Isn’t that one of the most important and destructive aspects for why so many countries are in perpetual sociopolitical turmoil? In the Middle East/N Africa, the West used preexisting cultural/religious differences when creating the new nations after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Next they created governments who would be subservient to the West. Enthnic/religious minorities of those countries in many instances, willing to do whatever needed for the outside assistance to stay in power.

Then during the Cold War, certain Western nations (we all know who) would systematically assassinate, imprison, and destroy the intellectual class (not correct term I know… basically the smart political liberals) justified by preventing communism. There was very little communism, just people wanting democratic governance, and wanting democratic governance apparently reeks of socialism.

By the time actual political upheaval happened, there were no sensible leaders/proto-parties remaining to fill the void, so the religious zealots and/or military assumed control.

All that outside interference and destruction of democratic movements out of fear of communism really stunted ability for huge swaths of the world to grow.

See it lingering today in most of South America, Egypt, etc.

I was 9 years old. I mostly wanted to find it on a map.

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I wouldn’t describe it that way. There were many factions fighting for democracy or ideologies. They only agreed with each other on getting rid of the Shah. So they were united in overthrowing the current regime.

Once that happened, there was another power struggle for who would control the new government. The religious hardliners won that struggle by consolidating power and eliminating opposition from the secular moderates.

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There was a recent American Experience documentary on the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis that you might find interesting: Part 1 |Taken Hostage | American Experience | Season 34 | Episode 5 - PBS https://www.pbs.org/video/part-1-taken-hostage-american-experience-a56dcc/ It's focused on the US involvement, but the first episode goes into some detail about the history leading up to the revolution.

My take, based largely on this documentary, is that everyone agreed that they wanted the Shah and the US out, but they disagreed on what form they wanted the new government to take. And the moderates lost the resulting power struggle, in part because of how Islamists crushed dissent, and also because many moderates were viewed with suspicion due to potential Western ties.

It's certainly the case that many women who participated in the revolution did so expecting an expansion or at least continuation of their rights, not the oppression that resulted.

When he came to power, the monarchy was mostly ceremonial (like how it is the UK today). The US and UK governments fomented a coup of the democratically government to give the shah absolute power.

It was mostly over the oil refinery complex (largest oil refinery in the world at that time) near the Iraq border in Abadan that British oil companies had built, that the democratically elected government had nationalized. This is the same refinery complex involved in the Iran/Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had tried to seize.

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American Experience has a two part documentary on all of this that is very good https://www.pbs.org/video/part-1-taken-hostage-american-experience-a56dcc/

Ah, you are correct. The unreliable Romano-Britain iron production extrapolation estimates are indeed 80k tons, and not 50k tons. Yeh, your explanation of a range of 20k-50k iron production makes sense and that range seems more reasonable.

I think that depends heavily on who you ask. For example, not many in France would credit the USSR because the red army never set foot in France. On the contrary, I don’t believe any western powers set foot in Lithuania so they would probably credit Russia.

Then, as you mention there is a lot of nuance in certain countries not wanting to give other countries credit due to post-war relations.

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I think there is a very common misconception in the west that equates public opinion in the capital cities, where the wealthy and educated live, with public opinion in the country. That's why, when a few 100 people protest in Moscow or Beijing western media report it as massive protests even though these people represent maybe 2% of the population. I can imagine a similar dissonance in Persia/Iran.

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Yes, he fled into exile before being allowed entry to the U.S. for cancer treatment. Pretty sure he and his lovely bride were probably featured in Barbara Walters interviews both before and after the IR.

Most of what you say is how the world viewed the situation. I posted before reading what you said but after being warned about the 20 year rule. I do think that fighting Iraq to a bloody stalemate during the eight year war solidified Khomeini's autocratic rule.

I don't presume to know how Iranians felt at the time of the 79 IR.

Even though the hostage crisis that coincided with the IR was daily news in the U.S. until the hostages were finally released just before Reagan's inauguration, very few Americans paid much attention to the war between Iran and Iraq from 1980-1988. Your point about that solidifying the IR is spot on because Saddam was also viewed as a secular American political puppet, not to mention Sunni Arab.

The death toll varies, but it is agreed to be somewhere between 1 million and 2 million, with Iran getting the worst of it. Iran countered Saddam's superior military with human wave tactics by soldiers as young as 15.

As somebody who remembers how "Day 1" of the U.S. Embassy Hostage Crisis turned into Nightline, and who studied Iraqi/Iranian relations in the 1980s, I am in no position to tell you what the Iranian people "wanted" at the time of the revolution.

If you read the Wikipedia article about the Shah's nearly four decade reign, you might ask yourself, how did this guy fall to popular unrest? I'm pretty sure that the reforms he implemented economically, politically, and , militarily made Persian Iran stronger in all three respects.

The problem involved the sharing of the wealth and his handling of dissent. There are prisons still used today that the Shah used to jail political prisoners and his suppression of dissent was often brutal. But once you open yourself up for examination by the world, the world frowns upon brutal suppression of dissent. And the Shah's political enemies characterized him as a U.S. puppet on the world stage.

So, I don't think those who benefited from the Shah's reforms wanted a brutal, autocratic, extremist version of Sharia law to replace the good parts about the Shah's reforms. But one of the political benefits of a top down closed society is that it is resistant to world condemnation. The combination of religious fervor and economic deprivation focused like a laser beam on the the Shah's alleged political masters in Washington.

But many were simply voting for an end to the chaos and bloodshed of the revolution. A No vote would have prolonged this.

And the referendum was not a secret ballot. Bearded men wearing green military jackets manned poll stations and watched closely as people marked their ballot papers.

If I remember correctly, even peasant levies were able to afford or make their own spears, they wouldn’t necessarily bring farming equipment because a spear would be much more effective while being feasible to obtain

All The Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer is a great read that provides a lot of insight into the events leading up to the Revolution, as well as how we got to where we are today.

In an nutshell, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC, later BP) pillaged oil from Iran, used slave labor, and treated the local population like subhumans. Local parliament got pissed, rose up against the Shah (Mohammed Reza, who was brutal towards his own people while living a lavish life himself, who fled the country and was granted refuge by western powers). Parliament elected charismatic leader Muhammed Mossadeq and effectively kicked out APOC. Western powers (especially UK) was pissed, partnered with the US who used the recently created CIA to carry out their first (of many to come) covert coup to overthrow the new Iran government and reinstate Mohammed Reza (the former Shah). Reza ruled for another 25 years, still the being the dick that he was. Things didn't go well, Shah got sick, made horrible decisions (or sometimes no decision at all), local populace was pissed more than ever and anti-western rhetoric became more and more popular, paving the way for the non-secular government to take hold of the country.

You see one every time you look in the mirror

The urban centers like Tehran didn't see widespread support for the Islamic Republic. The rural areas strongly supported it however. I'm not saying the vote was either legitimate or illegitimate, but those pictures you see if pre revolution Iran with people dressed like westerners was really indicative of life in the large cities.