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Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (World Leaders Past & Present)
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - World Leaders Past & Present Author:James D. Cockcroft On September 8, 1978, hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators filled Jaleh Square in Tehran, Iran. Suddenly, government troops began firing on the unarmed protesters, leaving hundreds of people dead or wounded. The man who ordered the bloody massacre was Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran. — Born in 1919, Pahlavi was propelled to the... more » throne at the age of 21. For the next 37 years he reigned tyrannically over the Iranian people, squandering much of the country's treasury on his own luxurious life-style and torturing or executing his political opponents. A popular uprising threatened to oust Pahlavi in 1953, but the U.S. government trained a secret police force to secure his rule and sent Iran billions of dollars worth of weaponry, converting the shah's armed forces into the world's fifth-largest military machine. Still, the Islamic clergy, under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, was able to join with other groups to force the shah out of the country on January 16, 1979. A 15-month international crisis ensued as Iranian militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage and demanding that the shah be returned for trial in exchange for their release.
Some historians have placed Pahlavi among the most brutal tyrants in history; others have portrayed him as the man who courageously led Iran into the modern age through the introduction of Western technology. Most agree, however, that his story remains central to an understanding of the complex and controversial state of affairs in the Middle East today.« less