Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Name: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Country: Iran
Birthday: 26 October, 1919
Died: 27 July, 1980
Dates in Power: 1941 - 1979
How Leader Came into Power: Inherited
Classification: Monarch
Nuclear Capability: no
Major Achievements: Known for extending suffrage to women in the White Revolution, known as the defender of the Middle East

Charisma/ Popularity: 2.83
Danger Rating (Foreign policy): 1.67
Oppression Rating (Internal policy): 3.33
Number of Domestic victims: 3.17
Longevity: 5
Economics: 3.67
Notoriety/ Infamy: 3.33
Statesman Factor: 4
Extremism: 3.17
Progressiveness: 3.67
Total score (50 max): 33.83

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Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

As a young man, he was educated at Institute Le Rosey, a Swiss finishing school and in Tehran at the Military College.

His father, Reza Pahlavi, (1877-1944), was minister of war and was elected by the Iranian Assembly as Shah in 1925. Concerned that Reza Pahlavi was about to align his petroleum-rich country with Germany during World War II, Britain and the USSR occupied Iran and forced him to resign in favor of his son. His mother was the shah's second wife, Tadj ol-Molouk (1896 - 1982).

Shah

At the end of the War, political unrest dogged Iran and in 1953 the nation's socialist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh forced the Shah to flee the country. He was quickly escorted back to power and fired Mossadegh through a coup organised by the American CIA and Britain's SIS (MI6).

With Iran's great oil wealth, Pahlavi became the pre-eminent leader of the Middle East, and Guardian of the Gulf. He abolished the multi-party system of government such that he could rule through a one-party regime as absolute dictator. The Shah formalised his secret police force, SAVAK. Pahlavi made major changes to curb certain ancient elite factions by breaking up all large and middle-sized estates for the benefit of more than four million small farmers. In what was called 'the White Revolution', he took a number of populist measures, including extending suffrage to women, to favour the people.

His policies led to strong economic growth during the 1960s and 1970s but at the same time, opposition to his autocratic rule increased. On January 16, 1979 he and his family were forced to flee Iran a second time following a year of extreme turmoil and public protests, the Iranian revolution. Following the Shah's departure, conservative Muslims led by the Ayatollah Khomeini who had returned from French exile staged a revolution abolishing the monarchy and establishing an Islamic Republic.

The exiled monarch, with a history of repressive violence had become unpopular in much of the world and travelled from country to country seeking what he hoped in his second exile, would be merely a temporary residence. For a while he stayed in Paraguay, but his non-Hodgkins lymphoma began to grow worse, and required immediate and sophisticated treatment. Reluctantly, Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah to make a brief stopover in the United States, and undergo medical treatment. The compromise was extremely unpopular in Iran, where the new regime had now vilified the Shah as a "blood sucker" and American stooge. Khomeini demanded the former monarch's return to Iran to face trial and execution for his alleged misdeeds. Once the Shah's course of treatment had finished, the American government, eager to avoid further controversy sent Pahlavi out of the country. He was welcomed by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and remained there until his death on July 27, 1980. He is interred in Eqypt.

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