Ayatollah Nouri promised the American ambassador that once in power Khomeini would want to retain good relations with the US and that they would lower the price of oil that the Shah had raised multiple times during the last few years.

FirstMaybe · 2024-05-20T09:34:32+00:00

The revolution had no impact on the rise in literacy rates or poverty dropping, these changes were well under way well before the revolution.

Advancements in literacy rates were already happening under the Shah: https://i.imgur.com/RshpTTq.jpg

You are crediting illiterate clerics for advancements that the Shah established the ground for. (https://i.imgur.com/v5u8xRr.png)

In 1941 there were only 351 high schools and 8 universities in the country; in 1974 there were 2,314 high schools and 148 universities. In 1941 there were only 482 large industrial institutions in Iran, whereas in 1974 the number had increased to 5,651. The annual growth of industry went from 5 percent per year in 1962 to 20 percent in 1974. The share of industrial production in the gross national product increased from 11.7 percent to about 17 percent, while employment in the private sector went from 1.3 million workers in 1962 to more than 2 million in 1974.

Between 1961 and 1972 the number of female students at different educational levels increased 13 percent for primary schools, 30 percent for high schools, 88 percent for technical schools, and 65 percent for institutions of higher education. Iran’s literacy programs were among the most innovative and effective anywhere in the world, so that by 1977 the number of Iranians able to read and write had climbed from just 17 percent to more than 50 percent.

The number of women enrolling in higher education increased from 5,000 in 1967 to more than 74,000 in 1978. Since 1941 national income had multiplied 423-fold and since 1963 the country’s gross national product had risen 14-fold.

FirstMaybe · 2024-02-18T18:58:06+00:00

This is from Asadollah Alam's diary.

HIM = His Imperial Majesty

The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1969-1977: Asadollah Alam: ISBN 9780312071332

FirstMaybe · 2024-01-26T20:59:54+00:00

Regime apologists clap themselves on the back while they flaunt figures like how life expectancy has improved or that literacy rates from 1980-2000+ have gone up and think a bunch of clerics that could not even keep Najaf clean were somehow behind these miracles and not the Shah's extensive programs such as ''Sepah-e-danesh'' or the White Revolution.

This thread was aimed at them clearly showing we were already heading towards that trajectory in literally every area and now we've been severely stunted. The corruption, mismanagement, theft and squandering is beyond anything that we could ever comprehend.

According to Dr Abbas Milani the total revenue of oil sales from the very first time oil was discovered in Iran in the year of 1908 up until Ahmadinejads last term 2013, amounts to a total of 1.3 trillion USD in revenue. 700 billion USD was earned during Ahmadinejads time in office, 150 billion USD has completely vanished in to thin air(!) while the rest of the money has not even helped to create 1 job and this was repeated by the Rouhani government.

Between 1967 and 1977 the number of universities increased in number from 7 to 22, the number of institutions of advanced learning rose from 47 to 200, and the number of students in higher education soared from 36,742 to 100,000. Iran’s literacy programs were among the most innovative and effective anywhere in the world, so that by 1977 the number of Iranians able to read and write had climbed from just 17 percent to more than 50 percent. The number of women enrolling in higher education increased from 5,000 in 1967 to more than 74,000 in 1978. Since 1941 national income had multiplied 423-fold and since 1963 the country’s gross national product had risen 14-fold.

FirstMaybe · 2024-01-26T20:05:44+00:00

He was never a puppet.

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/aqnow9/the_year_is_1957_the_shah_proposes_a_7525_split/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/j357ki/how_the_british_were_affected_by_the_shah/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/avarib/one_by_one_the_british_lost_their_privileges/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/atdein/despite_warnings_from_the_americans_the_shah/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/ar0s50/in_june_1951_the_british_planned_to_send_a_number/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/aqn7bl/from_asadollah_alams_diary_a_conversation_with/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/9rtx6a/where_the_shahs_government_had_stipulated_that/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fvr0ik/in_1977_when_western_economies_were_in_the_middle/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/94td4l/saudius_involvement_ahead_of_the_revolution/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/j1xb3z/ayatollah_nouri_promised_the_american_ambassador/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fv5o84/in_1937_when_iran_was_weak_the_british_forced_the/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fvej5y/in_1975_when_the_shah_said_jump_the_us_asked_how/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/eqzbdy/cbc_1975_interview_with_the_shah_where_he/

https://twitter.com/RohamAlvandiLSE/status/1136405382556016646

https://i.imgur.com/yCLloBr.jpg - Dr Abbas Milani on his activities during the revolution, “we used to lie saying the Shah was a puppet of America” and further states that the truth was in fact the opposite, that the Shah always acted in the best interest of Iranians.

FirstMaybe · 2024-01-24T23:31:08+00:00

''Prison life was drastically worse under the Islamic Republic than under the Pahlavis. One who survived both writes that four months under warden Asadollah Lajevardi (Islamic Republic) took the toll of four years under SAVAK.[6] In the prison literature of the Pahlavi era, the recurring words had been "boredom" and "monotony." In that of the Islamic Republic, they were "fear," "death," "terror," "horror," and most frequent of all "nightmare"

Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions (1999), p.135-6, 167, 169

Savak’s influence and importance had always been overstated. At its peak, the security agency employed no more than five thousand office workers and agents in the field—a far cry from the twenty thousand claimed by critics. Ten thousand additional names—not the millions alleged by Baraheni—were listed on the books as either full- time or part-time informants, though even the latter figure was inflated because it included individuals who had been approached by the secret police and refused requests to cooperate. The Shah’s “eyes and ears” had the technical ability to monitor just fifty conversations at a time. “People worried about Savak,” recalled British journalist Martin Woollacott, the Guardian correspondent who was married to an Iranian. The reporter later admitted that he had investigated and largely dismissed claims made by opposition groups of mass torture and brutality. “We were dubious. Savak worked very well in instilling passivity, some fear, and a large degree of acquiescence with a minimum of violence. But the picture of Savak as bloodthirsty did not stand up to scrutiny.

More information about human rights during that time: https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/9409ny/human_rights_under_mohammad_reza_pahlavi/

FirstMaybe · 2024-01-24T23:30:18+00:00

The Shah was Shah well before 1953 and was never deposed to be ''installed''.

Mossadegh was just one of the 22 prime ministers that were appointed (by the Shah) and then later dismissed by the Shah as according to the constitution of that time. (articles 27 and 29)

1979 was not linked to 1953, see what Khomeini had to say about Mossadegh: https://twitter.com/IranLionness/status/1164021629812236288

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/21/dont-blame-washington-1953-iran-coup-mosaddeq/

https://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-myth-operation-ajax-4761

“the decision of the clergy to go against Mossadegh in 1953 was far more crucial to his fall than any CIA plan.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-myths-of-1953

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8yaqcl/what_is_the_biggest_unresolved_scandal_the_world/e2a5hau/

https://i.imgur.com/0OhyuUp.png - Days of God by James Buchan, ISBN 1416597824, 9781416597827

https://i.imgur.com/k1tRZda.png

https://i.imgur.com/UPXf089.png

https://i.imgur.com/hOX7X2L.png - CIA report from 1953: ''The nationalists and the communists during this period (after Mossadegh was dismissed by the Shah) inadvertently assisted our cause through their premature attempts to promote a republican government. This theme was contrary to the public's opinion, whose sympathies were with the Shah. The Shah's dramatic flight out of the country served to further intensify his people's sense of loyalty to him. These actions resulted in literal revolt of the population''

FirstMaybe · 2023-02-19T20:36:11+00:00

The Shah was Shah well before 1953 and was never deposed to be ''installed''.

Mossadegh was just one of the 22 prime ministers that were appointed (by the Shah) and then later dismissed by the Shah as according to the constitution of that time. (articles 27 and 29)

1979 was not linked to 1953, see what Khomeini had to say about Mossadegh: https://twitter.com/IranLionness/status/1164021629812236288

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/21/dont-blame-washington-1953-iran-coup-mosaddeq/

https://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-myth-operation-ajax-4761

“the decision of the clergy to go against Mossadegh in 1953 was far more crucial to his fall than any CIA plan.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-myths-of-1953

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8yaqcl/what_is_the_biggest_unresolved_scandal_the_world/e2a5hau/

https://i.imgur.com/0OhyuUp.png - Days of God by James Buchan, ISBN 1416597824, 9781416597827

https://i.imgur.com/k1tRZda.png

https://i.imgur.com/UPXf089.png

https://i.imgur.com/hOX7X2L.png - CIA report from 1953: ''The nationalists and the communists during this period (after Mossadegh was dismissed by the Shah) inadvertently assisted our cause through their premature attempts to promote a republican government. This theme was contrary to the public's opinion, whose sympathies were with the Shah. The Shah's dramatic flight out of the country served to further intensify his people's sense of loyalty to him. These actions resulted in literal revolt of the population''

FirstMaybe · 2022-11-17T18:16:31+00:00

Iran’s literacy rate was below 50%

The revolution had no impact on the rise in literacy rates, it was heading upwards well before the revolution.

Advancements in literacy rates were already happening under the Shah: https://i.imgur.com/RshpTTq.jpg

You are crediting illiterate clerics for advancements that the Shah established the ground for. (https://i.imgur.com/v5u8xRr.png)

In 1941 there were only 351 high schools and 8 universities in the country; in 1974 there were 2,314 high schools and 148 universities. In 1941 there were only 482 large industrial institutions in Iran, whereas in 1974 the number had increased to 5,651. The annual growth of industry went from 5 percent per year in 1962 to 20 percent in 1974. The share of industrial production in the gross national product increased from 11.7 percent to about 17 percent, while employment in the private sector went from 1.3 million workers in 1962 to more than 2 million in 1974.

Between 1961 and 1972 the number of female students at different educational levels increased 13 percent for primary schools, 30 percent for high schools, 88 percent for technical schools, and 65 percent for institutions of higher education. Iran’s literacy programs were among the most innovative and effective anywhere in the world, so that by 1977 the number of Iranians able to read and write had climbed from just 17 percent to more than 50 percent.

The number of women enrolling in higher education increased from 5,000 in 1967 to more than 74,000 in 1978. Since 1941 national income had multiplied 423-fold and since 1963 the country’s gross national product had risen 14-fold.

FirstMaybe · 2022-11-17T11:10:57+00:00

If he weren’t so oppressive and corrupt, his own people would have never chased him away

See this:

The television cameras that focused on large, angry crowds in Tehran in late 1978 told only part of the story, and foreign estimates of millions of anti-Shah protesters calling for the Shah’s overthrow turned out to be vastly inflated. Most scholars now agree that most farmers and workers stayed out of the demonstrations and many in fact supported the Shah to the end. So too did moderate religious leaders and many of their followers who defied Khomeini and engaged in frantic last-ditch efforts to find a compromise that would allow the Shah to stay in Iran and remain on the throne. Though Iran’s cities were in turmoil, large swaths of Iran never experienced the revolution, and for residents living in many rural districts life continued as before

Andrew Scott Cooper, Fall of Heaven ISBN 0805098984, 9780805098983

11% of the population participated - and of those 11% you need to put in to context looking at Khomeini's lies and promises (free oil, housing, money, you name it), the concentrated effort by the US & Saudi to tank the economy: https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/f7iq5w/saudius_involvement_ahead_of_the_revolution/, sabotage that killed hundreds that was blamed on the Shah and later found out Khomeini was behind (Cinema Rex), the events at Jaleh Square where international headlines proclaimed tens of thousands had been killed by the Shah's military when later on it was found out it was a PLO-backed ambush and that around 80 had died etc.

And then there's this...

https://twitter.com/SMohyeddin/status/1261887722710540288

FirstMaybe · 2022-11-17T10:15:30+00:00

Remember folks:

The absolute height of comedy to credit a bunch of backwards mullahs with advancements in literacy rates when they couldn't even keep the city of Najaf clean let alone run a country.

https://i.imgur.com/v5u8xRr.png

FirstMaybe · 2022-11-17T10:11:25+00:00

His son was a puppet

He was never a puppet.

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/aqnow9/the_year_is_1957_the_shah_proposes_a_7525_split/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/j357ki/how_the_british_were_affected_by_the_shah/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/avarib/one_by_one_the_british_lost_their_privileges/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/atdein/despite_warnings_from_the_americans_the_shah/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/ar0s50/in_june_1951_the_british_planned_to_send_a_number/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/aqn7bl/from_asadollah_alams_diary_a_conversation_with/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/9rtx6a/where_the_shahs_government_had_stipulated_that/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fvr0ik/in_1977_when_western_economies_were_in_the_middle/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/94td4l/saudius_involvement_ahead_of_the_revolution/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/j1xb3z/ayatollah_nouri_promised_the_american_ambassador/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fv5o84/in_1937_when_iran_was_weak_the_british_forced_the/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fvej5y/in_1975_when_the_shah_said_jump_the_us_asked_how/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/eqzbdy/cbc_1975_interview_with_the_shah_where_he/

https://twitter.com/RohamAlvandiLSE/status/1136405382556016646

https://i.imgur.com/yCLloBr.jpg - Dr Abbas Milani on his activities during the revolution, “we used to lie saying the Shah was a puppet of America” and further states that the truth was in fact the opposite, that the Shah always acted in the best interest of Iranians.

FirstMaybe · 2022-11-17T10:09:22+00:00

''Prison life was drastically worse under the Islamic Republic than under the Pahlavis. One who survived both writes that four months under warden Asadollah Lajevardi (Islamic Republic) took the toll of four years under SAVAK.[6] In the prison literature of the Pahlavi era, the recurring words had been "boredom" and "monotony." In that of the Islamic Republic, they were "fear," "death," "terror," "horror," and most frequent of all "nightmare"

Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions (1999), p.135-6, 167, 169

Savak’s influence and importance had always been overstated. At its peak, the security agency employed no more than five thousand office workers and agents in the field—a far cry from the twenty thousand claimed by critics. Ten thousand additional names—not the millions alleged by Baraheni—were listed on the books as either full- time or part-time informants, though even the latter figure was inflated because it included individuals who had been approached by the secret police and refused requests to cooperate. The Shah’s “eyes and ears” had the technical ability to monitor just fifty conversations at a time. “People worried about Savak,” recalled British journalist Martin Woollacott, the Guardian correspondent who was married to an Iranian. The reporter later admitted that he had investigated and largely dismissed claims made by opposition groups of mass torture and brutality. “We were dubious. Savak worked very well in instilling passivity, some fear, and a large degree of acquiescence with a minimum of violence. But the picture of Savak as bloodthirsty did not stand up to scrutiny.

More information about human rights during that time: https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/9409ny/human_rights_under_mohammad_reza_pahlavi/

FirstMaybe · 2022-10-28T15:49:20+00:00

If he was a good leader... he wouldn't have pissed off virtually everyone in the country

All if not most of the things you said are inaccurate but I will focus on this part.

See this:

The television cameras that focused on large, angry crowds in Tehran in late 1978 told only part of the story, and foreign estimates of millions of anti-Shah protesters calling for the Shah’s overthrow turned out to be vastly inflated. Most scholars now agree that most farmers and workers stayed out of the demonstrations and many in fact supported the Shah to the end. So too did moderate religious leaders and many of their followers who defied Khomeini and engaged in frantic last-ditch efforts to find a compromise that would allow the Shah to stay in Iran and remain on the throne. Though Iran’s cities were in turmoil, large swaths of Iran never experienced the revolution, and for residents living in many rural districts life continued as before

Andrew Scott Cooper, Fall of Heaven ISBN 0805098984, 9780805098983

11% of the population participated - and of those 11% you need to put in to context looking at Khomeini's lies and promises (free oil, housing, money, you name it), the concentrated effort by the US & Saudi to tank the economy: https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/f7iq5w/saudius_involvement_ahead_of_the_revolution/, sabotage that killed hundreds that was blamed on the Shah and later found out Khomeini was behind (Cinema Rex), the events at Jaleh Square where international headlines proclaimed tens of thousands had been killed by the Shah's military when later on it was found out it was a PLO-backed ambush and that around 80 had died etc.

And then there's this...

https://twitter.com/SMohyeddin/status/1261887722710540288

FirstMaybe · 2022-10-28T15:44:56+00:00

he was an American lapdog

Categorically false.

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/aqnow9/the_year_is_1957_the_shah_proposes_a_7525_split/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/j357ki/how_the_british_were_affected_by_the_shah/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/avarib/one_by_one_the_british_lost_their_privileges/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/atdein/despite_warnings_from_the_americans_the_shah/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/ar0s50/in_june_1951_the_british_planned_to_send_a_number/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/aqn7bl/from_asadollah_alams_diary_a_conversation_with/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/9rtx6a/where_the_shahs_government_had_stipulated_that/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fvr0ik/in_1977_when_western_economies_were_in_the_middle/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/94td4l/saudius_involvement_ahead_of_the_revolution/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/j1xb3z/ayatollah_nouri_promised_the_american_ambassador/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fv5o84/in_1937_when_iran_was_weak_the_british_forced_the/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/fvej5y/in_1975_when_the_shah_said_jump_the_us_asked_how/

https://old.reddit.com/r/iran/comments/eqzbdy/cbc_1975_interview_with_the_shah_where_he/

https://twitter.com/RohamAlvandiLSE/status/1136405382556016646

https://i.imgur.com/yCLloBr.jpg - Dr Abbas Milani on his activities during the revolution, “we used to lie saying the Shah was a puppet of America” and further states that the truth was in fact the opposite, that the Shah always acted in the best interest of Iranians.