The Deposed Kings of Iran

Ardishir Rashidi Kalhur | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Forty-seven years ago this month, marks the onset of the Islamic revolution in Iran that overthrew the Shah; who himself had been empowered by yet another overthrow of the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953.

Prior to Mosaddegh, there was the Shah’s father Reza-Shah who overthrew the Qajar family ruling Iran. The Qajar family themselves came to power yet by overthrowing the Zand Dynasty who ended the rule of yet another cruel king the Nader Shah Afshar.

On and on goes the history of the rise and fall of dictators in Iran. Following the course of history, the same pattern repeats itself way back to the ancient times of the Greco-Persian Wars. In 480 BC, when the Persians set the Acropolis and Athens on fire to destroy where the inception of philosophical thoughts, classical literature, and the idea of democratic governance evolved.

For these uncivilized acts of brutality, the Greeks applied the term “The Persian Tyrants”. This culture of violence has continued in Iran, continuously on display throughout Iran under both the previous and the current regimes.

The deep and endless roots of violence in Iran can be traced to distinct causes. Iran has never had a long lasting and continuous monarchy or a stately mannered ruling class. Power has repeatedly been acquired by force and by coup, with rule by force by one segment of a multiethnic, multicultural society.

Throughout their history none ever worked or sought to evolve to have an inherent culture of respect for other Iranian nationalities with a democratic, inclusive way of governing the people.

The Rise and Fall of Reza Shah:

Reza Shah, the father of Mohamed-Reza Shah who was deposed in 1979, was himself just a private who had served in the army of the previous regime of the Qajar Dynasty. He later served as a loyal butler in the court of the last Qajar family, and who due to this loyalty was sent to Russia to be trained as a Cossack to return and protect the Qajar family.

As he advanced in ranks and became an autocratic soldier, he took advantage of the situation of dysfunction within the Qajar regime. He overthrew this regime he had served to declare himself the King! From being a lowly private in the army to becoming a King! That is how deep the roots of “Monarchy” is in Iran of the 20^th century.

Reza Shah ruled Iran when there was no civic system of governance in place in the country. During his rule, the law was Islamic and it was based on spontaneous issue of blathering religious fatwas by the Persian Mullahs to mobilize the masses to be pro or against a given situation in a given day.

Parallel to his rule, the deep influence of Islamic clerics such as Mr. Modarres, Kashani, Navab Safavi (known for his adherence to the Persian Assassins creed, followers of Hasan Sabah !) grew in opposition to his Westernization policies.

He seized land mostly from the national minority groups , followed by the imprisonment of their leaders and intellectuals who resisted his roughshod run over their lives and properties which subsequently became the foundation for the policies of his son, Mohamad Reza Shah.

To summarize the causes of the downfall of Reza Shah are the following key points:

He had never had a family history of royalty, but quite the opposite, he was a private, steward turned an autocratic soldier, to become a self-appointed dictator king and changed his name from an Islamic name to Pahlavi, to portray himself with an authentic Iranian name.
He ruthlessly quelled national minorities, imprisoned their intellectuals, and confiscated their lands and properties which became the source of stolen wealth claimed for the Pahlavi family.
He antagonized a large group of Clergy for his skin-deep Westernization policies.
His ideological alliance with Hitler, was the final straw in his downfall from power.

The Rise and Fall of Mohammed Reza Shah:

Mohammad Reza Shah continued the unfinished work of his father Reza Shah, except his allegiance shifted from being an open Hitlerite, to being a pro West king. However, he was allowed to call himself by a purely racist title “Arya-Mehr”, The love of Aryans! a title which undoubtedly was bestowed on him by the Pro-Hitler ultra-nationalist Persians who had no knowledge of the true history of Iran or knew what the meaning of the word Persian really meant.

To protect his grip on power, he created the notorious SAVAK, imprisoned the intellects, opposed the die-hard religious mullahs and ayatollahs including Ayatollah Khomeini whom he exiled to Najaf-Iraq. Among the strongest opposition to the Shah was the democratically elected Prime Minster Mosaddegh, leading the National Front party. Under Mosaddegh leadership Shah was forced to sign on to nationalization of the Oil industry which later inspired other countries like Venezuela to do the same.

Thus, Oil and its ownership became part of the history in the relationship between Iran and Venezuela reflected in the present-day events. More unacceptable to Reza Shah was that he was asked to be a ceremonial king without the power he had as a dictatorial king. Such unacceptable demands and pressures on the Shah forced him to flee the country in 1953, going first to Iraq, and from there to exile in Italy.

Not sitting idly by were the British, who had invested a lot of money in the development of the oil industry infrastructure, and were thus angered by Mosaddegh and the National Front who had nationalized the oil industry in Iran. The British, with the help of the United States made the decision to overthrow Mosaddegh and restore the Shah back to power in August of 1953.

This restoration of Reza Shah to power, was a blow to the opposition, especially to Ayatollah Khomeini in Najaf, Iraq, who from there launched his Islamic movement, against the Shah and his Pro-West, and Pro-Israel policies. Chief among his grievances was the continuation of Reza Shah’s “Immoral” Westernization and the removal of Islamic Hijab for women.

Finally in 1979, the Islamic opposition led by Ayatollah Khomeini succeeded in overthrowing the Shah, claiming he was getting rid of the “Corrupt of the Earth”, the Pahlavi legacy, paving the way for the subsequent forty-seven years of Islamic rule over Iran to the present day.

The root causes of the downfall of Mohammad Reza Shah are summarized by the following key points:

He ruled as a Dictator not as a ceremonial king, which had been demanded by the religious camp, the National Front Camp and other intellectuals. Instead, he imprisoned, killed or sent his opposition to SAVAK torture chambers.
His treatment of the national minorities was even worse than under his Father’s policies. Under his rule, and with the approval of the so called “democratic minded” National Front, the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad was crushed and the Kurdish President Qazi Mohammed was hanged in the Townsquare.
His family and their circle of supporters, continued to plunder the wealth of Iran, investing it in the Western economy not the Iranian economy. After the fall of Mosaddegh, and later in the 1970s Iran’s oil revenue sky rocketed which gave Iran the opportunity to invest more in Iran and improve the life of Iranians. Unfortunately, this never materialized, and poverty was one of the major reasons for the Islamic revolution to win and oust the Shah.

Qazi Muhammed salutes during the ceremony marking the establishment of the Republic of Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat), 1946. Mustafa Barzani is third from the right. Photo: Creative Commons/Wikimedia/colorized by iKurd.net

The Rise and Fall of Islam:

The 20^th century has been a period of ground-swell political changes in Iran. The coming to power of the Islamic regime in Iran was a reflection of the natural culture of the Persian minority group who have usurped power through Coup d’etat, or Islamic revolution.

The grave and perhaps soon, deadly mistake of Islamic-Iran can be summarized as following:

An expectation that they could export their Islamic Revolution to all the Islamic and non- Islamic world (Velayati-Faghih).
To take on Israel to liberate the Palestinian land, and to defeat the Immoral West (or as they declare it, to defeat America meant to defeat The Great Satan).
They invested heavily in foreign proxy groups to fight their fight for them, just as the Shah did to aggrandize his regime . Whereas, they could have invested in improving life for the people in Iran, and not relying on people in far-away places!
Their Human Rights records has not been any better than it was under the Shah or Reza Shah.
Their treatment and assimilation policies toward the national Minorities has been barbaric.

The abysmal record of the last 47 years of history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has created many dissatisfied dissidents both internally and internationally.

The future of the Islamic regime can be predicted to eventually fall, as each regime before it has fallen.

Iran as an old country has come to the end of its natural life cycle. Rule by the Persian minority in multiethnic Iran, whether they are the religious type, nationalist type, or monarchist, will come to the end of their political machination. In an attempt to save Iran from dissolution, they may even try to forge alliances with Islamic and monarchist factions.

Reza Pahlavi, activist, advocate and oldest son of the last Shah of Iran, attends a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, southern Germany, February 18, 2023. Photo: AFP

The People in Iran, and each nationality, will be better off if they plan a future for themselves without a king, an ayatollah, or even a president ruling them from the center. A decentralized region known as Iran can be a part of a wider Middle East where no one group dominates another group or attempts to go to war on the basis of religious, cultural or land grabbing resource seeking aggressions

Finally, it is important for the people in Iran to know, that in the 20^th Century, well over a hundred kings have been overthrown around the world, as a consequence of serving themselves not their people, engaging one after another in corruption and plundering the wealth of their people.

The Qajar or Pahlavi kings were not exceptions, just as it happened with the many Kings that were overthrown elsewhere, in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq, and in Turkey, the last king of the Ottomans. None of these kings or their descendent have ever returned to power, and the vestiges of the last king of Iran should not be allowed to return to power either.

During these history making days of uprising in Iran, People must not let the regressive regimes of the past to fool them once again. Just as Khomeini used deceptive promises such as Islamic equality, brotherhood, free election and prosperity for all, the same fraudulent monarchist whose ancestors were thrown out in the past, are now hard at work to attempt once again to impose themselves on the people of Iran to resume their plunder of the people’s land and properties.

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur, the President of Kurdish American Education Society, Los Angeles, U.S.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.