Actually, there were positives to the Shah's time in office. He instituted many Western practices, built REAL roads, enabled women to be more visible, even in Government offices and so on. I WAS THERE; many Iranians on the street were happy about these reforms and not so happy after his overthrow. What was one of the first things that transpired AFTER his overthrow? The museums were ransacked and EVERY animal in the zoo was killed, mutilated and left in the sun. And on and on....Contrary to eh MSM, it was NOT a one-sided picture. As only one example, a female acquatiance of mine who was a professor there was assasinated by the Ayotaollah's folks within days of the takeover along with most of her contemporaries. Typical for barbarians.
Some of those practices were begun by Mossedegh before the CIA and MI6 backed coup. There are a higher percentage of women attending university in Iran now than ever before in its history.
The problem with your Shah apologist approach is that you forget the history. The Ayotollah is not who began the revolution. In fact, he came and consolidated power later and much to the chagrin of some in Iran. The Shah had built quite a list of enemies by 1978. The Revolution of 1979 included moderate Democrats like Bazargan, Islamic Leftists, Islamic Rightists (the Ayatollah), and socialists.
While the Shah's country was crumbling due to his horrible economics and significant corruption, the Shah was holding $120 million parties - sometimes in regions of his country that were suffering terribly. It wasn't just the poor that saw this, but the middle class, and the religious noted that he drank alcohol with his foreign dignitary friends (often westerners including Americans). Meanwhile, SAVAK tortured, raped, murdered, or just beat the hell out of opponents and it became more routine and more open.
The major opposition at first came not from radical Islam, not from communists, but from liberals (in the European sense of the word) and middle class shopkeepers who were suffering from rapid inflation as the oil boom that the Shah promised would make them all wealthy only led them to poverty and more repression. They worked out of Turkey, Britain, France, and Iraq.
At the time many thought that Khoemeni would form a religious center in Qom, sort of a Vatican for Shi'a Islam (though that isn't the best parallel). It was only later that they saw the more ruthless side of the Islamic Right movement and his popularity with the people of Iran and the popularity for an Islamic Republic.
But to be an apologist for the Shah is to see Iran from a truly colonial view. It is no different than those who are apologists for Pinochet, the Perons, Franco, and the Duvaliers. Sure, there were some who loved these guys. There were people who loved Saddam Hussein and he indeed had Western style reforms in Iraq.
But ultimately the Shah was a terrible individual who led a ruthless regime that benefitted very few (though some defense contractors in the US were among them). He certainly had little respect for his own people, or human beings in general.
