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Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
The Churchill Project - Hillsdale College > Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
America, Britain, Mossaddeq, and the Iranian Counter-Coup, 1953
19
Aug
2020
2
By SHAY KHATIRI
Americans were right to fear Mossaddeq, for his aim was to diminish freedom. They should, however, have imposed the same powerful pressure on the Shah further to liberalize Iran’s politics and evolve toward a constitutional democracy. Occasionally there were efforts to curb his excesses, but they were strong enough only to encourage his fundamentalist foes. America’s failure to push for a peaceful transition to a liberal state, combined with the Shah’s authoritarianism and too rapid modernizations, made the revolution of 1979 inevitable.