Back When Iran Looked “Normal”

Seventy years ago, Iran did not look like the villain in a Western action film. It had short skirts. Rock and roll. Universities full of women. Cafes. Newspapers. Arguments about politics that did not involve morality police vans.

It looked, inconveniently, like a country trying to modernise on its own terms. Then oil entered the chat. And oil never enters quietly.

The Man Who Touched the Wrong Barrel

In 1953, Iranians elected Mohammad Mossadegh. Secular. Nationalist. Not a cartoon radical. Just a man who thought Iran should control its own oil, a bit like Norway have and we, stupidly, haven’t. Those bloody socialists in Norway have a £3.5 trillion wealth fund, we have fuck all for the same amount of oil extracted. Nice.

Anyway, at the time, that oil was largely in the hands of what became BP, Mossadegh nationalised it. This did not spark polite debate in London, far from it.

Conveniently, the Cold War was underway. So the argument shifted from “our oil profits” to “communism.” Which is a great way to turn a business dispute over oil into a global emergency.

Cue Operation Ajax. A tidy little coup organised by the CIA and MI6. Mossadegh was removed. Democracy was shown the door. Problem solved. For about five minutes.

Install Dictator, Call It Stability

In his place, Western powers backed Mohammed Rehazi Pahavli as the Shah.To be fair, he modernised parts of Iran. Infrastructure expanded. Women gained certain rights. Tehran sparkled.

Also, he built SAVAK, a secret police force with torture rooms and a strong dislike of dissent. But of course every development plan has its flaws. This one had plenty.

Iran became a reliable Western ally. It bought American weapons. It kept oil flowing. It stood firmly against the Soviets. In return, Washington looked at the repression of its people and decided it had somewhere else to be.

Stability achieved. Democracy optional, resentment growing.

Desperate People Make Desperate Choices

By the late 1970s, many Iranians were done. Done with corruption. Done with repression. Done with being a geopolitical chess piece.

Into that fury stepped Ruholla Khomenie, an exiled cleric promising independence, dignity and freedom from foreign meddling. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 swept the Shah away. He fled. The monarchy collapsed. The Islamic Republic took its place.

Then came the Iran hostage crisis. The US embassy was stormed. Fifty two Americans held for 444 days. America does not enjoy public humiliation. It tends to hold grudges with interest.

Iran, Iraq War

In 1980, Saddam Hussein (remember him) invaded Iran, launching the Iran – Iraq war. Eight years of hell on earth. Trench warfare. Chemical weapons. Entire cities reduced to rubble.

Western governments, including the United States, tilted toward Iraq during much of the war. Intelligence sharing. Logistical support. A diplomatic shrug when chemical weapons were used.

Casualty estimates run into the hundreds of thousands, possibly around a million combined. Iranian teenagers reportedly ran across minefields wearing little plastic keys, told they would unlock paradise. It is hard to fact check faith in the middle of artillery fire.

In 1988, the US Navy shot down Iran Air Flight 655. Two hundred and ninety civilians died. It was called a mistake. Compensation was paid. No formal apology from the US for what they would call a trrror attack.

As you can imagine, trust was not exactly rebuilt.

Sanctions, Sabotage, Rinse, Repeat

Decades followed. Sanctions. Isolation. Proxy conflicts. Nuclear brinkmanship.

Today, tensions between Israel and Iran regularly explode into headlines. Washington declares unwavering support for Israel. Talk of “regime change” floats around again. American officials say Iranians deserve freedom. They are not wrong.

What goes unmentioned is how the last regime change worked out. Or who helped build the system that people now want dismantled.

There is little appetite to revisit 1953. Or the Shah’s prisons. Or the war that swallowed a generation. Or the sanctions that have squeezed ordinary families far more than officials.

It is easier to point at the monster than to discuss the lab notes.

The Familiar Heir

Meanwhile, Reza Pahlavi the Shah’s son, is occasionally presented as a polished alternative. Same dynasty. New branding. Promises of stability. Hints of Western approval.

Because if at first you do not succeed, reinstall the monarchy. None of this absolves the current Iranian government. It represses dissent. It jails critics. It enforces its ideology with a heavy hand.

History Repeating

But history is stubborn. You cannot yank a country’s democratic experiment out by the roots, water the dictatorship for 25 years, fuel a catastrophic war, strangle it with sanctions, and then act surprised when what grows back is angry and hard to control.

The West created the monster. Then declared it a threat for still breathing. Watch carefully who gets offered the throne next. Watch who funds them. Watch who calls it liberation. History may not repeat exactly. But it has a dark sense of humour.

And Iran has already heard this joke before.