Comment by voidfunc

"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.