Iran was neutral during World War I, although it served as a battleground for Turkey and Russia. After the war, Reza Khan Pahlavi, who had been minister of war, took control of the Iranian government and established the Pahlavi Dynasty. Reza Pahlavi attempted to modernize Iran. During his reign new schools and the University of Tehran were built. After he refused to allow Great Britain and Russia to use the Trans-Iranian Railway to transport oil during World War II, the two countries forced him to give up his throne, fearing he would aid Germany in the war.
Upon Reza Khan's abdication, his son Mohammad Reza Pah-lavi took the throne of Iran. In 1956, under the shah's leadership, Iran began a seven-year development plan, using profits from petroleum sales to finance hydroelectric and irrigation projects as well as to build new transportation systems and schools. In 1960 Iran joined four other oil-producing nations to create the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
In 1963 the shah initiated a reform program that became known as the White Revolution. As part of this program, landowners, many of them poor farmers, were required to give up their land to peasants. Part of the social reform program included rights for women. In 1963 women voted for the first time in Iran. The White Revolution, through its provisions for land reform, bankrupted many middle - and lower-class Iranians and created much enmity against Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
In 1971 Iran celebrated the 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian Empire. To the outside world Iran appeared very wealthy. The country was receiving billions of dollars of profit from oil exports. The United States and other Western nations regarded the shah's government positively, seeing it as an ally and as a force for Westernization. However, many Iranians did not agree that Westernization was a positive force. These Iranians saw that the wealth of the nation was controlled by a few Iranian families, leaving the majority of Iranians in poverty. Many Iranians believed that the shah himself had plundered Iran to support what they saw as the Pahlavi family's decadent lifestyle.
Many Iranians also objected to the refusal of the followers of the shah to listen to the advice of the mullahs, the Iranian clerics. Some Iranians believed that Iran, in its effort to become Westernized, had moved away from the fundamentalist beliefs of the Shiite Muslims and that the shah was responsible for this move.
In January, 1978, U. S. president Jimmy Carter toasted the shah as an "island of stability." One year later the shah was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
World History
