Need Help..Was the Shah of Iran Pro-American--chat

Hello, in a debate with someone on another board and require your resourses the exchange is as follows:

Sybeck: Bin Laden is strawman at this point. The WOT isn't over if he showed up tommorrow. It includes the thugs in Iraq, Beslan, Bali and elswhere.

I really wish Bush would have said that he is not worried about UBL, but UBL should be worried about the US. I watched Mail Call on the History Channel with Gunney last night and showed the fighting that is going on still today with the Taliban remnants. Part of the Bush Doctrine is to destroy governments who harbor terrorists.

We have the true leader of terrorism in the area surrounded, Iran. We have troops in Iraq in the west, Afganistan in the east. With pro America governments in both of these, the mullahs in Iran might face civil war. We are in affect fighting a proxy war with Iran now.

Dunsel: Sybeck, I'm not sure how our deployment of troops in Iraq & Afghanistan equates to surrounding Iran, especially since our troops in those countries seem to be busy enough dealing with insurgencies there. Also, I have no confidence in the governments of those counties - whether in their loyalties or in whether they have the loyalties of the people. We had the frienship of Iraq and Iran at various points in history and eventually found ourselves on the shit-lists of each. The Soviets had a friendly government in Kabul for years - unfortunately, its mandate went little further than Kabul. We can't forget either that Afghanistan and Iraq are also surrounded by countries of dubious loyalty if not outright hostility - Saudi, Syria, Pakistan and who knows how many post-soviet republics, and again there are the insurgencies in Iraq & Afghanistan. If anybody is surrounded, it's not Iran...

Sybeck: We had a good ally in the area until President Peanuthead went with the world in deposing the Shah of Iran: http://www.americanewsnet.com/cmntrs/cmntrs04.htm

Today we are fighting Iran in Iraq: http://www.kurdishmedia.com/news.asp?id=5612

We are fighting Iran by proxy in Iraq. Terrorists are in fact coming from all over the area because they don't want ELECTIONS in January.

Dunsel: Sybeck, I spent much of last spring reading "Iran Iraq, War in the Air, 1980-88", which is this huge book on the first Gul War. It's a huge read by two guys who seem to have done their leg work on the region, including the initial Islamic revolution that took down the Shah. Acc. to Wikpedia, the Shah endured two oustings - including one in the 1950's by a nationalist Minister. US & British intel brought the Shah back in a move that became a rallying point with the Islamists 25 years later. Apparently, Mr. Peanuts took the heat for the fall of the Shah, when it's clear that he had little enough support at home keeping him up. I wouldn't classify as an ally a guy who calls himself "King of Kings" and relies on secret state police to ensure domestic tranquility through intimidation and torture.

As a child during fall of the Shah can anyone give better knowledge than myself on this? Thanks

The more I learn about the fall of the Shah and Carter's role and motivation in the process the lower my opinion of Jimmy Carter falls.

Prior to his fall the Shah was executing a grand national strategy to modernize the economy and society of Iran. Schools were modern and filled with both boys and girls. University attendance was on a large upswing both locally and internationally. Contracts with oil service companies were being modified to provide more training of the local workforce. Modern hospitals were springing up all over. The Shah's intent was to build an economic middle class which is normally lacking in an Islamic society. The key jewel in his plan was to build a massive port in Southern Iran where there was excellent access to deep water without the restrictions of the Persian Gulf. I have seen quotes indicating the Shah's strategy envisioned a future with a limited monarchy and semi-democratic involvement by the middle class.

The Shah was attempting to do this despite the inherent limitations of an Islamic society. As demonstrated by the still continuing brutality that followed his downfall, the secret police and repression were societal, not just a product of the Shah's reign. Iranian society was rooted in corruption, bribery and oppression. When the Shah was overthrown the corruption, oppression and secret police remained. It was the schools, hospitals, and sources of workforce training that were eliminated.

The media supported the overthrow of the Shah on the basis of human rights and Carter presented a front image to support that. The truth was far less noble. First Carter tried to force the Shah to agree to provide the US continually with oil at a fixed price. The Shah knew it was economically impossible and refused. Second the business consortiums, many with roots tied back to "Old Georgia Families" attempted to leverage the Shah through Carter to provide them with contracts to build and operate the new Southern Mega Port. The ploy would have worked if the Shah stuck to the traditional corrupt Iranian business plan, however it would have doomed his grand strategy and he refused. Carter retaliated. Every day I learn more about how ignoble Carter's motivations really were. Seeing Carter's less than noble conduct today is enlightening in retrospect.

The tragedy of Iran is that at the time it was the jewel of the middle east and could have truly been the linchpin in establishing a middle class economy to compliment the oil economy in the middle east. The economic despair which feeds the religious fervor in the middle east today might have been avoided if the Shah's grand strategy had taken root.

He earned a graduate degree at UCLA. He was recently on TV talking about the situation over there---I taped what he said then--and just replayed it to refresh my memory. He spoke of living in LA as a student (he even mentioned that he had lived in Hancock Park--a very exclusive area of LA and that his place was near one owned by Mick Jagger).

Maybe he went to Williams for an undergrad degree? His English is impeccable, so he has obviously been around a long tme. He seems brilliant. I have been a long-time follower and fan of the Shah--so I have done a lot of keeping up on the family over the years.

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