Towards Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980), the last or most recent Shah of Iran, there are two principal attitudes.
Towards Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980), the last or most recent Shah of Iran, there are two principal attitudes. To the Islamic Republic and many in Europe and the US, Mohammed Reza was a tyrant, womaniser and poltroon, who was put on the throne by Britain and Russia in 1941 and maintained there by the US, till a popular uprising sent him scurrying abroad in 1979 where he died, unlamented, in Egypt 18 months later.
The second attitude, which is gaining ground even in Iran, is that Mohammed Reza was a man of intelligence and industry. From exceptionally unpromising beginnings in 1941, his country overrun by British empire and Soviet troops, he outwitted his rivals and the great powers, survived at least two assassination attempts and three air crashes, and raised Iran to a prosperity and influence that his revolutionary successors have not begun to match.
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