Tessa Schlesinger
3 min readOct 6, 2024

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Perhaps you had better get more up to date?

Speech by Reza Pahlavi II, shah, and his recent speeches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ0JG2-Wrck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujt3St6coNM&t=91s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMt7C5n3pBA

Perhaps you might also like to look at the many videos of Lebanese around the world applauding Israel and wanting the monarchy back on the throne. On social media, he is referred to as Shah.

https://x.com/PahlaviReza/status/1837233112863908185/photo/1

As to the previous shah being an American/British puppet, perhaps Encyclopedia Britannica would right your view?

QUOTE; Reza Khan then considered proclaiming a republic but was dissuaded by the strong opposition to the idea by the majority of the people. In 1925 the Majles deposed the absentee monarch, and a constituent assembly elected Reza Khan as shah, vesting sovereignty in the new Pahlavi dynasty.

QUOTE: After his coronation in April 1926, Reza Shah continued the radical reforms he had embarked on while prime minister. He broke the power of the tribes, which had been a turbulent element in the nation, disarming and partly settling them. In 1928 he put an end to the one-sided agreements and treaties with foreign powers, abolishing all special privileges. He built the Trans-Iranian Railway and started branch lines toward the principal cities (1927–38). He emancipated women and required them to discard their veils (1935). He took control of the country’s finances and communications, which up to then had been virtually in foreign hands. He built roads, schools, and hospitals and opened the first university (1934). His measures were directed at the same time toward the democratization of the country and its emancipation from foreign interference.

QUOTE: Reza Shah then decided to abdicate, to allow his son and heir, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to adopt a policy appropriate to the new situation, and to preserve his dynasty. He wanted to go to Canada, but the British government sent him first to Mauritius and then to Johannesburg, where he died in July 1944.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Reza-Shah-Pahlavi

QUOTE: Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (born October 26, 1919, Tehrān, Iran—died July 27, 1980, Cairo, Egypt) was the shah of Iran from 1941 to 1979, who maintained a pro-Western foreign policy and fostered economic development in Iran.

QUOTE: Under Mohammad Reza, the nationalization of the oil industry was nominally maintained, although in 1954 Iran entered into an agreement to split revenues with a newly formed international consortium that was responsible for managing production. With U.S. assistance, Mohammad Reza then proceeded to carry out a national development program, called the White Revolution, that included construction of an expanded road, rail, and air network, a number of dam and irrigation projects, the eradication of diseases such as malaria, the encouragement and support of industrial growth, and land reform. He also established a literacy corps and a health corps for the large but isolated rural population. In the 1960s and ’70s the shah sought to develop a more independent foreign policy and established working relationships with the Soviet Union and eastern European nations.

QUOTE: The White Revolution solidified domestic support for the shah, but he faced continuing political criticism from those who felt that the reforms did not move far or fast enough and religious criticism from those who believed Westernization to be antithetical to Islam. Opposition to the shah himself was based upon his autocratic rule, corruption in his government, the unequal distribution of oil wealth, forced Westernization, and the activities of SAVAK (the secret police) in suppressing dissent and opposition to his rule. These negative aspects of the shah’s rule became markedly accentuated after Iran began to reap greater revenues from its petroleum exports beginning in 1973.

etc.

The second shah was not a puppet. He was the son of the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty, and now there is a third one.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mohammad-Reza-Shah-Pahlavi

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