Iran is an ancient civilization, far older than the United States or any European country. The ancient kingdom of Persia (what Iran used to be called) predates the Roman Empire.
For most of its history, Iran was not even a Muslim nation. Iran has fundamentally changed in the past. It can fundamentally change in the future. There is no reason to believe that the Islamic Republic, an oppressive regime by any standard, will—or should be—a permanent predicament for the 92 million people of Iran.
In the 1990s, one of my work colleagues was a forty-something American man named Mike. Mike was quite a character. He had served in Vietnam, and had no shortage of stories to tell about that conflict. Mike was not a combat veteran, though. Based on his stories, Mike seemed to spend much of his time in the military on leave, cavorting in the fleshpots of Bangkok and Manilla.
Mike had also lived in Iran during the late 1970s, just prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979. During that time, Mike was employed as a representative of the Bell Helicopter Company.
Mike loved Iran. Iran in the late 1970s was nothing like the country that it was soon to become, following the imposition of the Khomeini death cult.
Tehran was a bustling city back then. There were discos. (Hey, it was the late 1970s!) Women walked around in miniskirts and other western attire of that era. Tehran was sometimes compared to Paris.
Mike married an Iranian woman while he was there. They later divorced. But from what I knew of Mike, that was probably more Mike’s fault than hers. Nevertheless, he had nothing but good things to say about Iran before the ayatollahs.
Iran in the 1970s was also moving toward authentic modernity and real prosperity. In 1978, Iran was the most prosperous country in Asia outside of Japan. The country had oil, of course, but there was also a move toward economic diversification: light manufacturing and services.
Iran in those days was run by a monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. Iran had always been a monarchy, just as Persia had always been a monarchy. In ancient Persia, the ruler was known as Shāhanshāh, or King of Kings. (This is the term from which the modern “shah” is derived.)
The reader will therefore not be surprised to learn that Iran under the shahs was not an Athenian democracy. The Pahlavi dynasty, which lasted from 1925 to 1979, was imperfect in many ways, and fell short in many ways, when measured by the most exacting western standards.
But Iran under the Pahlavi dynasty was a far better place than the Islamic Republic of Iran, under Khomeini and the mullahs. And it was indisputably better for women and non-Muslims.
Iran under the Pahlavi dynasty was also a more responsible member of the global community. Pre-revolutionary Iran had good relations with its Sunni Muslim neighbors, the United States, and Israel. (No, that is not a typo.)
At the time of this writing, the surviving head of the Pahlavi dynasty is Reza Pahlavi, born in 1960. Reza Pahlavi was the Crown Prince of Iran when the revolution broke out. In 1980, in a ceremony held in Cairo, Egypt, the twenty-year-old Reza was sworn in as Iran’s monarch, following the line of succession from his recently deceased father.
Reza Pahlavi is now in his sixties, and he remains Iran’s monarch in exile. As events in Iran unfold and constantly change, there has been talk of Reza returning to Iran, perhaps as a constitutional monarch, and perhaps as the figurehead of a new, authentically democratic government in Iran.
That will, of course, be a decision for the people of Iran. But it would not be without historical precedent. It has happened before, in a country much more familiar to most Americans: England.
In the 1640s, the English fought a civil war. This ended with the overthrow and execution of King Charles I. The English Civil War also resulted in the formation of Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth of England. The Commonwealth was run by puritans. Under the Commonwealth, plays, public celebrations, and dancing were all forbidden. So was the traditional observance of Christmas, which the puritans saw as idolatrous.
The Commonwealth, thankfully, did not last long. It collapsed after only eleven years.
Following the misery of the Commonwealth of England, the British people were ready to go back to the future. They invited Charles II, the son of the deposed (and executed) Charles I to return to England, and the British throne, in 1660. This event, known as the Stuart Restoration, began a period of cultural and economic renewal in England.
It is therefore not too farfetched to believe that, after nearly five decades of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the people of Iran might opt for a Pahlavi restoration. They are certainly ready for a change.
-ET