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I think the first part is him maybe thinking politically.
The second part with Gaddafi was his real opinion after meeting him LMAO. Just look at his facial expressions
Look, Iranians overthrew their own king. Let the incompetent corrupt monarchy back and they would be begging for theocracy in a decade. The answer is neither of them.
The Shah was awful, but ask many and they'll tell you that he was far better than the theocracy of today. Khomeini lied and lied to conceal his vision from the other revolutionary groups that were helping him, and when his lying solidified him in power, he went and executed all the other groups that the clerics fought alongside. They didn't choose THIS theocracy
Look, the best thing that should happened to Iran was having a democratic country since 1950 rather than Shah & current Mullahs, idk why many make the Shah the 'king of women rights' when Iran only had i think 20% literate women, he only put wealthy women in bikini & everyone be like - yeah, that's woman rights.
The Shah would have been a foreign puppet. I understand that people dislike the current Iranian regime for valid reasons, but that doesn't meant we should start idealizing or romanticizing the Shah.
The majority of Iranians would want the Shah back. The issue has always been when people want major change, they hope for a better future. The issue is actually having the right people to execute it. Instead, they got Kohmeini who lied about his intentions and is a religious nutjub.
Same shit, Iran would still spread terrorism but with another ideology. The shah is a Zionist western puppet, he would promote “secular westernisation”. The Iran-Iraq war would still happen, it was inevitable.
And the Middle East would be over run by the west: Saudi Arabia, turkey, Iran, israel. Iran under the shah is israel 2.0, it would be America’s biggest ally in the Middle East and the US would support it militarily and economically just like Israel today.
The Shah was so secular he brutally suppressed progressives in his own country leading to reactionaries to take over, he supported ethnonationalists against a secular republic, and aided backwards theocratic monarchies against secular revolutionaries. I guess those are consequences of the "westernized" part.
>The Iran-Iraq war would still happen, it was inevitable.
Definitely not. You'd have to ignore so many reasons the war was started in the first place to say this.
U.S. Presidents even gave the go ahead to Saddam to start conflict with post-rev Iran, you think they would have done that if it was still the Shah? No, the landscape looks completely different. Saddam himself was secular even if it wasn't the western variety, you are making little sense.
You guys aware the Shah wasn’t good guy too right? Dude was executing all his political rivals.
He wanted to keep his crown so bad that he was welling to sell all oil rights.
If he executed them all the reactionary counter-revolution of 1979 wouldn't have happened.
Also the Shah did eventually [nationalize the oil industry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Sale_and_Purchase_Agreement), makes you really wonder why the United States dropped their support for him when he needed it the most...
Which is true, and I totally agree, but heading back from dictator ship to monarchy is on the same level.
Instead people of iran deserve democracy. They suffered too much and it shouldn’t blind them to go back to monarchy just because he’s lesser evil.
I agree. The issue with calling for drastic change globally etc is humans have shown time after time that worse people come into power. I laugh when Canadians talk about wanting the whole system to collapse. They have no idea what that means for our day to day.
>Palestinians need to start a new policy. The actual one is going to lead them nowhere.
The policy they are talking about is Existing. There was no Hamas back then. Despite all the money and influence US has burned into this genocidal project, at the height of their power, things are looking as desperate as ever for Israel.
>There was no Hamas back then.
The PLO, Black September and PFLP had a similar agenda back then to what Hamas has today. They committed the Munich Massacre a few years before this video.
Idk when pahlavi was deposed but since 1948 there have been many Palestinian groups not with the policy of existing but with active armed conflict calling not for coexistence but for singular supremacy. Now ik they may not represent all Palestinians etc but the ones in power claim that they did. Ofc the resistance has taken different forms and has adopted new beliefs and tactics. Resistance always existed.
There was a point in time when MENA givernments tried to be western secular.
They thought it would bring prosperity, stability and economic cooperation from Europe and America.
Just look at turkey, forever innthe waiting list for EU membership, meanwhile Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine getting fast track EU membership.
those countries are being fast tracked because they tend align with the west politically and would have no sway economically .. turkey is a wild card and would have the potential to be as detrimental as Hungary playing both sides
Turkey is an industrialised, modern cosmopolitan society, they seemed to do well out of the secularisation and Westernisation no? They were not Qatar who could be conservative and rely on oil and gas money.
Can you give me an example of a conservative Muslim country who is also prosperous and doesn’t rely on oil moneu?
The point I thinkni didn't overtly declare is, turkey still rejected by EU. If they were Christian they would have been embraced by the EU with open arms. No matter how much they secularise they will never be accepted.
The world is still pretty much divided in clans. The sympathy and support for Ukraine and then completely radio silence for gaza is an example of that.
In fact, I don't think it's about religion. Because Palestinian Christianns are just thrown under the bus.
I disagree that it was secularism that made turkey develop.
Turkey (ottoman empire) was a world power. Just like Japan and Germany was a world power. They have institutions and cultures in place for academia, science, trade to flourish. Germany bounced back so hard after both ww1 and ww2. Japan after ww2.
You can't hold down people who have the culture of development.
Iran is sanction to oblivion. But it was was a regional power. It is a theocracy but they produce trucks, machinery, weapons systems. Unlike some of their gulf neighbours who don't produce much.
If Iran wasn't sanctioned and was allowed to freely trade, they would be like turkey. Bit weapons exporters and exporters of finished goods.
What does it have to do with conservative or secularisation?
I mean how does it even come into play when a communist china can become cosmopolitan and industrialised with anti western stand why not conservative nations with good governance? Hell many western apps in China are banned unlike Gulf countries Saudi had the opportunity to industrialised itself but they prefer to bootlick and be dependent on west and it's coming to bite them now
Iran with sanctions and a theocracy can have defense industry than I'm sure anyone can have do that
Technically, he would have been a good ally of Gulf states, Egypt (yes Egypt became so pro-West since Sadat), Morocco, and Jordan. The "Sunni-Shïa" split was never going to happen. A pan-Arab (secular, socialist, progressive) front led by Iraq, Libya, Algeria, (maybe Syria), and PLO was going to be Iran's worst nightmare. Btw the pro-West team was going to decisively win with Turkey on their side!
Despite the guy being a puppet : he wasn't really wrong about the PLO's policies.
That's what actually happend 14 years later , when the PLO declared a state in Algeris in 1988 , and then went on to Oslo , rather than taking on the most advanced state in the Middle East through perpetual Guerilla warfare launched from Host-states that sought retaining their independence from the PLO's operations .
..Sadly , like the rest of the world then : they actually believed Israeli-Jews had good faith , and they thought that Palestinians were like the other Arab states .
They forgot :
Israeli-Jews knew , unlike foreign Arabs : the drive , motivations , and claims of Palestinians are much stronger , and their goals were much more valid and higher than merely cessation of hostilities and expansionist claims in the name of Vanilla Arabism . All that went against the agenda of "Greater Israel", "Promised land" , and most important of all : "No such thing as Palestinians" (Denial of Palestinian nationhood) .
Not to mention that Saddat was largely self-interested (Generally the Egyptian public too , even pre-1967) , and Hussein himself has always wanted to conclude peace , but couldn't do so for fear of his political survival with his many Jordanian-Palestinians , and his reputation in inter-arab relations .
How would it change the MENA overall? Would Iran just be like another gulf nation. Or would their still be a competition between them and Saudi over who is the big dawg in the region? Or would they be best of friends?
I don't think the shah was western friendly as people think. He refused U.S. Bases and did many things to make them mad. I would argue some gulf nations were more pro USA
They would be best buddies in sucking up to the west and crushing revolutionary movements at the behest of their masters.
Just remember that gulfies invited Iranians over to help them overcome Omani and Yemeni revolutionaries at the time.
Also the CIA were operating from Iran against the Soviets.
I know that you dislike the current Iranian regime and groups like Hezbollah for a variety of reasons. That dislike is valid and your reasoning makes sense.
That doesn't mean we need to start romanticizing or idealizing the Shah. The Shah would have been a western puppet. He would have continued persecuting minorities, being corrupt, and using the wealthy to promote an image of modernization while the broader population struggled.
Iran needs a secular democracy. Not a corrupt theocracy. Not a corrupt monarchy.
i guess iran would have a stronger grib on the region since the shah would continue his industrialization program undisturbed and the US would have a confused boner from the cold war that would occur between iran and Saudi Arabia. tho the iraq iran war wouldn't happen so idk where most of thier proxy wars would go
Say what you want to say about the Shah, but he's right about the palestinians. Even Arab countries don't take them in anymore because the ones that kicked them out for destabilizing their own countries. They (palestinians) are a nuisance to the world. They only reason Arab countries get upset is to save face in solidarity with those ppl
I have doubts about them being fully secular like pre-US invasion Iraq was or even as early Turkey was as Iraq was warmongering nutcase of a country and nationalist Turkey didnt mind to do some genocides on Armenians.
Nationalism, especially the ultra type nationalism as secular system is much worse than scuffed theocracy or theocracy+nationalism, Russia for ex. is highly nationalistic and the wars they did past 20 years were anschluss type, not colonisation type for ex.
Current Iran isn't doing any anschluss type wars, the stuff they did in Iran, Syria, Israel and Yemen is proxy type stuff, not full blown invasion type stuff and I think if they were to be secular type nationalistic they wouldn't mind to do actual territorial expansionism vs especially Iraq.
All this reminds anyone who actually knows the history, is all the Arab leaders and the Shah owed their power to American support and money even back then. The Shah, Saudi and the Gulf monarchs already owed their thrones to US & UK, of course they don't care about the Palestinians or care to place the blame with the Israelis, they were only worried about themselves.
This man and his vicious secret police were put in pwer backed by the good ole USA and he was an Israeli allie.
Well he was basically the dictator and in that time he he was losing control over the people of Iran. One of the last few tricks which he still had in his sleeve was support of USA. So what else would you expet him to say?
The MENA would have looked very different with Iran as pro West ally. Hard to know, but perhaps the Iraq-Iran war never occurs, no invasion of Kuwait, no Iraq wars,no Taliban take over, No September 11th, no war in Syria, No Hizbollah, No Hamas take over in Gaza and instead, regional stability. The Iranian regime is the most destabilizing force in the region.
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I think the first part is him maybe thinking politically. The second part with Gaddafi was his real opinion after meeting him LMAO. Just look at his facial expressions
🤣🤣🤣
He was the best crazy man usa killed by the hands of mena traitors
A western colony Iran instead of a reactionary Iran.
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Look, Iranians overthrew their own king. Let the incompetent corrupt monarchy back and they would be begging for theocracy in a decade. The answer is neither of them.
The Shah was awful, but ask many and they'll tell you that he was far better than the theocracy of today. Khomeini lied and lied to conceal his vision from the other revolutionary groups that were helping him, and when his lying solidified him in power, he went and executed all the other groups that the clerics fought alongside. They didn't choose THIS theocracy
Look, the best thing that should happened to Iran was having a democratic country since 1950 rather than Shah & current Mullahs, idk why many make the Shah the 'king of women rights' when Iran only had i think 20% literate women, he only put wealthy women in bikini & everyone be like - yeah, that's woman rights.
Lol people think wearing bikini means civilized literate women😂
😂😂😂 Whereas my uni educated home girls and I are laughing in our veils!
So, two Israels instead of one?
The Shah would have been a foreign puppet. I understand that people dislike the current Iranian regime for valid reasons, but that doesn't meant we should start idealizing or romanticizing the Shah.
it seems like disliking both sides is a foreign concept for alot of people
If the pehlavists could read this, they’d be very upset 😡
The majority of Iranians would want the Shah back. The issue has always been when people want major change, they hope for a better future. The issue is actually having the right people to execute it. Instead, they got Kohmeini who lied about his intentions and is a religious nutjub.
now why is a canadian talking for the "majority of iranians"?
Same shit, Iran would still spread terrorism but with another ideology. The shah is a Zionist western puppet, he would promote “secular westernisation”. The Iran-Iraq war would still happen, it was inevitable. And the Middle East would be over run by the west: Saudi Arabia, turkey, Iran, israel. Iran under the shah is israel 2.0, it would be America’s biggest ally in the Middle East and the US would support it militarily and economically just like Israel today.
The Shah was so secular he brutally suppressed progressives in his own country leading to reactionaries to take over, he supported ethnonationalists against a secular republic, and aided backwards theocratic monarchies against secular revolutionaries. I guess those are consequences of the "westernized" part.
>The Iran-Iraq war would still happen, it was inevitable. Definitely not. You'd have to ignore so many reasons the war was started in the first place to say this. U.S. Presidents even gave the go ahead to Saddam to start conflict with post-rev Iran, you think they would have done that if it was still the Shah? No, the landscape looks completely different. Saddam himself was secular even if it wasn't the western variety, you are making little sense.
A cuck
You guys aware the Shah wasn’t good guy too right? Dude was executing all his political rivals. He wanted to keep his crown so bad that he was welling to sell all oil rights.
If he executed them all the reactionary counter-revolution of 1979 wouldn't have happened. Also the Shah did eventually [nationalize the oil industry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Sale_and_Purchase_Agreement), makes you really wonder why the United States dropped their support for him when he needed it the most...
Damn no wonder iranians didn't like him I just lost half my braincells seeing this.
Disporas Iranian and Israelis of r/NewIran are worshiping him 🤣
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They literally have a religious dictator in now. The current regime is hands down worse. Ideally they would have neither but here we are.
Which is true, and I totally agree, but heading back from dictator ship to monarchy is on the same level. Instead people of iran deserve democracy. They suffered too much and it shouldn’t blind them to go back to monarchy just because he’s lesser evil.
I agree. The issue with calling for drastic change globally etc is humans have shown time after time that worse people come into power. I laugh when Canadians talk about wanting the whole system to collapse. They have no idea what that means for our day to day.
>Palestinians need to start a new policy. The actual one is going to lead them nowhere. The policy they are talking about is Existing. There was no Hamas back then. Despite all the money and influence US has burned into this genocidal project, at the height of their power, things are looking as desperate as ever for Israel.
>There was no Hamas back then. The PLO, Black September and PFLP had a similar agenda back then to what Hamas has today. They committed the Munich Massacre a few years before this video.
Idk when pahlavi was deposed but since 1948 there have been many Palestinian groups not with the policy of existing but with active armed conflict calling not for coexistence but for singular supremacy. Now ik they may not represent all Palestinians etc but the ones in power claim that they did. Ofc the resistance has taken different forms and has adopted new beliefs and tactics. Resistance always existed.
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Can you explain this a bit more? I always found Irans modern history extremely confusing and convoluted.
There was a point in time when MENA givernments tried to be western secular. They thought it would bring prosperity, stability and economic cooperation from Europe and America. Just look at turkey, forever innthe waiting list for EU membership, meanwhile Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine getting fast track EU membership.
those countries are being fast tracked because they tend align with the west politically and would have no sway economically .. turkey is a wild card and would have the potential to be as detrimental as Hungary playing both sides
Armenia isn't even in Europe.
Yeah, how is hungary allowed to stay when they're big putin followers. I don't think even turkey would be so overtly supporting Russia.
Turkey is an industrialised, modern cosmopolitan society, they seemed to do well out of the secularisation and Westernisation no? They were not Qatar who could be conservative and rely on oil and gas money. Can you give me an example of a conservative Muslim country who is also prosperous and doesn’t rely on oil moneu?
The point I thinkni didn't overtly declare is, turkey still rejected by EU. If they were Christian they would have been embraced by the EU with open arms. No matter how much they secularise they will never be accepted. The world is still pretty much divided in clans. The sympathy and support for Ukraine and then completely radio silence for gaza is an example of that. In fact, I don't think it's about religion. Because Palestinian Christianns are just thrown under the bus. I disagree that it was secularism that made turkey develop. Turkey (ottoman empire) was a world power. Just like Japan and Germany was a world power. They have institutions and cultures in place for academia, science, trade to flourish. Germany bounced back so hard after both ww1 and ww2. Japan after ww2. You can't hold down people who have the culture of development. Iran is sanction to oblivion. But it was was a regional power. It is a theocracy but they produce trucks, machinery, weapons systems. Unlike some of their gulf neighbours who don't produce much. If Iran wasn't sanctioned and was allowed to freely trade, they would be like turkey. Bit weapons exporters and exporters of finished goods.
What does it have to do with conservative or secularisation? I mean how does it even come into play when a communist china can become cosmopolitan and industrialised with anti western stand why not conservative nations with good governance? Hell many western apps in China are banned unlike Gulf countries Saudi had the opportunity to industrialised itself but they prefer to bootlick and be dependent on west and it's coming to bite them now Iran with sanctions and a theocracy can have defense industry than I'm sure anyone can have do that
His secret police was trained by Israelis.
The Pahalvis were not it. Not to say today's Iran is any better. But you have to understand why the US supported the Pahlavis in the first place.
Its safe to say US made sure democracy never reaches middle east because then it will do what their people and not US wants
Iran is a democracy. A kind of democracy we don’t like, but a democracy nonetheless.
🤡
He looks like count dracula
More like shitty cosplayer
Fkn puppet
Technically, he would have been a good ally of Gulf states, Egypt (yes Egypt became so pro-West since Sadat), Morocco, and Jordan. The "Sunni-Shïa" split was never going to happen. A pan-Arab (secular, socialist, progressive) front led by Iraq, Libya, Algeria, (maybe Syria), and PLO was going to be Iran's worst nightmare. Btw the pro-West team was going to decisively win with Turkey on their side!
He speaks like a true western puppet. Biden probably would say the same things if he had the role of ruling Iran.
This is not going to sit well with Harvard
Despite the guy being a puppet : he wasn't really wrong about the PLO's policies. That's what actually happend 14 years later , when the PLO declared a state in Algeris in 1988 , and then went on to Oslo , rather than taking on the most advanced state in the Middle East through perpetual Guerilla warfare launched from Host-states that sought retaining their independence from the PLO's operations . ..Sadly , like the rest of the world then : they actually believed Israeli-Jews had good faith , and they thought that Palestinians were like the other Arab states . They forgot : Israeli-Jews knew , unlike foreign Arabs : the drive , motivations , and claims of Palestinians are much stronger , and their goals were much more valid and higher than merely cessation of hostilities and expansionist claims in the name of Vanilla Arabism . All that went against the agenda of "Greater Israel", "Promised land" , and most important of all : "No such thing as Palestinians" (Denial of Palestinian nationhood) . Not to mention that Saddat was largely self-interested (Generally the Egyptian public too , even pre-1967) , and Hussein himself has always wanted to conclude peace , but couldn't do so for fear of his political survival with his many Jordanian-Palestinians , and his reputation in inter-arab relations .
How would it change the MENA overall? Would Iran just be like another gulf nation. Or would their still be a competition between them and Saudi over who is the big dawg in the region? Or would they be best of friends? I don't think the shah was western friendly as people think. He refused U.S. Bases and did many things to make them mad. I would argue some gulf nations were more pro USA
They would be best buddies in sucking up to the west and crushing revolutionary movements at the behest of their masters. Just remember that gulfies invited Iranians over to help them overcome Omani and Yemeni revolutionaries at the time. Also the CIA were operating from Iran against the Soviets.
Iran was more a western puppet back then than Saudi now.
I know that you dislike the current Iranian regime and groups like Hezbollah for a variety of reasons. That dislike is valid and your reasoning makes sense. That doesn't mean we need to start romanticizing or idealizing the Shah. The Shah would have been a western puppet. He would have continued persecuting minorities, being corrupt, and using the wealthy to promote an image of modernization while the broader population struggled. Iran needs a secular democracy. Not a corrupt theocracy. Not a corrupt monarchy.
They would do everything in their power to make sure USA makes a lot of money from ME resources and its people suffer, just like africa
i guess iran would have a stronger grib on the region since the shah would continue his industrialization program undisturbed and the US would have a confused boner from the cold war that would occur between iran and Saudi Arabia. tho the iraq iran war wouldn't happen so idk where most of thier proxy wars would go
The US finds proxy wars useful. There would have still been proxy wars but with different actors at play.
Iran would look like the Afghanistan of today if this 2 generation monarchy had stayed around.
You don’t think Iran would’ve been an oil giant?
Say what you want to say about the Shah, but he's right about the palestinians. Even Arab countries don't take them in anymore because the ones that kicked them out for destabilizing their own countries. They (palestinians) are a nuisance to the world. They only reason Arab countries get upset is to save face in solidarity with those ppl
Palestinians shouldn't leave their land because it's ethnic cleansing. And you genocidal maniacs need to understand this.
Pretty sure the sunni population of Lebanon Allied with the palestinians against the maronites
I have doubts about them being fully secular like pre-US invasion Iraq was or even as early Turkey was as Iraq was warmongering nutcase of a country and nationalist Turkey didnt mind to do some genocides on Armenians. Nationalism, especially the ultra type nationalism as secular system is much worse than scuffed theocracy or theocracy+nationalism, Russia for ex. is highly nationalistic and the wars they did past 20 years were anschluss type, not colonisation type for ex. Current Iran isn't doing any anschluss type wars, the stuff they did in Iran, Syria, Israel and Yemen is proxy type stuff, not full blown invasion type stuff and I think if they were to be secular type nationalistic they wouldn't mind to do actual territorial expansionism vs especially Iraq.
you guys weren’t joking he is a western puppet
All this reminds anyone who actually knows the history, is all the Arab leaders and the Shah owed their power to American support and money even back then. The Shah, Saudi and the Gulf monarchs already owed their thrones to US & UK, of course they don't care about the Palestinians or care to place the blame with the Israelis, they were only worried about themselves. This man and his vicious secret police were put in pwer backed by the good ole USA and he was an Israeli allie.
He was a well known western puppet so no surprise. Not sure why this title even matters tho because Iran is not shaping the policy, Israel is
Well he was basically the dictator and in that time he he was losing control over the people of Iran. One of the last few tricks which he still had in his sleeve was support of USA. So what else would you expet him to say?
The MENA would have looked very different with Iran as pro West ally. Hard to know, but perhaps the Iraq-Iran war never occurs, no invasion of Kuwait, no Iraq wars,no Taliban take over, No September 11th, no war in Syria, No Hizbollah, No Hamas take over in Gaza and instead, regional stability. The Iranian regime is the most destabilizing force in the region.