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Anonymous_Observer | 5 years ago
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AO jon, you seem to believe that the take over was done "by the people" alone. True that religious zealotry and ignorance played an important role, but what about outside influence to "fish the muddy waters"?
Dear COP- in my opinion, and from everything I have read and heard, the only outside support during the Devolution was the one provided by the USSR to the an-tellectual left that was working overtime to get rid of the Shah.
The outside push came from U.S and western alliance. The soviets (AKA russians) wanted to have an influence and even access to war wamters of Persian Gulf, but the last thing they wanted south of their border was Islamic resurgence which could cause instabiulity in their empire. ultimately the take over of Iran and Afghanistan by islamists , rise of political islam and break up of soviet Army along religeous lines in Afghnistan speed up the process of soviet disnitegeration but the question is at what cost it was obtained!
I don't think so MRX. The West acquiesced because Shah was becoming competition for them in the region, whereas Russia actively funded and supported the an-tellectual left who started the Devolution. But ultimately Khomeini pulled a fast one on those losers (who though he was their savior), installed the Islamic Republic and sent all of those morons to the gallows.
I disagree. I know Russians are presented as devil specialy by the corporate media in U.S (Apparently everything is their fault) but reality is cold war was raging in 60's and 70's and both sides were playing a nasty game with ideologies, countries and putting people against one another that ultimately caused millions of death and destruction. We had a very tough relationship with Russia (losing 1/3 of Iranian territory to them, support of leftists and various groups in Iran, Russian aspiration for access to Persian gulf and list goes on) and yes they did and still want to have influence in Iran so does everyone else, but you never want to live next to neighbor that is in war, unstable specially if the neighbor share religious and ethnicities with part or your population.
What really fueled fiasco of 1979, was a combination of land reform movement (necessary but implemented poorly) causing millions of peasants to pour in the cities (The peasants became a foot soldier for Khomeini), U.S and western alliance support for Khomeini and isalmists at all level (They still do despite their alleged silly war on terror!) and an ill indecisive king who put incompetent people in charge specially from 1977-1979 period.
The ONLY reason the revolution happened was becasue the Shah left Iran.
If he had stayed and unleashed the miitary on the Islamists and arrested Khomeini for sedition, then executed him like he should have done years before, there would not have neem ANY islamic reason for the revolution.
At the very least the Shah would have acccelerated democratic reforms and we'd be far away from this shit we're in now.
You are absolutely right BB. As I have always said, Shah was too nice for the people he was dealing with it. I mean, come on, we're not talking about an enlightened populace here who yearned for democracy! We're talking about a backward, illiterate, religious culture that thought its savior had lived a well near Tehran for 1400 years. And those buffoons were egged on by a treasonous and stateless leftist bunch who were completely on USSR's payroll and who wanted to hand Iran over, lock, stock, and barrel to the Russians, ala Afghanistan. Shah should have executed every single one of those traitor communists and every single mullah in Iran. He should have then opened fire on the street rioters and sent them back to their homes. Killing protesters sounds harsh, but it would have saved the atrocities and the more than million deaths that happened as a result of the Iran Iraq war, which would have never happened if Shah had remained in power. But Shah was too nice.