was Iran better off under the Shah?

The electoral protests in Iran this summer showed Iran wasn't a backward country like the media led many Americans and Europeans to believe, this year also marks 30 years of Iran as an Islamic Republic, however during a summer focused closely on Iran a lot has been stated of Iran being better in the 1970's at one point promoting the Shah's son of all people!



But was Iran really better in the 1970's?

The second half of the 1970's saw the United States coming out of the Vietnam War and further militarize Iran, the Shah Reza Pahlavi was in power for a long time, after having all political opposition eliminated in a CIA and MI6 backed coup in 1953, the Shah was technically therefore a dictator over his people.

That being said the Shah's time as a dictator didn't mean his people weren't exactly that badly off, life in the big cities did see opportunity for the younger generation and through this Iran was becoming modernized and westernized very rapidly throughout the 1970's.



But the Shah had in turn alienated political and religious groups throughout the country, while he claimed that his women had shorter skirts than those in Paris, he was in turn attempting to sweep his real problems under the rug.

In the late 70's Carter had stated that Iran was a powerful and stable ally in one of the more troubled parts of the world his words reflecting how the Shah had secured Iran for America's use as a large buffer against the spread of communism.

While Khomeini was forced into exile (later to Paris) the Shah had his armed forces breakup his protests with his army (the fifth largest in the world at the time) at one stage slaughtering 100 people, this wasn't something that was to have been forgotten, but the people had a name to rally behind, Khomeini was representing everything those repressed wanted giving them a will that was near impossible to break.



The Shah had lived apart from his people, he was kept in power by a vicious security force, however Khomeini had bought the people behind him, after the Shah had fled leaving the army in command Khomeini returned promising the people freedom to religion and a republic, the revolution had then taken full swing, in Tehran police stations and military outposts were attacked, guerrillas gaining a large amount of arms, with the military in disorder and tatters former Shah generals and army officers were purged shortly after surrendering.



It took merely over ten days, after they were refused the return of the Shah (to trial and execute for treason) Islamic students who seized the US embassy were given the go ahead to continue with it leading to the 444 day hostage crisis with the United States, this showed the US to be literally powerless as proven by the ill fated Operation Eagle Claw, it destroyed any hope Jimmy Carter had of winning a second term as president.

However the Iranians did release the hostages in the first hour of Ronald Reagans presidency showing just for some time they were eager to once again open up relations with the United States like any other country.

However this was not to be!
Instead the US tried to break the will that rallied the Iranian people together to free themselves (sound familiar) by brutal economic sanctions bullying anyone that attempted to trade with Iran and now trying that on the ultimate scale.

The Iranian revolution had put to power a new government that represented the majority, even though some still say that tying religion and politics into government isn't a good idea, post revolution Iran (like Cuba) had increased literacy rates, a better health care system and the lowest ever infant mortality rates, calling Iran liberal under the Shah would be false, he was a brutal dictator behind the lines and did truly repress his people and their spirit.

The revolution was massively popular for mainly that reason.

why Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy

For nearly three years now I've had to endure the horrible politics of the west towards Iran's nuclear program, never have I heard so much hypocrisy and so much lies put out on behalf of the west, I don't know what I should have expected considering the fact that the US fell out with Iran because of it's own people rising up and taking control over the dictator that was the Shah, before that however they were fine with Iran developing nuclear power:



Since of course it was mining it's oil resources away from the people and building up it's military and army to use as a buffer against the Soviet Union spreading into the Middle East and disrupting American oil interests.

However these days Iran has been described as an Axis of Evil and threatened by the United States who are still sore over the revolution and Israel who wants to keep their nuclear supremacy in the Middle East and want Iran devoid of any form of nuclear energy including nuclear power!

And they've on numerous occasions threatened to destroy these sites including Natanz (top and bottom pictures) and the Bushehr uranium enrichment program in a city of the same name.

An Israeli strike (nuclear or conventional) to destroy this one site would result in the radioactive poisoning of residents of countries across the gulf such as the United Arab Emirates or Oman, not only that but it could render Bushehr a ghost town and several people in it's 165,000 populace dead!

Hasn't the horrible catastrophe at Chernobyl not thought anyone anything?

And apart from that if Israel (very likely) fire the first shots at nuclear power stations such as these Iran have threatened in turn to strike back in this case at Israeli nuclear weapon sites that the world learned existed back in 1986 thanks to the brave Mordechai Vanunu who revealed to the world Israel's nuclear secrets such as the site he worked at Dimona.


Anti-aircraft gun at Natanz

Bottom Line: Iran like any other country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for it's people since they're moving on knowing that (unlike Saudi Arabia) that one day their oil will run out and preparing for the future, they should not be intimated by the threat of being preemptively attacked and have every right to defend themselves and their region against western attackers!

Iranian Revolution justified?

The below video shows a wonderful insight into the Iran of the early to mid 1970's before the (what it calls) the unintelligible revolution in 1979 that saw the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran.



But was the revolution (unlike the video suggests) justified for the people of Iran, the country was becoming rapidly industrialized and the division between city and country was becoming debt as the Shah became more friendly with America.

He was also buying up in hi tech arms from the United States (the F-14 Tomcat one of if not the best fighter jet in the 1970's), whom were using Iran for oil and strategic purposes, this clip from The Grumman Challenge a documentary about the sale of 80 F-14 Tomcats shows exactly what the Americans were doing.



But the rapid industrialization did very little for the average Iranian, first of all the country wasn't a democracy and the Shah was a dictator since America helped him eliminate any Prime Minister elected by the people in a coup carried out by the CIA and MI6 in 1953!

And this rapid industrialization by the United States (paid with the rapid flow of Iran's oil of course) of Iran did little only divide city and country, only a small amount of people were enjoying the wealth was one of the many causes that slowly led to the revolution.

The celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire at Persepolis in 1971 was organized by the Shah's regime, was attacked for its extravagance.

"As the foreigners reveled on drink forbidden by Islam, Iranians were not only excluded from the festivities, some were starving."

Tens of thousands of foreign workers were doing the work Iranians weren't allowed as private companies reaped the profits.



As the revolution begun several factors saw it expand until Ayatollah Khomeini returned, the Muharram protests saw up to 6 to 9 million anti Shah demonstrators march across Iran, this was probably largest protest event in history and a higher number of people than any other revolution in history.

That just tell you how this was the majority of the people getting what they wanted, after seizing American hostages in the US embassy and holding them for over 444 days the US weren't able to even rescue them, the failed Operation 'Eagle Claw' showed they couldn't even find a US friendly haven anywhere in Iran in which to launch their operation from, the RH-53D Sea Stallion choppers had to launch directly from the USS Nimitz and crashed before they could even reach Tehran!

The hostages weren't harmed showing that their takers weren't murderous savages and Iran was ruled by an Islamic government in which the people (the majority )wanted it to be.

However before leaving for the United States for cancer treatment and before the revolution exploded the Shah had ordered and paid for 160 US F-16 Fighting Falcons and other weapons , none of these had arrived and the deal which had cost millions had cost the Iranian people for nothing!

how powerful Ayatollah Khomeini was

So persuasive that he was exiled from Iran by the Shah who feared him, until his return in 1979 after the Shah was brought to the United States to get cancer treatment, almost overnight Khomeini had poured fuel on a fire that was ready to burn, the Iranian revolution caught the United States almost completely by surprise.

The Iranian Army joined Khomeini shortly after and there was a brief period of violence in Iran.

When students in Tehran took over the US embassy it led to a 444 day hostage crisis, the US were powerless to do anything, a rescue was attempted by the USS Nimitz in the Persian Gulf using a bunch of RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters, but they never even reached Tehran!

Khomeini was a real threat to others in the Middle East, he had just taken over from the biggest autocrat in the entire Middle East and brought the Iranian people to his side, Saddam Hussein especially had something to fear, as a Sunni muslim the Ayatollah was a direct threat, since the majority of Iraq's population were oppressed Shia's, his a revolution would have him ousted as president.

After the revolution Saddam saw the Ayatollah was at his weakest, the Iranian military was disbanded, most of its top officers had been executed, so on September 22nd 1980 Saddam caught them off guard sending nine divisions of the Iraqi Army into the oil fields of southern Iran, he quickly made progress.



But when the Ayatollah called for volunteers to halt the invasion what resulted was hundreds of thousands flocking to the front line, halting Saddam's invasion by simple RPG armed revolutionary guards Saddams invasion was a failure, by 1982 Khomeini had the Iranians on the offensive, Saddam retreated his forces and offered peace, but Khomeini refused.

Seeing his opportunity to spread the revolution into Iraq he begun attacking and for another six long years several attempts were made to capture Basra, the US supported Saddam since Iran was seen as a hostile enemy, but also over the fear that the Iranians may actually have defeated the Iraqis, overthrown Saddam and went on from Iraq to take over Saudi Arabia and take down Israel, (remember Hezbollah was founded in 1982 after the Israeli's invaded and is to this day funded by the Iranians).



But Saddam deployed chemicals (not seen since World War I) to kill the advancing Iranian's in their masses, over 1,000,000 soldiers were lost from both sides before the end of the horrific war in 1988, shortly afterwords Khomeini died, Iran hasn't had a war since.

what the IIAF were prepared for

Since 1972 the Shah of Iran had taken interest in buying some new American built hi-tech interceptor aircraft, Iran had taken interest in the General Dynamics F-111 since 1968 but the US turned down this request instead sending some 32 F-4 Phantom II's to Iran in the early 1970's.



In light of air to air combat experience from Vietnam the Grumman Cooperation designed the F-14 Tomcat, a fast and powerful interceptor that could face down nimble Russian MiGs, it also had the large powerful AWG-9 radar that could scan the battlefield for miles and could carry six AIM-54 missiles, these large long range missiles could be fired and reach a speed of Mach 4 before hitting their target from up to 100 miles away.

This incorporated with the AWG-9 radar meant that the F-14 could track 24 different targets and fire 6 missiles at them, all of this under a single airframe, truly the worlds first super fighter.



But after the delivery of the first 20 or so in 1976 the Shah orders another batch bringing the total number of orders up to 80, these made up the bulk of the IIAF air defense that would cover all of Iran, most of the F-14's to be situated at the massive Khatami Air Base built in the desert outside of the city of Esfahan in the centre of Iran.

But why the development of such huge aerial defence logistics in so short a time?

Well Soviet MiGs had performed several overflights of Iran during the 1970's and the Iranians were finding it difficult to cope with their F-4 Phantoms, and intercepting the fast MiG-25 Foxbats (still one of the fastest jets in the world), it became dangerous when an F-4 intercepted and managed to hit the MiG-25 which managed to fly over the northern border into the USSR before crashing.

The Soviets responded by shooting down one of the IIAF EF-4's, not long later the first F-14's begun to arrive.

The IIAF was improving their air defense to be one of the best in the world, the AIM-54 armed F-14 Tomcat proved a real threat to the Soviets compared to the Sparrow armed F-4, over the desert the F-14's trained by shooting down drones from long distances with their new AIM-54 missiles testing the deadly system.



The Shah seemed to think seriously that the Soviets were going to invade, if coordinated properly the IIAF would be a match for even the Soviet Air Force and would be able to keep Irans air space well guarded, the Shah had also ordered the delivery of some 150 F-16 Fighting Falcons about a year before the revolution but that never happened and they were given to Israel instead in 1980.

But that would have been one formidable force if held together properly, the F-16's just add it to a standard that would ensure the Russians had no air superiority and would therefore be unable to launch a ground invasion of northern Iran.

However following the 1979 Iranian revolution the IIAF fell apart when the Americans left along with several pro Shah pilots, those who remained where jailed or tortured and most of the planes couldn't get proper maintenance, the grand IIAF had fallen and was replaced by the IRIAF which still has some former IIAF aircraft in it today. But by 1988 they had been exhausted for resources by fighting the war with Saddam and most of their AIM-54 missiles had lost their shelf life and only 25 Tomcats remained flyable.

But the IRIAF are pushing some more back into repairs and building their own planned replacement for the AIM-54.

It's still a formidable force but its hay day has long gone and its well aged now!