I love reading alternative history stories but like you I share your concern that the story has been written rather poorly and from a very one sided perspective.
One of the key issues I have with it, is that the writer decides to treat Iran as in isolation to everything else i.e. world events are unchanged by Iran. I think that is incredibly naďve - in terms of its international impact, Iran is one of the most important countries of the last 50 years.
Had Iran had a strong or event decent relationship with America in the 80s and 90s and been a fledgling democracy, there would have almost certainly been no Iran-Iraqi war as we know it (certainly no British and American support for Saddam Hussein), no Gulf War as we know it (would Saddam have risked attacking Kuwait if he knew that America would come to Iran's aid, when she intervened, which she would have to do), no special relationship between America and Saudi Arabia (I suspect a key part of the reason America wants to build a better relationship with Iran now is because it wants to gradually become less tied to the hell hole that is Saudi Arabia), all of which have contributed to the problems that the world now faces in its struggle with Islamic fundamentalism. Osama Bin Laden identified American troops in Saudi during the Gulf War as being one of the reasons why he founded his terrorist organisation. The landscape in the Middle East would be totally different, not necessarily better mind you, but different.
I think the Shah’s reputation has to some extent been ‘saved’ in much the same way that the Romanovs have been by two factors:
i) The regime that replaced the Shah’s has proven to be even worse than his. Similarly, while Nicholas II was a terrible ruler, who oversaw mass murder on a regular basis including terrible state sponsored pogroms against Jewish communities, his reputation has been to some extent salvaged because Lenin and Stalin were even worse.
ii) His family – the Empress Farah is a remarkable woman who by the way she has conducted herself with great dignity has softened her husband’s image. I was so impressed by her in the documentary she agreed to making “The Queen and I.” While she is reluctant to admit to all the crimes of the Shah’s regime (which I can understand from a wife/mother’s perspective), she does at least acknowledge mistakes were made and seems apologetic for them and claims ignorance, which is a bit of an awkward position to take.
Similarly the Shah’s son the Crown Prince strikes me as an intelligent and decent man but one has to wonder how much of that is because of his experiences growing up and being educated in America. Had he still had those experiences and returned to Iran as Shah there’s no guarantees - look at all the and excitement at the beginning of the last decade when an educated and intelligent man, who had worked in the west became President of Syria.
Nicholas has to an extent been saved by the horrific murder of his children, he shares their victim status. Had Nicholas and Alexandra been executed alone, I suspect they would be viewed in much the same way as Nicholas and Elena Ceausescu.
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