the Iranian people.
I wish feminists would buy a clue, but apparently that's just too much to ask.
Carter screwed Iran. Obola is sucking up to Iran and is screwing Israel.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlevi's son ought to be installed as the new shah, the criminals misruling Iran should be executed en masse and normality restored.
While peanut brain was one of the worst presidents of all time,he was the worst ex-president of all time.
That’s the left-wing propaganda version. Mosaddegh was not “democratically elected” but appointed by the Shah, and the Shah was already holding his office as monarch. Mosaddegh further usurped his power as prime minister with all of the nationalization of key industries, stealing resources that rightly belonged to western companies. Mosaddegh also gave too much power to Iranian radicals, such as the Tudeh Party (part of the International Communist Seminar) and the Ayatollah Kashani (who later betrayed him, ironically), and got the Majlis to vote him emergency powers to allow him to rule by decree. I’d say that would be playing the role of a usurper.
No, I do not oppose representative constitutional government. Mosaddegh did, however.
“Carter screwed Iran. Obola is sucking up to Iran and is screwing Israel.”
Yes, but Carter screwed a Western country, whreas Obola is cozying up to an Islamic Terrorist Camp. Both are/ were wrong. What a difference a half-century makes!
Your “democratically elected” socialist’s claim to fame was to nationalize the oil industry [that is, steal the capital of the investors] which he could not do until the majilis [their parliament] agreed to it. His party was not unlike the current regime- a coalition of socialists and islamists.
The problem was, the socialists/communists couldn’t do that because a member of the Majilis, Haj Ali Razmara, was blocking them.
So he was assassinated. Maybe he was “democraticaally assassinated,” eh? The assassin was a member of the group that gave us the Ayatollah Khomeini. Interesting that this assassination was the key item that enabled Mosaddeq to get his way.
Once he was out of their way, Mosaddeq’s socialist/islamist party the National Front was able to push through their plan of nationalizing the industry.
And just as in Venezuela, this didn’t work out very well because it scared off investors. Other countries reacted to having their investment property stolen and refused to buy Iran’s oil. And so, they stepped up oil production elsewhere.
Iran’s economy crashed.
Carter forced the Shah out because the Shah wouldn’t pay Carter a $2 billion bribe to get his port complex built by an American company.
Then this hypothetical president would have made a deal with the USSR not to get involved in arming the resistance. We would have had to allow the Soviets a free hand in Afghanistan but we now know the world and the USA would have been better off if we had done that.
We invade Iran. Occupy it with our large drafted army and enforce secularization and install the Shah's kid as a constitutional westernizing monarch. Do to Iran what we did to the Japanese and their fanatic Shinto-Bushido religion.
Iran would be America's base of operation to this day and the Middle East would have been a better place. No Iran/Iraq war, and no 9/11 because we stayed out of Afghanistan.
The USSR falls the same way at the same time - maybe collapses even earlier due to cheap oil.
thank Jimmy Carter for this Muslim mess FIRST....then add Clinton.
The author appears to excuse that with "but he was OUR dictator".
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