From 1941 to 1979 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, commonly known as Mohammad Reza, or simply the Shah, led Iran as successor to his father, Reza Shah Pahlavi. Mohammad often went against his vows of constitutional monarchy by using the Iranian secret police, SAVAK, to suppress his political opponents. Mohammad Reza's domestic policy focused on a series of reform policies to modernize the country. His foreign policy focused on an effort to abolish sovietism, and become an ally of the western powers and the US. Shah's rule is characterized as dictatorial, a period of major domestic and constitutional reform, as well as a period in which Iran established itself as a major regional power. Mohammad Reza attempted to rid the region of foreign influence, mainly that of the Soviets and communism, in an effort to grow the countries individual power. As a means to reach this goal, Mohammad Reza instituted reforms to modernize the country. However, as stated on the official website of Farah Pahlavi, his rule did not follow the emerging ideas of democracy and brought opposition from many of the traditionalist, and nationalists with different priorities. Overall, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's domestic reforms were largely ineffective in reaching his goals, whereas his foreign goals were largely met.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced his father as the ruler of Iran in 1941 when his father was forced into exile by the Soviet Union and Great Britain because of his friendly relations with Germany. His father, Reza Shah Pahlavi, established Iran as a "new state of considerable apparent strength...capable of asserting its power...throughout the country and over the entire population." Reza Shah implements and enforced the nationalists' agenda without the aid of tribe...
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America and Iran had tricked the Soviets which left them very angry, and this inevitably led to the Cold War. But less than a decade later, America had done something which caused Iran to change their opinion of them. In 1951, Iran had recently elected a prime minister by the name, Mohammed Mosaddeq, which he nationalized the countryś petroleum industry, long the domain of the British-dominated AIOC. This move, however, pitted the two governments against each other in a bitter political fight. The Truman administration had tried to work between both sides, but Dwight Eisenhower had quickly concluded that Mosaddeq represented the problem rather than the solution to the crisis. They decided that they wanted him out and later he was kicked out and Mohammad Reza Shah took his place for the next twenty-five years. Shah not only gained access to sophisticated American weaponry, but also obtained tacit White House permission to forgo any serious effort at reform. Over the years, the internal resentment against the Shahś political and economic policies was building to a peak, but the depth of the problem escaped the notice of American
The introduction to Persepolis gives a great deal of background information to the unrest in Iran leading up to the Islamic revolution. Iran had been in a state of unrest for “2500 years” (page11). Iran was ruled by foreign nations and exploited by the western world for its rich expanses of oil. In 1951 the prime minister of Iran tried to take back his country’s wealth by nationalizing
Throughout the 20th century, the United States tried to control Iran to ensure the exportation of oil to America. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came to power in 1941 and became allies with the United States. However in the 1950s, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh began to gain political power. Unlike the Shah, he was extremely against western influence in Iran. Mossadegh won national elections and he demanded more power. In order to retain influence in Iran, the CIA helped overthrow Mossadegh and bring Pahlavi back to power....
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Reza Shah Pahlavi’s rise to power ended the 131-year reign of the Kajar dynasty and established the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. Much to the chagrin of not only Muslim clerics, but also the general population, Reza Shah Pahlavi leaned heavily towards secular ...
In the 1970’s Iran, under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a very centralized military state that maintained a close relationship with the USA. The Shah was notoriously out of touch with working class Iranians as he implemented many controversial economic policies against small business owners that he suspected involved profiteering. Also unrestricted economic expansions in Iran lead to huge government expenditure that became a serious problem when oil prices dropped in the mid 1970’s. This caused many huge government construction projects to halt and the economy to stall after many years of massive profit. Following this was high rates of inflation that affected Iranians buying power and living standards. (Afary, 2012) Under the Shah, political participation was not widely available for all Iranians and it was common for political opposition to be met with harassment, illegal detention, and even torture. These measures were implemented by the Iranian secret police knows as ‘SAVAK’. This totalitarian regime combined with the increasing modernisation of the country paved the way for revolution.
Although the Iranian Revolution was both a political and religious movement in that it resulted in major shifts in government structure from an autocracy to a republic and that Islamic beliefs were fought to be preserved, it was more a religious movement in that the primary goal of the people was to preserve traditional ideology and in that the government became a theocracy intertwined with religious laws and desires of the people. Although the Iranian Revolution was caused by combination of political and religious motivations and ideas, the desires of the people supporting the movement were more dominantly religious ideas that were wished to be imposed in society and in a new government. The Shah, or king, of Iran at the time was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who had developed relations with nations in the “western” world, specifically with the United States. The United States supported the White Revolution, which was a series of social reformations the Shah made to remove Islamic values, law and tradition from the government to boost the country’s economy (White Revolution, 2010).... ...
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Iran was included in the territory of what was then the ancient Persian Empire. For centuries Iran (land of the Aryans) was also referred to as Persia, which was the official name until 1935. Fourteen years had passed before the Iranian government allowed the use of both names. Few groups of people today have significant history like the Iranians, descending from the ancient Persians, who possess one of the world’s richest and oldest cultures. Historically, a variety of other cultures and groups had once occupied the ancient Iranian plateau as early as 4,000 B.C.E, with little importance. Beginning by the third millennium, Persia was ruled by some of the greatest kings of all time, from Cyrus the Great to Darius the III, who turned the Persian Empire into one of the world’s greatest civilizations.
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Ayatollah Khomeini’s foundation to become the central figure and religious leader of the Iranian Revolution began in his childhood. He was born into a fairly wealthy Shi’ite Muslim family on September 24, 1902. His true name was Ruhollah Musavi, but he adopted the name of Khomeini after his place of birth. He never really knew his father because his father was murdered in 1903. When Khomeini was four years old, he began attending a local religious school and continued to attend it until he was sixteen years old. He then furthered his education at a theological college. He studied with Yazdi Ha’iri, a prominent Islamic scholar at the time. After he completed his college education, he became an Islamic teacher at Ha’iri’s school. After Ha’iri died, Ayatollah Boroujerdi took his place as the most important religious figure, and Khomeini became a follower. Khomeini preached against the continuing stray from traditional Islam in Iran and gained a group of followers. He gained the title of ayatollah, meaning a ‘sign of God,’ in the 1950s.
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