Maggie's Farm

Lets see... the Allies remove the Shah because he was pro-Nazi during WWII, and that would threaten oil supplies. He had been sitting on a powderkeg of multiple parties each representing different factions from mercantalist to royalist to industrialist to communist to nazi...the Allies install a 'democratic' government that, after the war, starts to go all wobbly, so the decision is made to put the Shah's son in power... Iran was going all wobbly because of the aforementioned factions running everywhichway through the Nation and starting to turn the place into something that would go communo-anarchic of some sort or another. By putting the Shah in place the West gets a relatively loyal thug to sit on top of that political powderkeg. Then the West supports the Shah and his secret police which worsens politics in the Nation until things get really nasty and a semi-popular minoritarian religious leader is brought back to try and stop a bloodbath, which then goes on anyways...

Hmmmm... which was the first wrong in this set-up? Democracy wasn't all too ready for prime time before removing the Shah, proven thereafter by the politics going on, then those lovely 19th century problems, which are STILL present, under the brutal regime in power then requires someone to actually try and hold the place together. I blame the original political set-up as it has lasted through brutal dictatorship, chaotic democracy, more brutal dictatorship and now a harshly brutal totalitarian religious theocracy. When the mullahs go the place will, again, become a mess, that is my prediction!

Maybe we should have just let Iran align with the Nazis so we could scrape up some troops with the Brits and Aussies and properly invade it. That might have extended the war into '46, had the Japanese have a jet fighter defense force and the US getting the worst sinking of ships as an invasion fleet is hit by that 600mph jet fighter attack.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.