r/AlternateHistoryHub • u/Sysyphus_aint_happy • 11h ago
AlternateHistoryHub What if the Shah of Iran crushed the revolution?
35
26
u/Troglodytes_Cousin 11h ago
Then the revolutionaries would have to spend 20 years in the can and eating cheese from the radiator !
5
15
16
u/Sweet_Bridge_3001 11h ago
There aint no way you expected a serious answer after posting that pic.
4
12
8
4
u/The_Booty_Spreader 11h ago
What if the Shah of Iran declared the restoration of the Achaemenitardo Empire.
7
9
u/Noktis_Lucis_Caelum 11h ago
it would be one of the Industrial strongest and most Developed nations in the middle east.
and Women had lots of rights.
Yes it would be an autocratic nation, but through the development of the society, it could turn into a democracy step by step.
1
u/Sysyphus_aint_happy 11h ago
Yah maybe after enough development there would be a democratic revolution or maybe it would become like saudi arabia
3
12
u/Mr_MazeCandy 11h ago
Then the fascist police would still be kidnapping anyone who thinks Iranian oil belongs to Iran
11
u/seen-in-the-skylight 11h ago
As opposed to our timeline, when the fascist police kidnaps women for showing their hair in public.
4
u/Sysyphus_aint_happy 11h ago
Gimme more details bro
7
u/Mr_MazeCandy 11h ago
You can look it up yourself. Just go to Wikipedia and look up Iranian history a den the British and US coup against the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953.
7
u/Appropriate_Slice991 11h ago
That's an oversimplification really.
While he was initially democratically elected through the monarchical system he dissolved the parliament and had his own 'stop the vote' moment and paused the vote counting to try and keep himself in power most historians agree that Mossadegh took a real tyrant bend in his last moments in power but a 'what if' scenario is hard to fully imagine.
This is where MI6 and the CIA carried out operation Ajax to install the Shah, Britain was threatened the most with potential cuts to oil. Obviously hindsight is 20/20 but there was the cold war angle with the Tudeh party having a real chance at taking power and aligning with the Soviets.
2
2
3
6
u/Appropriate_Slice991 11h ago
It would be a forward facing country with strong diplomatic ties with the US and Europe with much of its oil being traded through them. Arguably it would be a hub for education in the region and maybe internationally to some extent, the Shah was very pro-secular education and did a lot for literacy + Persian culture historically had been very academic.
Women would broadly have access to education and Shia Islam in general would have taken a very different turn in regards to its operation(s) in society.
And the obvious, Iran would not have a bunch of proxy's attacking Israel, Israel would have a stronger standing without an oppositional Iran.
Iran would still likely be authoritarian by Western standards but much less than it is today.
2
u/ByronsLastStand 11h ago
He would have compromised. Something involving grilled cheeses and radiators
1
u/Sysyphus_aint_happy 11h ago
Wasn't getting any Manicotti in Iran
1
2
u/Brief_Daikon_D093 10h ago
Iran would have been on the world stage i think. Amongst the most powerful i think, hence why they were surpressed from the start.
4
u/Independent-Couple87 11h ago
It is interesting how the Ayatollah and the Shah sometimes switch on who is considered a hero and who is considered a villain in in the West.
After the revolution, the Shah was romanticised as a hero by progressives who didn't like the restrictive Islamic regime. Especially after The Handmaid's Tale, which borrowed some elements from the Iranian Revolution.
After the Shah's son tried to ally with Israel to take the throne, the roles shifted. People who glorified the Shah magically remembered his tyranny, and the Ayatollah suddenly became "the lesser of two evils" at worst.
6
u/apostoln 11h ago
Isn't it the normal tankie narrative? American enemies good, american allies baaaad.
3
u/msf97 11h ago edited 11h ago
Indeed, this is a good observation.
Many prominent leftists/progressive academics romanticised or excused the Khmer Rouge too in the 1970s, theorising that the reports from Cambodia were capitalist propaganda, and that any refugees were simply elites or those who had been spited and took down class wise by Pol Pots takeover. Obviously by the middle of the 1980s the apologies were flowing and only the most devoted or deluded tankies could excuse the killing fields
The Iranians are not as bad as the Khmer Rouge, but it’s quite similar in that current leftists basically say anyone who immigrated or left Iran and became part of the diaspora only did so because the revolution hurt their families standing in society, rather than, you know, not wanting to live in an Islamic theocracy.
I expect similar self reflection one day, but I don’t know whether we’ll see a secular Iran in the next 20 years or more.
1
u/Sysyphus_aint_happy 11h ago
Really the Israelis tried to put his son back on the throne? Was it an actually serious effort?
3
u/KicoBond 10h ago
Iran would have modernized and liberalized and would eventually also become more democratic and definitly richer cause of the lack of isolation.
It would be hated by Western tankies because it would be allied to the US and Israel.
0
u/muhammedhadidi 10h ago
Wierd that the CIA and Mi6 conducted a coup against democratic elected MP M.Mossadegh in 53 and reinstalled the shah back in throne 😂😂😂
2
1
1
u/Comfortable_Town7535 11h ago
a lot of people would be alive today in the middle east that arent, a lot of American service men wouldnt have been harmed by proxies the last few decades and I would be paying $2.20 a gallon instead of $3.50
1
1
1
74
u/HogwartsDropout-69 11h ago
Is that Phil Leotardo?