Tuesday
October 17, 2000
Shah should be fully blamed
I believe you have misunderstood why we are all vomiting when we hear
the Pahlavi name ["Requiem
in Cairo"]. First of all we are all in full agreement with you
that Khomeini and his fellow villager mollas, their families and cronies
have utterly ruined our nation. However Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi is to
be fully blamed for this calamity.
Firstly, the Shah was completely out of touch with "his" nation
as he insisted on promoting a Western life style to a conservative Middle
Eastern society. Secondly Iran was one the largest producers of oil on
the planet, yet the country's infrastructure was similar to a backward
African country.
The Shah spoke often about ranking Iran as a major industrial power
like France and Britain, but we did not even have proper highways in and
around our capital in order to accommodate the ever growing population.
In the early seventies a great percentage of our country still did not
have asphalt roads, running water, electricity and telephone service.
Meanwhile the Imperial Air Force had the most advanced jets, second
only to the U.S air force. The Iran-Iraq war demonstrated just how effective
those jets really were. I invite you to sometime visit Saudi Arabia in
order to witness how their Royal family has built a modern country out
of desert sand while keeping in tact their original values.
The troubles actually began when Reza Shah decided to put his bet on
the Nazis. When he lost the bet, in effect the Pahlavi rule was done with.
However the Pahlavis were lucky because the Allies decided to install Reza
Shah's son as a mere puppet so that they could continue to exploit Iran's
resources.
In the early fifties when the allies decided that their imperial puppet
should be allowed to stand on his own two feet, the puppet ran away at
the first sign of trouble simply because he did not wish to confront his
own prime minister whom was being backed by the communists. The allies
had to actually go back to Iran and re-install the puppet in order to prevent
the Soviets from indirectly controlling Iran's massive oil reserves.
In 1963 the puppet was finally standing on his two feet, or so it seemed,
when a molla named Khomeini started to poke fun at him in sermons and almost
overthrew him, except for Alam who stood against Khomeini's thugs in the
streets and saved the country.
In early 1978 when the riots began, Savak's third division advised the
Shah that an upheaval was being organized by so-called Islamic committees
taking directive from Khomeini.
Savak further advised him that these committees were actually consisted
of 1,500 trouble makers who had to be arrested and detained in order to
quash the riots. Savak even urged the Shah to make plans for free parliamentary
elections in order to render to the masses the comfort of progress and
keep them from joining the religious fanatics.
The Shah refused to listen to his own Savak advisors and in fact fired
Mr. Sabeti, the head of the Savak's third division and exiled him to Europe.
Instead he decided to appease the fanatics and their street thugs by betraying
his most loyal servants as he ordered their arrest and incarceration.
When that did not work the Shah decided to use extreme force by opening
fire on ordinary citizens at Jaleh Square. When that act proved to be the
catalyst for the end of his rule, the Shah decided to run away for the
last time with billions of dollars of our country's cash reserves, leaving
"his" nation at the mercy of the ruthless fanatics.
Are you nauseated yet? If not please read Abbas Milani's "The Persian
Sphinx".
Kambiz Ameli
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