not so. 1921 was ancient history and irrelevent. in 1979, the shah was ill, but there was no reason for him to step down except that the Mullahs had engaged in violent street protests. Carter told the military to do nothing, so they did nothing. eventually all top 150 generals were killed in the revolution that followed.
The Shah was a modernizing Shah who gave the women the vote, which pissed off the local Bin laden-types. A good US President would have stood behind the Shah and it would have been enough to maintain the peace in that constitutional monarchy, but Carter stabbed him in the back and a virulently anti-US theocracy took over.... Same story in Nicaruagua - it's NOT an accident! Taking advice from Carter is poison, unless you're a communist.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/829119/posts
A post on this:
"maybe you're too young to remember, but the Ayatollah's plane actually turned back one day while Carter coerced the Shah,(or whatever interim set-up with a guy named Bani-Sadr existed as the government), to let him land. Then a vicious attack on the army began. They were surrounded in their barracks and literally butchered. Many TV pictures of the time of eviscerated corpses of Iranian Army officers, who could have defended themselves, except for the fact that Carter had decided to sacrifice our friends. Fitting it was then that Carter's ultimate political fate was determined largely by what he had brought on himself."
not so. 1921 was ancient history and irrelevent.The treaty was still in force. Sorry, it was very relevant. It caused us no small amount of anxiety during Operation Eagle Claw in 1980.
in 1979, the shah was ill, but there was no reason for him to step down except that the Mullahs had engaged in violent street protests.
The violent street protests would not have gotten traction without the support of LOTS of the population.
Carter told the military to do nothing, so they did nothing.
Whose military? The Iranian military?
eventually all top 150 generals were killed in the revolution that followed.
That's what tends to happen to close political cronies of the head of state when there's a revolution.
The Shah was a modernizing Shah who gave the women the vote, which pissed off the local Bin laden-types.
Yeah. He also pissed off a lot of other people, and he looked to be too much of a foreign lackey for many people's taste. You have to know a bit of Iranian history--the dynasty was incredibly recent (1920, IIRC), the last popularly elected government had been bumped off by the CIA and MI6, and the Shah was dragging the whole damn country into the 20th century faster than Iranian culture wanted to get there.
A good US President would have stood behind the Shah and it would have been enough to maintain the peace in that constitutional monarchy, but Carter stabbed him in the back and a virulently anti-US theocracy took over...
With much popular support.
What would you have done differently?