Pictory

IRI made -- hold your breath -- 56 Billions dollars in a year!

//money.cnn.com/2006/07/27/news/companies/exx...
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(The politically correct response is to stick your head out of the window and shout "marg bar shah"...)
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That is US$ 10,000,000.00 PROFITS recorded for a 3 month cycle. That means 40 Billion Dollars in PROFITS.
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The profit is, clearly, in PROCESSING hydrocarbons, and not owning the pit they come from.
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That must be the reason IRI invested heavily in rocket science and steered clear of investing in PROCESSING and TRANSPORTING the stuff.
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Poor planning or treason per instructions from the Sisters?
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You decide.

Why is Shah still villified?

Because we in the international community hated the Shah of Iran, and we continue to tell you, Iranians, that he was a bad ruler. We will happily repeat "he was a tyrant" again and again. Lest we forget, we did call your "imam" a "holy saint" in '79, did we not?
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Someone here commented that he doesn't understand why, after all these years and 'the wonder' that is IRI, do Iranians still badmouth their great King?
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Simple, really. We have deduced that the Iranian national character suffers from a deep sense of insecurity due to the 1400 years of rule by non-Iranians (minus the "tyrant" and his father, of course!)
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Thus, to date, we continue to repeat and produce (seen Paul Kriwaczek's latest?) works from our various offices, including the every handy BBC and their (native :) staff, to completely ignore the fact about the Pahlavis.
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This dynasty scared us to death, you see. Who would have thought that a Persian King would arise again, after all these years? You really only need to consider our treatment of the tyrant once he was helpless in our hands. Oh, we tried to humiliate and scare him on a regular basis. We even gave him one of those scary rides into a Military base handled by our ever graceful ghetto soldiers. (Can you image what that must have been like for "HIM". Hahaha. Good show, as we say. :)
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Now hear this dear sheep minded Iranians. This is what we want from you, so do listen:
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1 - You are to for ever hate your Shah and the very notion of a King. You need to admit that you, Iranians, got it wrong for 2500 years and you finally see the light. (Leave the Kingdom for us.) Shahnameh. We piss on that you see, and you lot seem to like drinking our piss. Good for us, I say.
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2 - You are to mistake IRI for Islam. Islam has many (many) problematic notions, including various elements which regrettably put the old hair in our planned ointment for the world. Family. Values. Goodness. For "G"'s sake, these are all impediments to progress! We need a uniform, compliant, and 'statistically predictable' society. You will come to see our point, like it or not.
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What we have planned for your people is what we planned for Germans, Russians, and the Japanese. You have been identified and classified as a "warrior" nation. And the root of this has been established to be your peculiar Persian mindset, widely celebrated for its mystic and absolutist inclinations.
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Per our prior (Scientific) experiments in the field, we now know that the best means of pulling such collective rotten teeth is to put the subject nation through a cathartic process. See, you only need to review the story of Russia and USSR to get a clue of what's next in the story of Iran and IRI.
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We will help IRI achieve credible power just as we helped the Soviets gain the same during the cold war. Jet engines? We gave it to the Russians. Atomic Bombs? Dude, we sent detailed diagrams straight from New Mexico to our Comrades in the Soviet Union. Don't you think we are able to help our friends in IR in the same way?
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Poor Mohammad Reza. He should have known that we will not accept the claim to Sovereign Domain by any. The Kingdom is ours. For you, the plebian side show will do.

Mammad jaan

You say:

"Far more important than educated people, democracy needs EDUCATED POLITICAL LEADERS. The American people are very ill-informed when it comes to politics, but due to political parties, NGO, free press, etc., the US is a democracy. But, educated political leaders emerge only in freedom and with the existence of political parties, freedom of expression and thought, free press, etc."

Who should these political leaders be? Why should we delegate authority to some hypothetical political leader? You are right the majority of people are not politically savvy so they delegate that authority, but if it is not the job of the top 5%-10% of the educated elite to keep them in check and balance their actions then whose job is it? If you, as an accomplished scientist don’t carry that burden of responsibility, then who should? Democracy demands the burden of responsibility from us. The more of us, the better. We have to keep ourselves educated and balanced to prevent, what’s happened, to us so many times before, from happening again. I don’t expect you to change your mind or biases over night, but you have to be fair and balanced, because the burden of responsibility on the shoulders of people like you, should have a greater weight. You can’t expect the people Face it describes to share any of that responsibility. In time, we should strive to prepare them for it, but, for now, the burden is on us.

Baa Aarezoyeh movafaghiat baraayeh shoma va hameyeh Iraanian

Mammad Agha...

I am very sorry for your loses, I truly am. That proves my point even further, that nothing that IRI has achieved, if anything at all, can compensate for the crimes that they committed against people of iran. And in fact that is the biggest problem that I have with IRI.

I also congratulate you on your achievements, as it makes me very happy to see a successful countryman.

I suppose it is very difficult to change one man's mind in such brief discussion when it is conditioned for years to think otherwise. Let me just mention a few things.

You give credit to IRI for what positive achievements the people could have had by themselves even without IRI, but at the same time you don't seem to blame IRI for negative deeds such as chaos, war, brain drain, flight of capital, sanctions, corruption, waste, international demonization, population explosion, etc.

If you closely look at all the negative deeds of IRI, you will see that IRI has been directly responsible for all of them, from war to population explosion, from sanctions to brain drain, and so on.

For example, you don't seem to blame IRI for instigating the war (that I believe was khomeini's fault from day one due to his dismissing of army, lynching of generals, bad-mouthing of saddam, ...), but you do not give credit to shah for keeping peace when iran and iraq came very close to war in early 70's and shah was very concerned about avoiding that without losing any of iranian claims.

You seem not to blame IRI for brain-drain, but you do not give credit to shah for sending iranian students to the west, cost-free in some cases, and attracting them back for construction of the country.

On the other hand you blame the shah for far lesser mischiefs, such as single-party system, and so on. Is it better to have a single-party system (shah's) with lots of capital investment for refineries, steel mill, helicopter manufacturing, auto industries, ... or have (fake) multi-party system (IRI's) with flight of capital such that iran has to depend on india for its domestic refined gasoline needs?

You even go further and blame shah for resurrection of IRI and as a result for IRI crimes, but do not seem to blame mullas for stealing the revolution and their misdeeds.

By focusing on positive achievements of iran during IRI and negative deeds of shah, you end up comparing apples to oranges conveniently, and as a result you come up with "fantastic" achievements for IRI. That is why you are considered to be biased against shah.

You should use the same criteria to compare shah and IRI, either forgive the mischiefs on both sides and compare the positive achievements of one to the other's, or include the mischiefs on both sides. And you should also consider weighing the negatives and positives properly. Mass murders of IRI is in no way comparable to dissolving the two-party system into a single-party by the shah.

That is not to say that shah was perfect. Indeed he was not, but his achievements far exceeded those of his misdeeds and achievements of IRI, if any.

Similarly, you refer to us as Monarchists. I really do not know what this term means. I call myself Iranist, who can lean on any direction that is the safest bet for the collective people of my country. I believe that the two pahlavis were the best choice for the duration of their regime, given the level of education of iranians at the time. I still am not convinced that mosaddegh could safeguard the integrity of iran as his government was essentially broke (he asked for a few hundreds of millions of dollars from usa and was refused), and therefore I am hesitant to condemn shah for participating in the coup (that I believe was his legal right as well per iranian constitution of the time). On the other hand, I believe the biggest mistake of iranians was that they did not give bakhtiar a chance to prove himself, as iran's situation was totally different in 1979 that 1953. Iran was strong with lots of educated people, and shah was dying anyway. Maybe we could have the best of both worlds under bakhtiar. Maybe he could turn prince reza into a symbolic monarch or dissolve the monarchy peacefully once he would be established.

Let me finish by telling you about one of those fantastic achievements of IRI. In central iran there is a town by the name of Zeinabiyeh, where an emam-zadeh is buried. This place was a small village with a small mausoleum in shah's time. IRI spent a lot of money there for renovation of the mausoleum that turned the village into a small town. Inside mausoleum is indeed very nice and well taken care of. But outside mausoleum, lots and lots of people (mostly children and women) from surrounding villages come in each morning for begging as poverty pressures them - it is said that they provide other services too, such as sigheh, if one desired. The look of these people is really depressing as you see need and desperation in their eyes. The look of the children is indeed hear-breaking there.

Re: Mammad

Thank you for your response.

Regarding chaos, again I will say this, why, for example, there is a sanction against Iran? Why the IRI cannot be a more responsible entitiy in the world and avoid these sort of things that leads to "chaos", as you call it. Why the pahlavis not only were not under any sanctions, but also were getting the most modern technology and training form the west? Or the South Koreans? Or the Spanish? Why can't the IRI do the same for Iran?

You could use "chaos" as an excuse to be factored in. But only when the chaos is of no fault of the IRI to begin with.

That is why you are biased. There are many monarchist that do the same in favor of the shah. I argue against them as well. Bias and logic simply don't work together. I am sorry, but you are not looking at this on scientific terms. Your mind is more controlled by your biases and prejudices.

Next, regarding your "fantastic" infrastructure build up under the IRI, I want to repeat that you have to look a the "rate". RATE. RATE. RATE. I repeated it three times for it to sink in. I am sure you are familiar with mathematical curves and rates of change and derivatives. I hope your field of study allows you to be familiar with these terms.

I cannot present it here since this site does not have the capability, but if you could draw the curve of growth under the pahlavis, it would look like y=x^2. That is it was exponential. Under the IRI, it is more like y=x, that is it is more linear. I have acutally plotted some numbers (GNI, GDP, mortality, literacy, etc.) and verified this. I will one day present it in this site. But I hope that I have at least gained your trust with numbers, and you would take my word.

Therefore the "rate" of progress under the pahlavis was far higher than under the IRI. Even if we assume that their revenues were the same (adjusted for inflation and population and chaos and available resources.)

Does that mean that you have to become a pro-shah individual? Of course not! But you have to be first and foremost a defender of the truth. You can be AGAINST the shah, and yet give him credit when it is due.

If your family had suffered so much under the IRI, then I find it irresponsible of you to praise the IRI, when that praise is not due.

movafagh bashid! 

Anonymous4now

Dear Anonymous4now:

I do not know what I said that you interpreted it as me saying that the IRI is a source of great progress in Iran.

All I have been saying is that, to be objective, a lot of work for the infrastructure of the country has been done, particularly in the light of all the things that have happened to Iran, from revolutionary chaos, to 8 years of Iran/Iraq war, to sanctions, to flight of capital, to the great brain drain, to the population explosion.

Now, does that mean that the IRI is good? Absolutely not. Does that mean that it has not committed any crime? Too many to count, and we only know a fraction of it. Does that mean that Iran is a better place in terms of moral values? Absolutely not; it is a far worse place. Does that mean that there is no curruption? There is, at an unimaginable level and, again, we only know a fraction of it.

But, none of these has any contradiction with saying that a lot of work has also been done. Do not take it from me, take it from INTERNATIONAL sources.

My main point has always been: The worst thing about the IRI is its bloody, reactionary, self-righteous nature, because that prevents democratization of the country, which is a prerequisite to solving Iran's problems.

More!

Dear Mammad, like you, I am a scientist, so I try to be objective and set aside emotions, although, sometimes it is hard, faced with the brutality and the inhumane nature of this regime. You perceive the IRI to be progressive and instrumental in the advancement of certain material things. I’ll get to that in a minute, but aren’t social, moral, and culture advancement as important? Can you honestly say that the moral fabric of the society in Iran is better than before the revolution? Have the hopes and aspirations of the people advanced beyond those in 1979? Last night I heard from some relatives that their two young sons (19 and 20) were at a party with friends, when the party was raided and everyone received 70 lashes. On another thread, here on Iranian.com, where I called the IRI worst than any apartheid, someone objected and called it an exaggeration. What can be worse than the invasion of the privacy of your own home, in the most literal sense, stoning and public hangings aside? Wouldn’t you say that Iran, has at least regressed in the human rights and social rights arena, and wouldn’t that make the Shah’s era more progressive? That there was and is a brain drain, would point to the inequality and the retardation of the system doesn’t it? There were as much enticement for the educated to leave Iran or remain wherever it was they were being educated, during the Shah’s era, but there was no such brain drain, back then. Isn’t that a litmus test for progress during the Shah’s era and, lack there of, for the IRI?

With regards to the material wealth and how Iran and Iranians may have or not have benefited from it, I have some numbers I would like to share with you. In 2006, the total income of Iran, from oil, was $56 Billion according to the Economics journal, Expansion. Of this amount 35% - 40% were diverted into the various “institutes” according to the following breakdown:

Bonyadeh Ghodseh Razavi 7.1%
Bonyadeh Mostaza’afan 5.7%
Bonyadeh Sepaheh Passdaran 5.5%
Bonyadeh Fatemeh Zahra 3.6%
Bonyadeh Sahebol Zaman 3.3%
Bonyadeh 15 Khordad 1.1%
Bonyadeh Zeynabeh Kobra 1%
Komiteh Emdad Emam Khomeini 0.9%
Bonyadeh Shohada 0.6%
Bonyadeh Basijian 0.2%
Other organizations 5.4%

None of these organizations were or are accountable to anyone and although, as of 2002, they are all to pay taxes, not one has been made to pay up. Bonyadeh Mostaza’afan alone has 400,000 employees, and is headed by Rafigh Doost, whose biggest accomplishment in life was to drive Khomeini from the Airport to Behesht Zahra, in 1979. His personal wealth is over $10 Billion. Naategh Noori who used to earn a living teaching Arabic and Persian to religious families, became the head of Majlis and is now living in a house that has an area of 30,000 sqm (square meters) with its own helicopter pad. It also houses a museum of ancient artifacts that archeologists dig up but his friend rafigh doost diverts to him through the Mostaza’afin Bonyad so he can sell them on the international market. Arzi, the previous minister of Post and Telegraph owns a 37,000 sqm home that is adorned with Italian marble statues and stairs. It has 7 entrances, guarded both with dogs and people. Hadaad Aadel, the parliament speaker, has a house known as the 10 Billion Tooman palace that was given to him by the Mostaza’afin bonyad. Valayati and other khodies (not to mention the mullahs each one of whome acts as the Godfather of a "family") have amassed similar riches, at the expense of the population at large. So you see it is good to be a khodi, and in that sense, there has been a lot of progress for the Khodies. So about 40% of the wealth of the nation is being plundered by the 15% khodies and used for personal advancement and investment in the Persian Gulf states and other Arab and non Arab countries.

What I don’t understand is why those people, who will never be considered a khodi, to enjoy the benefits of belonging to this fraternity, come to the defense of this rag tag band of narcissists.

It is befitting to turn Obeid Zaakaani’s allegory of the moosh o Gorbeh (moosh the people and Gorbeh the mullah) into a before and after revolution contrast (moosh the people and Gorbeh the government) in the following two beits:
(unfortunately I couldn't put it down in Persian font, so forgive me for presnting it in farglisi)

Saali yek daaneh meegereft az maa
Haal hersash shodeh faraavaanaa
In zaman panj panj meegirad
Chon shodeh zahed o mosalmaanaa

Baa dorood

To: Jamshid and Face it

Thank you both for responding. This is the last time I am responding. We need to move on to other subjects, and we won't get anywhere through short comments.

To both of you:

1. My young brother (23 years old) and 3 cousins (19-24) were all executed by the IRI. A brother-in-law was in jail for 3.5 years, another for one year.

I had extreme difficulties with the SAVAK, when I was a student at Tehran University. A cousin went to jail, another one escaped and lived in exile until the Shah was overthrown.

2. Both of you think I am biased. First of all, your opinion is respected, even if not correct. Secondly, there is a difference between being biased and make directed comments along the lines that one believes in. We are either political people or we are not. I do not know about you, but I am. Therefore, any comment that I make is along what I believe in. My family and I have always been republican (not Republican), and anti-mornarchy.

To Face it:

I did not compare the IRI's entire oil income with one year of the Shah, nor was I comparing a year of the IRI with the best year of the Shah. Jamshid and I were discussing oil income PER CAPITA. So, I took Iran's oil income in 2007 (which, by the way, IS the best of the IRI), and compared it with 1975 (which was also presumably the Shah's best).

But, at the same time, most of the work that the Shah did for Iran was in the 1970s. It was then that ambitious projects were started, and the Shah developed the illusion of being a world leader.

Far more important than educated people, democracy needs EDUCATED POLITICAL LEADERS. The American people are very ill-informed when it comes to politics, but due to political parties, NGO, free press, etc., the US is a democracy. But, educated political leaders emerge only in freedom and with the existence of political parties, freedom of expression and thought, free press, etc.

The Shah did not allow true political parties and groups to exist. The Shah did not allow a free press to exist. The Shah eliminated the secular opoosition - whether nationalist or leftist - hence making religious groups the only alternative.

No, if we are to have free voting, the choices should not be the IRI and monarchy. The choices should be the IRI, the monarchy, and a secular republic. Then, we will see which choice is picked.

I do not believe in monarchy, because I do not believe in a political system with UNELECTED LEADERS. The Shah, at a personal level, could have been quite a nice man (although he was famously weak and arrogant), but that is not why we like or dislike monarchy.

To Jamshid:

In my last response I accepted that I was wrong about 1969. In fact, right after I posted it, I recognized my error, but could not correct it. But, my main point, namely, INFLATION-ADJUSTED oil price, not ITS PRESENT VALUE, was also accepted by you.

As a scientist, who has published over 300 papers in some of the most prestigious science journals (in addition to several books), I can only talk about things based on documented facts. I told you where to look for statistics on Iran: Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy; The British Petroleum Annual Statistics; the World Bank; UN Development Programs; International Monetary Funds; Journals on International Economy, etc. None - I repeat none - comes from Iran.

I did not try to change the subject. It was you who first pointed out the ruined Iran that the Pahlavies inherited. So, if that is a good factor to take into account, it is good for all periods of time, not just when you want.

But, during the Pahlavies main period of ruling (1304-1356), we never had revolutionary chaos, war, international sanctions. We have had all of them during the IRI.

You are absolutely correct when you say, why did Khomeini not end the war with Iraq. In my opinion, only the first two years of Iran/Iraq war were patriotic and justified. I have said this many times in my political articles and interviews, and have been savagely attacked by the IRI supporters. But, the point is, war is war, regardless of whether it is justified. Should the Iraqi people worry about whether the invasion of their country by the US was legal or illegal, or worry about rebuilding? Revolutionary chaos is choas, no matter what.

It is entirely appropriate to factor in all the factors that can potentially help or hinder the progress of a country, including those that I listed. This is not what I say, this what experts do. You can disagree with it, and I respect that, but that won't change anything.

I repeat once again: The problem with the IRI is its bloody, reactionary, self-righteous nature.

Thank you for a civilized and informative discussion. I am sure we will discuss things again, when it comes to other subjects.

More...

Mid-seventies was in midst of arab oil embargo that peaked oil price for a short while. So it is incorrect to compute oil revenue based on a peak in oil prices. Need to compute the area under the oil price curve for an exact computation of revenue, remember that?

For those who travel to iran, it seems so dishonest to claim that IRI has done anything fantastic. Even the lousy highways that they have built are so basic in today's standards -- I have traveled thru them. The head of IRI air transportation was saying a few months back that anytime a plane takes off, his heart tumbles as he knows how badly maintained the planes are, and he is afraid that the plane might crush!

Democracy needs intense education that people did not have; without education, democracy turns into a show, a charade, an act of deceit, and a tool for making mistakes with nobody to blame but the uneducated voters, as we are seeing in IRI. Democracy is very good, but it is only a means, not an end.

One should also look at who the audience are. For american audience, we can talk about atrocities of the shah, the '53 coup, shah's single party system, lack of press freedom, bogus elections, corruptions, etc. This could also bring attention by the misguided and naive people of 1979. But for people of today's iran (with empty stomachs and no job, in deep poverty and depression, with only their bodies to sell (sorry to say) for income), democracy, coup, party system, personal life of shah, and likes are non-sense luxuries that do not bring food to their tables. For them, it is childish to bring those issues up when other much higher priorities exist.

Imagine: if we have totally free vote, choosing between IRI (that people have seen) and Monarchy of shah (that people have seen also - let's assume for a minute that shah is not dead!), without any other choice (just like the first vote after revolution, but this time people know what an islamic republic is); I bet that a good majority of people would vote for Monarchy.

It is really okay for someone to dislike or hate the shah; but should come out honestly and state the reason, for example: that I don't like him because I don't like him; or I don't like him because of these indisputable facts; or I don't like him because of my religious beliefs; rather than basing it on utopia, sexed-up developed facts, or how corrupt he was because xyz says that he slept with abc.

Let's be at least honest, since he is dead anyway and he and his dynasty will never return to rule again. For now, we are stuck with IRI with all their godly ruthlessness, thievery, fanaticism, and above all, their utmost incompetence in internal and international affairs.

Re: Mammad

Thank you for your response. I am glad to know that you (or any other Iranian) are successful and well known. I'd like to ask what was your field of study in univeristy? Just curious. Also, in no ways am I attempting to belittle your success in your field of studies.

As far as your response, I asked you in my previous post not to jump into something else. You and then later I were clearly speaking about 1969, not 1975. I know that they are all related. But my point was to show you that you were in error. Therefore your opinion could not have been based on actual and true facts. It must have been based on off-the-mark guesses most likely taylored to your "feelings" about the shah.

You are biased, as I once was, against the shah. Once presented with irrefutable data that contradicts your opinion, instead of pausing and reevalutating your opinion, you instead attempt to turn another stone and find something else to prove that the shah was this or that. Again, just as I once did.

As far as 1975, you are quite correct. Adjusted for inflation, Iran generated just slightly more oil revenue than today, partly for having the largest oil refinery of the world in abadan which was destroyed and never replaced after the war. However, I want to remind you that this was true only for three years of 75 to 77. IRI on the hand, is been making large revenues from oil for more than a decade.

Either way, adjusted for inflation and population, the grand total oil revenue in the last 29 years under the pahlavis was minuscule compared to that under the IRI in the last 29 years. This is base on a rough estimate I did using the sources in my previous post. If you would like either of us can do the actual math and compute the exact figure.

And despite of less revenue and less resources, Iran's rate of progress and growth during pahlavis was overwhelmingly higher than during IRI.

You had a large paraghraph in which you listed the things that I did not consider such as damage from war, cost of dealing with direct and indirect toll of loss of human lives, etc.

Did you read my response to this in the last post? What about the termoudous cost and losses lost by the ghajars? The pahalvis did not inherit the Iran of 1978. They inherited one of the most backwarded countries in the world with less than 1 percent literacy.

In order to be fair, you have to look at the starting point. You have to look at what you started with. What were your resources? Are you arguing with me that Iran of 1921 was better off than Iran of 1989 in terms of resources? EVEN comparing to the world relative to its time. You keep talking about losses incured during war. In this argument IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER THE LOSS WAS CAUSED BY A WAR OR BY AN INCOMPETENT GHAGAR DYNASTY OR BY LITTLE GREEN PEOPLE FROM MARS. What matters is what were the available resources to rebuild Iran. IRI had more resources in 1989 than pahalvis did in 1921.

Your analysis of the "war cost" excuse is analogous to two competing business owners. One goes to Las Vegas and looses everything in gambling, and therefore falls behind in competition. Then he blames his gambling for being behind. YOU CAN'T DO THAT! The gambling WAS his fault. He cannot use that as an excuse. Similarly, the IRI is to be blamed for the prolongment of the war.

Why didn't khomeini ended the war when he could in 1982 after saddam offered peace? Do you realized how much the IRI is to be blamed for prolonging the war another for another seven deadly years? Yes the war caused great damage, BUT IT WAS IRI'S FAULT TO A GREAT EXTENT.

Additionally, why there was no war during the pahalvis? Why didn't Saddam attack Iran before the revolt?

Lastly, you say "The point is, just because we do not like a system does not mean that we should close our eyes on its positive aspects..." Doesn't this apply to you regarding the pahlavis?

Mammad, when faced with irefutable facts and numbers, if you find yourself turning every stone in hopes of finding something, anything, in order to hang on to your belief, then it is time for reevaluating that belief. And you won't be capable of doing that unless you find the strength to abandon your biases and start blank and from scratch.

Jamshid Aghaa: You are slightly right

Jamshid Aghaa:

First of all, I have no interst in deceiving anybody.

If you knew my real name, you could Google my name, and you would see that you would get tens of thousands of hits - I am not bragging, I am an extremely well-known scientist internationally. I only entered such discussions less than two weeks ago, ONLY because I want to learn and also teach the little that I know. By the way, my political articles are also extremely well-known, and I give interviews all the time.

You are right about one point. The price of oil in 1969 was very low.

I checked my sources. Right after the Arab-Israel war, when the Arabs stopped selling oil to the West, the oil price reached $13, and by 1975 it was around $15. So, please check your CPI index and see what you get for 1975, which is also when the Shah was doing most of the things that he did for Iran.

But, on other aspects, you are not right. For example, you do not consider the $1 trillion damage on Iran by Iraq. You do not consider the 700,000 Iranians injured during the war, many for life, who have to be taken care of. Taking care of such veterans is extremely expensive, and is the same issue as taking care of the US veterans, always a huge political problem. You do not consider the future potential contribution to the country of 300,000 dead Iranian soldiers. You do not consider the huge brain drain and capital flight as a result of the Revolution and the war. You do not consider the empty treasury right after the Revolution and after the Iran/Iraq war. You do not consider the worldwide sanctions imposed on Iran during the war. You do not consider the huge cost of Iran/Iraq war (which is separate from the $1 trillion damage). You do not consider that the IRI started rebuilding only in 1989, less than 19 years ago. You do not consider housing and feeding for a much larger population, which is separate from building the infrastructure.

You say that Iran of after Revolution had more resources in terms of educated people. Wrong, because you did not consider the brain drain.
Iran has had more educational resources since 1989, but those have been set up during the IRI.

You say that Iran was extremely backward in 1921. Correct. But, backward relative to what? Obviously the world AT THAT TIME. So, you cannot compare Iran of 1989 to Iran of 1921, rather you should compare Iran of 1989 with the 1989 WORLD, to see where Iran was and where the rest of the world was.

You computations of the oil income per capita is also wrong. you misunderstood what I meant.
You can only compare apple with apple.

So, what we need to do is comparing EQUIVALENT incomes, i.e., AFTER adjustment for inflation. So, let's say that, compared to 1975, the inflation-adjusted price of oil at this time is $18, roughly 1/5 of its present value. So, you divide $65 billion by 5, giving you $13 billion. In 1975, Iran was exporting roughly 5 million barrels per day. That generated roughly $25 billion in income. So, now we have a comparison in terms of the real income and populations.

Clearly, this is not something that we can discuss or agree in a short space. You may have good points, but it is not like I have none.

The point of my comments was NOT to support the IRI. I have lost several family members to the IRI. The point is, just because we do not like a system does not mean that we should close our eyes on its positive aspects, as few as they may be. One must be objective in order to obtain a realistic picture of what is happening. Otherwise, we will be lost in our biases.

Re: Mamad, Face it, and all others...

Therefore, your following statement is proven, irrefutably, wrong: "Today the price of oil at $97/barrel is, after adjusting for inflation, the same as it was in the late 1960s..." No. It is not the same. It is 5.7 times more. 2. However the issue is more than just price per barrel. We have to look at the entire oil revenue. In 2007 Iran generated about $65 billion in oil revenue. In 1969, it generated less than $1 billion, or $5.75 billion in 2007 dollars. Therefore, adjusted for inflation, today Iran is generating (65/5.75=) 11 times more in oil revenue than it was in the late sixties. Therefore, your following statement is proven, irrefutably, wrong: "... the present oil income seems very high compared to then. But, in terms of purchasing power, it is the same, or even less." No, it is neither the same, nor less. It is actually much more. 3. Now let's adjust for population. In 1969, Iran's population was 28 million. Today it is 72 million, 2.6 times more. So adjusted for BOTH inflation AND population, the IRI is still generating (11/2.6=) 4.2 times more in oil revenue than the previous regime did in 1969. That is quadruple. Therefore, your following statement is also proven, irrefutably, wrong: "the oil income PER CAPITA is actually much less now than then." No, it is not less. Today, per capita oil income is 4.2 times MORE than it was in the late sixties. 4. Also consider that Iran's literacy rate in 1969 was less than today; therefore IRI has more resources to build Iran. We can adjust for that too, but the results will contribute significantly against the IRI. 5. You also wanted to adjust for ABILITY to progress. You said that " inspite of two years of revolutionary chaos in 1357-59, and 8 years of war with Iraq the amount of work done on Iran's infrastructure since 1989 is actually fantastic." I shall prove this statement to be false as well. In 1989, IRI began Iran's progress after 8 years of devastating war. In 1921, Pahlavis began Iran's progress after 130 years of devastating ghajar rule. There is no question that Iran of 1989 was, by very large factors, more resourceful, more advanced, more built, more literate and much richer than Iran of 1921. Do you object to this? Let me know if you need references to verify this. But despite of IRI's immense advantages, all of Iran's indexes of growth rate were much higher during the pahlavis than during the IRI. This includes growth in: per capita income, GDP, reduction of poverty, mortality rate, literacy, sanitation, child and adult nutritional intake, creation of jobs and reduction of unemployment, development of infrastructure and industries, development of oil industries. Note that I am referring to "rate of growth". Growth rate is the primary tool to make these kinds of comparisons between two different periods in the same country, or between two different countries. That is because the available resources may be quite different and therefore the comparison could become unfair. For example, considering the available resources in Iran in 1921 and in 1989, constructing 500 miles of paved highway was not too difficult for the IRI in 1989, but it was a significant and overwhelming effort in 1921 due to lack of resource. 6. Finally, you claim "My stats are not made up. I am a scientist, and only deal with hard, scientifically-irrefutable facts." Given the facts and the numbers in this post, I'll let yourself and others ponder on your scientific objectivity and on your "hard irrefutable facts" and numbers. Inflation calculator: //data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl Oil prices and revenues: //www.wtrg.com/prices.htm World Databanks: //www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/tables.html //www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/ There are many more data banks. You can google the following: world AND (databank OR "data bank" OR database)

Jamshid: Good Job!

Mammad: none of this is personal. I am just trying to understand what is going on.

I was really puzzled to see his numbers too and had no time and patience to check them out. I was also puzzled to see that he believes that "...the amount of work done on Iran's infrastructure since 1989 is actually fantastic." As I could clearly see Japan built from WW II ashes in less than 30 years to be an international industrial power-house. Or S. Korea, or Taiwan, or any of asian tigers.

This just did not pan out with my personal observations in iran, when I see how desperate, lost, confused, puzzled, and depressed people are, specially children and young. Neither did it match with the dream of so many youths to get out of iran, including some of those who are still pro-IRI (!), He also sounded educated, so his attitude was yet more puzzling. Until I saw in one of his comments that he claimed to be a "practicing muslim". That explained a lot in my views. Practicing muslim can mean a lot of things, among them:

(a) You prefer IRI since they are associated with islam (or claim to be) anyway. It is better to be islamic republic than anything else.

(b) You believe in superiority of islamic culture over iranian culture, therefore anything islam-centered must be superior to anything iran-centered.

(c) At the center of islam is the concept of nation of islam (ommatte islam). That totally dissolves the concept of iran and iranians and makes them irrelevant and meaningless.

This tendency often is unconscious. Ayatollah rafsanjani was asked a few years back by a student in university of tehran if he considered himself more of a moslim or an iranian. And his response was that it did not matter or "farghi nemikonad." And we all know the famous khomeini quotes such as he felt nothing [for iran] upon returning from exile, or that as long as one person remains alive, that is sufficient for islam. More examples and quotes are available under another thread on this site. For them iran was simply a base of operation and a milking cow, nothing more; and iranians were a bunch of worthless godless bunch who committed lots of crimes, from tolerating shah for so many years to educating their daughters and allowing them to show their faces without veil, ...

There are lots of reason why people still bash the late shah. I believe that this issue needs far more "research" as it has cultural and psychological reasons. A lot of people disliked the shah and then formed conjectures and facts around their emotion to justify their feeling. For example:

(1) Some Iranians do not like authority and never get along with their superiors well. We all remember this quote from tehranis who were passing the red lights right after revolution that "we did not revolt for someone to be able tell us to stop at the traffic light."

(2) (I am sorry to say but) Some Iranians are jealous, specially towards someone that they know intimately. That leads to: what does shah have that I do not have? Why should this descendant of an uneducated bald villager, i.e., reza shah, be the king and not me (this is partially taken from a shah-basher's quote in another thread on this site).

(3) (I am sorry to say but) Some Iranians are master blamers. They take ownership of all their successes and blame others for all their failures. So who better than shah to be blamed for all the failures of all iranians, as well as take over of mullas, as well as the failures of IRI in the pursuing 29 years, and maybe for eternity. Even people who may have rightfully complained about corruption never realized that the widespread corruption was BY the people FOR the people. Shah could not watch 30 million people all the time, and even if he could, then he would have been called a dictator in a police state. People hardly take personal responsibility.

(4) Iran moved very fast in the last 20 years of shah. People had no time to adjust to that change. People each had a car without really knowing how to drive, and so on. That made them unhappy.

(5) Some Iranians have high and unrealistic expectations, or as we say "khod bozorg bin" as if they know better than anybody else how to do things. This quote is from Bazargan in the early days of revolution when he became PM that "[we did not know that] the system of government was so huge and complex..."

Of course there can be few who may have justification for hating shah such as those who lost a loved innocent in his prisons, if there is such a person. And there were some minority "intellectuals" that really had good intentions but did not know that the only ones that really knew what they were doing with high goals were mullas and lefties. They were deceived by their own gullibility and lack of knowledge to trust khomeini and fall for his intense lies and exaggerations.

It is very hard to disconnect one from his emotions and unconscious tendencies. We need some in-depth analysis of why revolution happened and why some people still like/prefer IRI, from the psychological point of view. Surprisingly there may be ways to criticize shah with objectivity and based on hard facts, but one almost never hears that.

Payandeh Iran and iranian culture.

who deleted my post?

Dear Bahramerad

I think your words are a bit harsh on Iranians within Iran. The IRI consists of only about 15% (this number seems high but is reported) of the Iranian population. The other 85% are victims. I agree that some of them are willing victims due to ignorance but the vast unwilling majority is also suffering. The people I have impatience with are the newly graduated pseudo intellectuals from the same intellectual kindergarten with the same limited vocabulary (independence, nokari, nokarsefat, neo-this and neo-that) who are obsessed with a global conspiracy of the American-British-Zionist alliance and their perceived propaganda mouth pieces, the various NEWS agencies. They are, out of ignorance, giving life and legitimacy to the IRI. The ignorance of the Iranians within Iran is forgivable, given the circumstances, but the ignorance of people living in the West enjoying freedom of speech, with all the access to information, books and open discussions, is unforgivable. Go through some of the threads on Iranian.com to see how ignorant they still are about the recent history of Iran and how they idolize people. No one of them has the slightest inkling about what Mossadegh did or stood for but they sheepishly idolize him as the one and only lost chance for Iranian democracy, and naturally demonize the Shah, and by association, his father. The IRI, to them, is the long lost hope of independence, without knowing what that word means, and how Iran has struggled to maintain its Independence for the past 80 years. Many of them believe in the ideology of Islam but think that the IRI experiment is in its crude stage and so they are living here hoping that things will evolve in time for them to live under the banner of a democratic Islam. Others are completely oblivious to the pain and suffering In Iran and view Iran as a cheap vacation spot. All they see and report on are the newly constructed buildings and highways that house them or get them from one place to another, on their vacations. These are the people you should target and, if you have the patience, educate.

IRI

In one of your treads you refer to some ignorant Iranians as Imbeciles.
I quite agree with you. There are still millions of imbeciles in Iran - They believe in the
phoney ' Jomhori_e_Islami' - which neither is Jomhori or Islami.
Furthermore these people still support the Islamic Republic of Idiots (The IRI) by flocking to the sham election boxes designed to fool them into thinking that they have any share in their miserable life's affairs. They indeed deserve to be ruled by a bunch of Bloody Fascist Mullah's and be wiped, drawn and quartered and be hanged from the nearest crane. (as they are on a daily basis in this God forsaken country).

Stories from iran - who were those iranians?

A book has been recently published in iran about contitutional revolution and the first Majles. It was out-of-print when I looked for it there. One person who had read it was saying that except for a very very few representatives, the rest of the representatives in the first Majles were uneducated folks from bazaar who could not even understand an issue brought in front of them, people like the kaleh-paacheh-paz from bazaar were elected to represent people.

An older relative of mine was a foot soldier in reza shah's army and was telling me that reza shah made unexpected visits to army depot frequently; for example very early in the morning, to see if soldiers were still sleeping. Or he would show up at lunch time, asking to visit the kitchen and taste soldiers' food. He would scream if kitchen was not clean or if food was not good. He would often throw the pot of food in the middle of kitchen if food that he tasted was bad, screaming that this food was good for dogs, not soldiers.

As a child I myself remember that we were constantly cursed by neighbors for having the sinful TV antenna on the house roof in a small city in iran.

I remember we had stone thrown at us because the girls in our house had no hejaab AND went to school.

I remember we were called unislamic if sound of music from our radio was heard outside the house.

I remember that a neighboring lady was harassed and insulted when she asked for "sanjed" on new year's eve (for haft-seen) from the local shop. Celebration of norooz traditionally was considered unislamic. The shop-keeper told the lady that she should go to masjed instead and read koran. I was there.

I remember that rumors were spread in our town that a girl that had put on make-up on aashoora had turned into a dog, and people claiming that they had seen that dog/girl -- and as a child I believed it.

I remember people advising my family that a "jen-gir" must be brought in when a member of family got sick. They would swear that they had seen the jen-gir capturing a few screaming "jens".

I remember a local medicine woman would pull chicken legs out of an influenza patient's throat claiming that her clogged nose was due to some chicken bones stuck in his nose.

I remember a neighbor saying that she went to public bath early in the morning and saw it was full of "jens" who were washing themselves without using their hands. She was swearing that they all had horse-like paws instead of feet.

I remember people suggesting that we should find excrement of a white dog and set it to fire to find a good husband for the girl in the house.

I remember a cousin writing a verse from koran on a lady's stomach in the family so she would bear a son and not daughter.

I remember people suggesting that few drops of milk from a virgin girl (called aghouz) would help certain diseases go away.

I remember people were saying that the cure for not bearing a child was to make a visit to emam reza's mausoleum, and the rest you can guess...

I was there, I saw all of these, just a few years before revolution of 1979.

These were the typical majority of iranian people who gathered around khomeini, in addition to the deceived intellectuals from northern tehran. These were the people that shah, despite all his undeniable short-comings had to educate and pull into 21st century. These people were not ready for self-determination, as we saw their utter mistakes once they got the chance in 1979. Mistakes that pushed iran back many years and destroyed our country in 30 years. Thirty years that a country like iran did not have to waste. Those people were still stuck in the 10th century and were not ready for a 21st century political system. You never give a loaded gun to a child, if you do, as we saw, a country is ruined, and only the thugs and charlatans prosper in power and wealth.

Blaming shah solely for the short-comings and backwardness of people whom he ruled is utterly unfair. Blame the shah objectively, not for the sake of disliking him, or because he had unattractive personal life. Even the fact that he came to power as a result of a coup is irrelevant as it was "them" who brought him in for "their interests", and in return, he served the country well, considering how backward the country was. What could he do? Hand in the country to mullas even sooner or let "them" divide iran? A weak country can be easily jerked around, a strong progressive country cannot.

Shah is dead and pahlavis are gone forever, but we need to be at least fair, truthful, and objective in evaluating the past, without emotions and prejudice, so that we will not make the same mistakes again and again, as we did once. Pahlavis are gone, hating them, insulting them, cursing them, and blaming them for everything has no impact whatsoever on either the dead shahs or iran.

I know so many will jump into collusion and accuse me of being a shahi. I try to understand why people bad-mouth shah still, and I really do not see why. Yes, maybe he could be better, or maybe not. Could YOU be better than him, had you been in charge of the people that he ruled on? yes it would have been better if he was democratic, but was it possible for him to be any better without handing the country onto a bunch of fanatic mullas even earlier, those who destroyed our country once they got the chance. Are you absolutely sure that if he had somehow agreed to step aside and let mosaddegh rule, the country would have been better off?

Be realistic and practical in a real world.

Dear Anonymous4now

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I agree with many of them.

The question that I was addressing was NOT whether we could have done a lot better, had there not been the IRI regime. Of course, we could have, but not under the Shah and the Pahlavies. If we ever have a democratic, transparent political system, then, given Iranians' great talent and potentials, and Iran's natural resources, only the sky would be the limit as to how high Iran could get.

What I was saying was that, work has been done by the IRI but that, it is due to the bloody, reactionary, self-righteous nature of the IRI,
that we can never realize our true potentials.

My stats are not made up. I am a scientist, and only deal with hard, scientifically-irrefutable facts. Anyone can check the stats, not by looking at what the IRI says, but by looking at what international organizations
say.

Thank you again.

Re: Face it

You are dealing with ignorants. You have a better chance of making  an illiterate villager in a remote location of Iran understand your argument, than these ignorants.

Ignorance

Iran in those days was considered among the WWII defeated countries. Even the mighty Germany and Japan had to go through the same ordeals and humiliations.

Addtionally, due to 130 years of ghajar incompetence, the Iran that the pahlavis inherited was a weak country with no army, no industries and no money. The literacy rate was less than one percent.

With those condtions who could stand against not one, but three superpowers? Are you such ignorants that you cannot realize this simplest of things on your own? 

I am amazed that in 2008 there are still Iranians with such backwarded mentalities. The more I see imbeciles like those in this thread, the more I understand why it is so difficult to accomplish anything in Iran.

Dear Mammad

The most important step in constructing a building is to lay down the foundation correctly and to put a framework in place. After that progress follows. Overcoming the threshold is the most difficult task in any process. Following the precedent, once it is set, is a lot easier. Your stats and numbers are suspect because physical experience tells a different story, but even if we give those numbers credence, they are not achievements, in the face of the progress before it, because the road had already been paved. Rate of progress has an exponential nature and after some 30 years a lot more should have been expected had it not been for the impediments the IRI has created. The same people who had achieved the progress of the pre-revolutionary years, namely Iranians, are now making progress, but the priorities of the IRI puts emphasis on utilizing their resources for enforcing Hijab and amreh beh ma’roof and support of the various terrorist groups, instead of focusing on a modern vision for Iran.

Iran at the time Reza shah took was the illiterate and devastated country that Face it described earlier. The British had complete control over Iran and were hurriedly trying to diminish the Russian interest in Iran which had resulted in the loss of some 30% of Iranian territory. The British saw their chance to have a strong military man to avert the Russian influence, in Reza khan. Reza shah, had an innate mistrust of the British and the Russians, so he immediately turned to the Germans, for help. German engineers helped build roads, tunnels, bridges and railways. He was not a slick politician and would not have stood a chance in parliamentary debates, but had a vision for Iran and wanted to implement it his way. He emphasized education and sent students abroad to be educated and told them that they were being sponsored by the meager wealth of Iran and that they should take full advantage of their education and return to pay back their debt, with their services. Reza shah wanted Iran to have its own steel industry but the British and the Russians were unwilling to give him that technology. He finally struck a deal with Germans to build a steel factory in Karaj. The British gave an ultimatum to Reza shah to expel the German engineers, as the Second World War broke out, but he refused. The German ships carrying the cargo for building the steel factory were sunk by the British claiming they were mistaken for warships. His minister of War was bribed and the meager Iranian army was helpless in the face of the invading British Army. He was replaced by his son.

The Shah continued his father’s policy of emphasizing education. He also pursued his fathers quest for an Iranian steel industry, and as Fereydoon Hoveida describes in his book, he jumped up in joy, like a small child, when he found out that the Russians had finally agreed to give Iran steel know how in 1966. Iran had been assembling busses since 1962 which were being sold to Eastern European countries, and the first assembled car (peykan) was released in 1967. Iran began exporting shoes and chain stores started appearing. Refrigerators and heaters and air conditioners were being made in Iran. The Iranian economy which had been controlled by the Bazaar started to resemble a modern economy. I was in London with my parents in 1972, and saw Bargh Lameh towels on sale in shops on Oxford street.

Robert Graham, in his book “the Illusion of power” reported that the pace of progress was so fast that things started to break. The central government started issuing low interest loans so entrepreneurs could invest in the industrialization of Iran. But instead people invested in building. The building boom needed building supplies such as cement which were sitting on ships at various docks in the Persian Gulf and were expiring, because there were not enough of a trucking infrastructure to deliver them to their destination. More and more people had become affluent enough to travel abroad and send their children to various corners of the globe for education. In 1979, 12 million Iranians, out of 36 million, had a high school diploma. More importantly, primary and secondary education was compulsory, and other than in the remotest areas, everyone was being educated. Every year 300,000 students graduated from high school but there were only 20,000 places available in Universities. The problem was not building the facilities; it was lack of teachers and professors for the more than successful educational campaign of the Pahlavi era. Everyone wanted to be an engineer or a doctor and as always a life in the academia was less lucrative.

Iran had started a tractor and helicopter industry in Tabriz, and was starting to make spare parts for F16. The very same people who mock these achievements and say “That’s impossible! Not in Iran” turn around in the same sentence and say “have you seen the achievement of the IRI? They make their own missiles and warfare armaments!”. As if mullahs have any contribution to offer. Iranians have not changed. They are the same Iranians who had those achievements before the revolution. The governments which are responsible for setting the direction for progress have changed.

Had that pace of progress continued, one has to wonder where we would be. The first generation of Engineers and technicians assembled cars, the next generation built spare parts and the current generation is making cars- not very good ones, but if the next generation survives the IRI and stays in Iran then they will make excellent cars.

Dear Face it: Sorry

Dear Face it:

First of all, I am sorry for your sister and father.

Secondly, I am surprised about the MRI episode. My wife is a physician, and tells me that it is not true that there are only two MRIs in Iran. Besides, I have taken two MRIs of my own brain over the past 5 years in Tehran at two different clinics.

Third, if you read my last comment more closely, you will see that I said, "according to UN and the World Bank." The UN has all sorts of statistics on its members (especially its office of development), as does the WB. In addition, there are all sorts of other sources. Look, for example, at the site of the Energy Information Agency of the United States Department of Energy and the British Petroleum's Annual Statistics site about Iran's energy needs, production, oil, gas, etc.

Not a single datum was from an internal source, although I have many doctoral students in Iran, teach in Iran, and am well aware of what is going on.

I emphasize once again: The problem with the IRI is its nature. I know this particularly well, because I have lost family members, including my young brother, to the IRI.

Dear Mammad and funny

I do not know where your data is coming from, but if it is from IRI resources, it cannot be reliable. IRI reports that unemployment is 15% but in reality most people are either unemployed or underemployed or have temporary jobs. Those numbers are as good as claims by khomeini that shah killed 600,000 people. And do not match with reality.

My sister needed MRI a while back to check for a tumor and was told that there were only two MRI's in the country, one old one in Tehran and a rather newer one in Rafsanjan. And she could not get to any one of them due to the long waiting lists. In the west, most clinics have MRI machines.

My dad was hit by a motorcycle. He went for a scan or x-ray to check him out for head injury. The doctor in the clinic kicked him out, saying that he was too old (late 60's!) to be worth checking out.

You should see another BBC documentary from about a year ago, to see how iranian victims of iraqi chemical attacks from some 20 years ago are totally ignored by the government and live miserable lives. They include veterans that were hit by chemicals in the 80's.

Is this the infrastructure that you are talking about?

To funny: you are really funny. What I quoted was a "documentary" from BBC. That is sponsorship was BBC but in fact made by an iranian team. It was a film; films don't lie. And yes in the absence of any international reports (UN, etc.) I trust the bad old BBC far more than I trust IRI. Besides, I do not need BBC to tell me what is going on, as I see it with my own eyes when I am in iran. I only quoted that since other people may not have the same access to reality that I have.

Dear Face it

I do not know what your name is, so I go by what you leave, Face it. So,

Dear Face it:

Your are right about the rate of unemployment in the IRI. However, the measure of progress in a country is not its rate of unemployment. That rate is a measure of how robust the economy of that nation is.
The US was very powerful and advanced in the 1920s and 1930s, yet due to 1929 crash of the stock market, its rate of unemplyment was 30%.

The most important measure of progress in a country is the state of its infrastructure, and institution of higher educations. I give you some statististics, which are according to UN and World Bank.

The Pahlavies built 2700 km of railroad; today we have close to 10,000 km. In 1977, we had only 8,000 km of good roads between major cities; today we have close to 50,000. The number of higher education institutions in 1978 did not exceed the number of our hands' fingers; today we have over 65. We had no doctoral program in science and engineering in 1978; today we have them in every major university. In 1977 Iranian scientists in Iran hardly ever published in any credible international science journal; in 2006 according to Nature, the most prestigious science journal, Iranian scientists IN IRAN published 4000 articles in major international journals. In 1978 Iran was importing medical doctors from the Phillipines and India; today we are exporting them. In 1977 only 7% of all the villages in Iran had schools, electricity, drinking water, health clinics, and good roads connecting them to major highways; today the number is 98%. In 1977 natural gas supplied only 8% of energy consumption in Iran; today it provides 75% of electricity and 54% of all energies. In 1977 we had only a handful of major dams, today we have nearly 20. In 1977 people did not even know what geothermal energy was; today it provides a portion of energy in northwestern Iran. In 1977 Iran imported even the most minor weapons. Today, a major portion of the weapons for its armed forces are made in Iran. I can go on like this for page after page.

I repeat: The problem with the IRI is not that it has not done anything; rather it is its bloody, reactionary, religious, self-righteous nature.

funny

I love how this face it guy keeps citing references and citing BBC, that same british media outlet that constructed all these lies about Dr. Mossadeq in order to have him done with. Stop citing western sources, they are unreliable and have no credibility when it comes to a resiliant nation like Iran, which is standing up to them. Of course they are bitter and will show bad things.

LOL

Read your own comment one more time. There is nothing in it except for vulgarity. No matter how much you or other pro-IRI yell, all western countries will ignore you, and maybe beat on you every now and then, until you shape up and make something out of your country that every iranian can be proud of. I don't apologize for their behavior and I don't use it as excuse either, or blame others for an indefinite backwardness. For how many more decades should we blame others for our inability to shape up and turn our country into a decent country. You don't see norway jerked around despite being oil-rich. You don't see Japanese yelling on the streets because they were attacked 60 years ago. wonder why?

Yes, i am pro-mosaddegh and pro-shah, because mosaddegh was not thrown out by the shah, he was thrown out by foreign interests. Shah was actually a reluctant participant. Had he opposed that, a different trick had been played upon the weak iran. So both mosaddegh and shah, despite their disagreements, were victims of outside interests. Show me one better choice that we made, and I'll turn into an anti-shah on a dime. After all, we chose khomeini and IR when we had to make a free choice. That shows how unprepared and uneducated we were in 1979.

And as for shah's personal life, it does not matter a bit in this discussion. Being an alleged playboy (shah) or a self-claimed saint (khomeini) has no impact on one's leadership.

Mammad Jaan

I partially agree with you, and partially don't. Let's see:

(1, 2) The data that I have seen is that iran made more money in the last 29 years than all pahlavi years; even if take inflation and doubling of the population into account, based on your data, then that would be a wash. So, we are pretty much where we were in 1979 with per capita income diminished by a factor of more than 2 (with inflation it is far more). That means that we had no economic growth in 29 years. Even in the area of gas and oil exploration that iran has had some 100 years of experience, with the iranian ingenuity that I, and probably you, believe in, we could do nothing without the west, the chinese, the indians, etc. Shame on us for not being able to be self-sufficient after 100 years of experience in oil and gas industries.

(3) Here is where I totally disagree with you that "the amount of work done on Iran's infrastructure since 1989 is actually fantastic. Any objective observer that has travelled through Iran would tell you that."

Where are these fantastic achievements? Except for projects already planned (like highways, airports, and like) in 1979 +/- delta, nothing has been done, nothing at all worth mentioning in exchange for 29 years of milking iranian resources. Nothing that "people of iran" couldn't do with or without ANY government in place. I am actually a frequent traveler to iran and each time I get more and more depressed, specially when I face youth with no jobs and no perceived future. I was surprised this past summer to see very religious families that I thought would never leave iran were planning to head for Australia and New Zealand, saying that life was too difficult for them and there was no future for their children in iran. Another family of 2 recently moved to Dubai, another young couple tried to get british visa and failed, and so on and so forth. Had IRI done that fantastic job, they would have created jobs and opportunities, but alas that they focus only on the only thing that they know: the bed-room behavior of people and their dress code, or barking at this country and that country that no iranian with empty stomach cares about.

Did you see the BBC documentary of a couple of months ago showing western villages of iran being depleted from young who were unable to find jobs and were turned into drug addicts or moved to cities? Or another documentary filmed along the Beheshte zahra showing young teenagers skipping school to sell flowers for few hundred tomans? Or another documentary showing primary school children doing their homework on a piece of cardboard on a sidewalk since their parents had insufficient income to rent a place and had to live on the street? Or teenage girls begging at stop-lights to wash windshields for 50 tomans -- that is five cents.

Did you see the recent CBC documentary that teenage girls become sigheh for 200,000 tomans for a month? In the same documentary, prostitution has become a job for supplementary income, 10,000 tomans per session, for young women "with" family as opposed to what was for run-aways and professionals in shah's time.

I should add that I am not pro-shah for the sake of being pro-shah. I wish he were better, much better; I wish mosaddegh had succeeded in setting up a democratic system "without" losing part of iran. But we could not have what we wished for. Given the choices that we had between shah and mulla, I would not hesitate for a second to choose shah, why? Because of my country and FOR iranians. I wish bakhtiar had succeeded. Shah was dying and he knew it and he is quoted as saying in private that he was quite ready to pass on the country to a democratic system with prince reza acting only as a symbolic monarch. I wish people had given bakhtiar a chance. I wish at least people were not lied to, claims by khomeini and his gang that we now know were exaggerated by two to three orders of magnitude.

Anonymous1974B: thank you. I seek truth and always willing to change my mind upon new findings. I wish IRI was the ideal system, but as Rumi says "aftaab aamad dalile aaftaab" meaning that there is no need for proof when evidence is right in front of you. The evidence is in front of us as to how damaging replacing of shah with IRI has been for a majority of poor iranians.

Thank you for reminding us

Thank you for reminding us how pathetic mohammad p. was. He wasn't even allowed to attend the metting which took place in his own capital. truely pathetic.

LOL

"face it" is in major denial and apologist for western imperialism and its playboy puppet of choice. isnt it ironic that shah divorced soroya to marry farah who had him a son, which never attained power? karma's a b*tch!

p.s. pro mossadeq and pro shah at same time? what kind of crack are you smoking lol. thats like saying you can be pro musharraf and pro bhutto lol.

To: Face it: count the inflation and visit Iran

Dear Face it:

Do not get yourself trapped in propaganda.

1. Today the price of oil at $97/barrel is, after adjusting for inflation, the same as it was in the late 1960s. This is not what I say, this is what the Department of Energy and the American Petroleum Institute say. So, yes, in absolute terms, the present oil income seems very high compared to then. But, in terms of purchasing power, it is the same, or even less.

2. Because of (1); because of the fact that Iran EXPORTS half the oil that the Shah was exporting (5 million versus 2.4 million today), and due to the fact that the population is much larger than the 1970s, the oil income PER CAPITA is actually much less now than then.

3. Despite this, and inspite of two years of revolutionary chaos in 1357-59, and 8 years of war with Iraq, the amount of work done on Iran's infrastructure since 1989 is actually fantastic. Any objective observer that has travelled through Iran would tell you that.
Is there corruption in the IRI? Of course. As the Shah himself said, "wherever there is money, there is corruption."

The problem with the IRI is not that it has not done anything for Iran. It has, and has done a lot. The problem with IRI is in its reactionary, bloody nature; the fact that it considers itself government of God on Earth against which no peaceful opposition is possible in the long term, and is so destructively self-righteous.