What was always intriguing for me in Iranian politics is the support for bringing back the Shah, a government which was not the pinnacle of freedom. It's either things are that bad, people are nostalgic or it's a narrative pushed by the Islamic Republic to defame the protestors (the last seems unlikely though).
Isn't there the possibility of just asking for a non-autocratic figure?
Democracy is not just a switch you flip on or off. Iran has literally no cultural history of anything than autocracy. Monarch -> Shah -> Theocratic Dictator.
Its a very western view that Democracy is the pinnacle form of government. I dont think all cultures align that way.
"Shah" is actually an abbreviation for Persian "Shahanshah" ("King of kings"), the very same title Cyrus the Great claimed. But the Shah's government in the 20th century was actually quite successful in modernizing the country, fostering a robust middle class, securing women's rights and gradually reducing the oppressive power of Islamic clerics in education and the court system. This is ultimately why those very same clerics ultimately pushed for an "Islamic" revolution which undid the bulk of those gains.
> Its a very western view that Democracy is the pinnacle form of government.
Not only a Western view: South Korea made a very successful transition from an initially authoritarian government to a real liberal democracy, and a very similar story in Taiwan. But the key there is "liberal", as in "classical liberal": protection of foundational rights actually matters a whole lot more than whether people are physically able to vote for a candidate on an election ballot. The latter is generally useless without the former, but it does help make popular sovereignty more robust once the former is in place.
That’s skipping over more than 100 years of recent history. Iran started transitioning to a democratic form of government with establishment of parliament after constitutional revolution starting from 1905. Twice, foreign super powers meddled and help derail it.
Even if that's the case, you would assume they'd not ask back for the previous problematic iteration.
I do agree that democracy generally fails in the middle east or anywhere there is a sizable amount of people that do not believe in democracy.
However, the current Iranian system is autocratic but it works really hard to mask it to appear democratic, so obviously the appearance is important to them and presumably for the people
Iran was once democracy too, but in 1953, United States (CIA) and the United Kingdom (MI6) orchestrated a coup that overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister.
Mosaddegh had nationalized Iran's oil industry in 1951, which had been controlled by the British owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP).
So in August 1953, the CIA and MI6 organized protests, bribed military officers and politicians, and spread propaganda to destabilize Mosaddegh's government.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had fled during the initial coup attempt, returned and ruled as an authoritarian monarch with strong US backing until the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
In 2013, the CIA released declassified documents confirming American involvement, and in 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright acknowledged the US role, calling it a "setback for democratic government" in Iran.
Elections were about as democratic in Iran as they are in North Korea.
By the time the Shah dismissed the Prime Minister, Mosaddegh had dissolved parliament, was jailing his opponents, his party had turned against him and he was ruling by decree like a dictator.
Mosaddegh held a flawed referendum and used emergency powers, but by that point, the CIA and MI6 were actively paying off politicians, military officers, and funding mobs to destabilize his government, all while Britain was strangling Iran's economy with an oil embargo. His defensive measures didn't happen in a vacuum.
Comparing Iran's elections to North Korea..? Iran had a functioning parliament, multiple parties, and real political competition.
And "the Shah dismissed him" glosses over the fact that this dismissal was literally part of the coup plot coordinated with foreign intelligence agencies! Read files that CIA released.
And even if you think Mosaddegh was sliding toward authoritarianism, what replaced him? 26 years of the Shah's rule backed by SAVAK, a secret police that tortured and killed dissidents. The coup made things dramatically worse, not better.
Mossadegh had repeatedly asked for dictatorial powers to be granted to him and then extended, even prior to any of these events. It's misleading to call the subsequent developments a "coup" when that government was de-facto undemocratic to begin with. Genuine democracy was never even in the picture.
> Mossadegh had repeatedly asked for dictatorial powers to be granted to him and then extended, even prior to any of these events
Mosaddegh requested emergency powers from parliament and parliament granted them. That's how constitutional systems work during crises. Many democracies have done this (FDR's wartime powers, for example). Requesting powers through legal channels isn't the same as seizing them.
> It's misleading to call the subsequent developments a "coup" when that government was de-facto undemocratic to begin with
This argument doesn't hold up. A coup is defined by how power is taken through force, bribery, and foreign intelligence operations and not constitutional processes. The CIA literally codenamed it Operation Ajax. Declassified documents describe it as a coup. The US government has officially acknowledged it as a coup. You're arguing against the people who planned it.
> Genuine democracy was never even in the picture.
You are basically settin an impossible standard. By 1953 standards, very few countries qualified as "genuine democracies" (the US still had Jim Crow). Iran had an elected parliament, multiple parties, a free press, and a prime minister chosen through constitutional processes. Was it perfect? No. Was it more democratic than most of the region? Yes
Even if we accept that Mosaddegh's government was imperfect, what replaced it? An absolute monarch ruling by decree with a secret police force. If your standard is democracy, the coup objectively made things worse, which is a strange outcome to defend.
> Mosaddegh requested emergency powers from parliament and parliament granted them. That's how constitutional systems work during crises.
Except that there was no legitimate emergency and no crisis, in fact there was just the opposite: Mossadegh had just instigated an insurrection against the then-legitimate government and thereby forced the Shah to not only put him back in power but also to let him appoint a defense minister and a chief of staff - a clear violation of the prevailing norms at the time which delegated this appointment to the Shah. The request for an explicit grant of power of "dictatorial decree" then came immediately after that. This was a clear established pattern of trying to weaken Iran's existing institutional norms and center power on himself, not unlike the whole Germany 1933 playbook. That's very much not how democratic systems work.
What actually happened in July 1952, which you're calling an "insurrection" is
Shah tried to replace Mosaddegh with Ahmad Qavam. In response, the Iranian public took to the streets in massive protests supporting Mosaddegh. The Shah backed down due to popular pressure and reinstated him. That's not Mosaddegh "instigating an insurrection", unless it's your definition of a population backing their elected prime minister against royal overreach. So unless we're calling mass protests illegitimate, this was democratic pressure working as intended.
As for "no emergency and no crisis", Britain had organized an international embargo on Iranian oil, frozen Iranian assets, threatened military action, and was actively working to destabilize the government. Iran's economy was being strangled. Dismissing that as "no crisis" is basically ignoring basic historical facts.
On the military appointments, yes, Mosaddegh sought control over the military, breaking from tradition. But given that the Shah and military officers were actively conspiring with foreign intelligence to overthrow him (which we now know from declassified documents) his concerns about military loyalty weren't paranoia. They were correct.
The Hitler comparison is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Hitler dismantled democracy and ruled for 12 years. Mosaddegh was removed by a foreign backed coup and spent his remaining years under house arrest. One of these is not like the other.
Is it "royal overreach" when a prime minister voluntarily resigns and the king/queen then formally picks someone else (after negotiations for parliamentary support) to legitimately take that place? That would be news to an awful lot of people in the UK, among other places. When you explicitly resign from power, you don't get to take it back by force absent new elections. It's a done deal.
Mosaddegh didn't storm the palace. The Shah officially reinstated him. If the Shah's appointment of Qavam was legitimate, then his reappointment of Mosaddegh was equally legitimate. You can't have it both ways, either the Shah had constitutional authority to appoint prime ministers or he didn't.
As for "taking it back by force", mass public protests aren't the prime minister using force. Mosaddegh didn't have a militia. He had popular support. In a democracy, public pressure influencing government decisions isn't illegitimate, it's the whole point.
And in parliamentary systems, prime ministers who resign can return to power without new elections if they command enough support. It's happened in the UK, Israel, Australia and elsewhere. There's no constitutional rule that resignation is permanent and irreversible.
The question is whether Mosaddegh was constitutionally appointed and had parliamentary backing. In July 1952, the answer to both was yes.
I heard a recent underground poll taken before these protests showed about 1/3 support the Shah, 1/3 oppose him, and 1/3 are ambivalent. The government of Iran has silenced all of its internal opponents, and the Shah is the most well-known and most popular external opponent.
Even if they don't love him, a vast majority would prefer him over the Ayatollahs.
I don't think there is a possibility. A democracy that isn't in the US' interest (and now Russia's) descends into autocracy as a defense against interference. A Shah is a compromise that gives them acceptability to the superpowers and a better life than an opposing autocracy.
Isn't there the possibility of just asking for a non-autocratic figure?