Agreed. The point of the original thread however was to imply that it was Carter and the world press that caused the dethroning of the usurper. I say that's nonsense. The shah's own people threw him out because they thought life would be better for them without him and his SAVAK. They thought wrong but that is a different chapter.
Which, of course, is to the man's credit, I guess. I do know he had very ambitious plans for his country's sad-sack infrastructure, but that the people who surrounded him siphoned off the funds that should have been spent on very well planned projects. As a result they, in large part, never happened.
Oddly enough, one of the things that his government or regime was accomplishing was redistributing the massive land-holdings of the mullahs and religious institutions to the peasants. Even though he was paying for the properties, this really put the ayatollahs' knickers (if indeed they wear them) in knots and helped seal the Shah's doom. He was, of course, leaving the huge holdings of his family and their corrupt cronies largely intact.
Of course, these are the very people, in exile, who now peddle the "our beloved Shah" codswallop. Jimmy Carter abandoned a "dunce sitting on a volcano."
My point is leaders in places where there is NO tradition of self-government, the 'warts' on that leader shouldn't be magnified to the point that obscure the whole picture of the leaders rule. (Thats why I brought Franco & Pinochet)
The Shah was the best choice availiable for the interests of the west(USA & UK) at the time. He continued to be the best choice right until Jimmy Carter pulled the rug out from underneath him. Also at the time their were 10s of thousands Americans in Iran(someone told me 50000 but that seems too high!) Whatever the true numbers were, it meant our 'footprint' was large and irritating !
Would it have been best for US interests if the US had made the effort to keep the Shah in power. I would say yes ! Khomeni's revolution gave islamic fundametalism its first taste of victory. It emboldened other likewise thinking though not necessairyly allied fundamemtalist groups, e.g. Islamic Brotherhood (they killed Sadat!)etc. Also Hizbollah might not exist! Kicking the Soviet out of Afghanistan would not have required deals with the 'devil' meaning the Sunni fundamentalists ,e,g, Wahabbist etc. We could have worked out of Iran instead of Pakistan (still maybe both!) but maybe with a little better 'control' not so many 'third parties' to deal with. Lots of interesting speculation here but it didn't happen so talking about it is nothing more then a beer & pretzels grad school talkathon !