Titans of History

His family had risen from literally nothing to the imperial throne itself. Muhammad was the eldest son of Reza Shah, a low-born Persian army officer who climbed to the rank of general in a Cossack regiment trained for the Qajar shahs of Iran by Russian officers. The father was ramrod straight, tall, harsh and ambitious but scarcely educated. However the last shahs of the Qajar dynasty of kings had lost control of their country, which was dominated by court intrigues, tribal rebellions, economic chaos, rampant warlordism, ethnic strife, democratic revolutions, Communism, separatism and foreign interference—especially by Britain and Russia, the two dominant imperial powers. Finally in 1921, the general marched his Cossacks into Teheran and seized power, first as minister of war. By 1923 he was ruling Iran and in 1925, as the last Qajar shah left for exile, the Cossack general raised himself to shah of the Imperial State of Iran, founding the Pahlavi dynasty.

An admirer of Atatürk, Reza Shah ruled harshly and energetically, modernizing the country, persecuting any opposition, reuniting the separatist provinces and diminishing the power of Shiite clergy whenever possible. The crown prince was educated at La Rosey in Switzerland, where he embraced Western culture and skiing. But in 1941, as he tried to chart a course between Nazi Germany and the Allies, Britain and Soviet Russia, Reza Shah disastrously miscalculated the security of his own position. The Allies could not risk the loss of Iran and its oil to Nazi Germany so they invaded the country, partitioned it and sent Reza Shah into exile in South Africa, where he died. However, unsure what regime to install, they allowed Reza to abdicate in favor of his young son Muhammad, whose reign would last for thirty-seven years.

During the war, the young Shah had little choice but to bow before Russian and British interests but from the very beginning he started to try to impose his own will on government. When the Allies finally withdrew from Iran after the war, he became to assert himself politically. Throughout his long career, he faced Western intervention based on oil interests, Soviet Russian intrigue, communist subversion, and the threat of the Shiite clergy. Growing up paranoid and trusting very few, the shah generally feared Anglo-American intrigue and the communist threat more than the Shiite Ayatollahs. He faced repeated coup attempts from all sides, his prime ministers and ministers were assassinated and he himself survived several attempts to take his life with great courage.

Overall, despite the catastrophic end of his career, his ability to survive and constantly increase his power and influence were signs of not just persistence but also political cunning. Yet his personality was a strange mixture of timidity and shyness, overweening arrogance and delusion, ruthless realpolitik, driving ambition and sensual hedonism. His judgment of personalities was often dire, his protection of corrupt relations and aides notorious, and his methods of clandestine espionage and secret police repression ultimately counterproductive. His will to power was strong, yet at times of crisis, he was often timid and indecisive, lacking confidence.

Faced with powerful prime ministers often imposed by foreign powers, the shah patiently bided his time, waiting for the chance to destroy these overmighty rivals. He carefully husbanded his powers to dismiss ministers and to command the army. By the late 1940s, he faced a new challenge from his prime minister, Dr. Muhammad Mossadeq, a wealthy and aged feudal landowner, famous for wearing pajamas during the day, a habit that shocked Western leaders, and for his demagogic nationalism that demanded the nationalization of Western oil interests. The shah hated Mossadeq, who was also alarming Britain and America. In 1952, the shah planned to dismiss Mossadeq and appoint a new prime minister, General Fazlolah Zahedi, but the coup, backed by the British and American secret services, particularly CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt, initially stalled. The shah fled to Iraq and then Italy, returning once General Zahedi had overthrown Mossadeq.

Now the shah worked to rid himself of Zahedi too. By the late 1950s, the shah had become totally dominant in Iran, a dominance that became an enlightened royal dictatorship. American President J.F. Kennedy was skeptical of the shah, regarding him as a dictator but gradually US leaders came to see him as an ally. The shah never lost his paranoia about American and British troublemaking, always maintaining good relations with the Soviets as a threat and insurance policy.