Was the Shah of Iran good American Foreign Policy and does that policy have effect on America today

[Toots]

Or I guess the question should be "why do I hate America"...:shrug:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. The Shah was a US puppet

Iran had a democratically elected government which, with CIA help the Shah overthrew. The Shah tried to force Westernization on the Iranian people, forcing women to remove their hajib, etc, etc. This is what, I think, caused the militant conservative Islamic reaction to the Shah.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. The Shah (Rezah Pahlavi) was installed by a CIA sponsored Coup d'etat

and he replaced a progressive Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh.

The long term effect was the eventual Iranian revolution, the overthrow of the Shah and the occupation of the US Emabassy and the holding of Embassy staff for 444 days.

Short answer: No. But typical shortsightedness on the part of the US Intelligence community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi

[Toots]

3. Do you believe a reason for the GOP's hatred for Iran today has to do with

the Iranian hostage crisis of the seventies?

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. No doubt.

They won't forgive it and will wear that incident (one of their own making) on their sleeves for many years to come.

[Cooley Hurd]

7. To anyone old enough to remember it...

...but to most repugs, they hate Iran because they're told to by their oily leaders. Today's GOP is lacking in critical thinkers.

[mqbush]

8. No?

If Mossadegh's transformation of Iran from moderate parliamentarianism toward progressive republic/democracy had been allowed to continue, and Muslims throughout the Middle East never saw US prickiness, mightn't this have so changed the political climate there that today there might not be an al Qaeda effort directed against us? (though Russia may still have prompted its creation in Afghanistan, but directed at Russia, not us). It doesn't take much sometimes to radically change history, and the US toppling of the Mossadegh government was no small event.

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. No to the first question.

No is the answer to the OP's question "Was the Shah good foreign policy."

Granted, the question had two parts. My answer to the second part: "does that policy have effect on America today"
would be Yes. Most definitely, yes.

[leveymg]

5. Which Shaw was that, again?

[Octafish]

6. Amurika's oil is under their sand.

Mossadeq actually believed it belonged to the people of Iran.

[endarkenment]

9. We overthrew a secular democracy and put the Shah in power.

That lead directly to the revolution, the theocracy, and the current mess. Any questions?

[Toots]

10. And Jimmy Carter inherited that foreign policy

He was a good man that was really sucker punched by bad GOP foreign policy...

[H2O Man]

13. Right.

I had posted some information about Carter and Iran in an essay about the 1980 primary a couple of days ago. The CIA had been tasked with putting the Shaw in power years before. The Shah was a weasal. Nixon and Kissinger visited Teheran, and Nixon asked the Shaw to take a larger role in protecting US interests in the region. The Shah said sure, so long as he had full access to the most sophisticated military weapontry in the area. Nixon and Kissinger made this the US policy, and Kissinger continued to push it post-Nixon.

Carter inherited it, plus the problems of an Iranian population that was becoming strongly anti-Shah. The Carter administration was frustrated with the CIA position on Iran's future, and unwillingly to listen to George Ball's report. The people Carter relied upon were listening closely to another powerful intelligence agency that most Americans are still unfamiliar with (ONI), which advocated having the military take over for a period of time, replacing the Shah and denying the returning Ayatollah the chance to grab power.

The events that followed allowed the CIA advocates an opportunity to manipulate behind the scenes from '78 to '80, and the result was the Reagan/Bush1 administration. (Reagan had not been given serious consideration prior to '80, but became a convenient front.)

It is a shame that the Carter administration didn't listen to George Ball. They had cut the State Department out of the high level discussions on Iran, too. Those errors cost them.

[whosinpower]

11. The question should be why America hates Iran

And the reason is simple - oil.

Iran has threatened or already implemented selling oil in euro's vs the US greenback. Breaking the tie of oil to the US dollar could precipitate others to do the same which would have a devastating effect on the US economy - already burdened by the mortgage crisis and overwhelming costs of war.

Don't ever think it is because of iranian influence in Iraq. That is a strawman arguement and far from the truth.

[tchunter]

14. to see something very interesting would be to look at how the nuclear issue was handled when...

the shah was in power. They attempted to build nuclear infrastructure with the blessing of the same cabal that is in power now and trying to eliminate the iranian nuclear program and theres only one nation in the world that still flies the US made f-14 Tomcat and that would be Iran, a gift from the 70's.