<the shah launched (1963) a reform program with U.S. assistance called the “White Revolution,” which included land redistribution among citizens, extensive construction, the promotion of literacy, and the emancipation of women.

So what part of the program offends you:

Land redistribution among citizens
extensive construction
The promotion of literacy
The emancipation of women

When your nation is filled with a good number of half-crazed, illiterate savages who are intent upon caging women, destroying all things modern and destroying your regime...a secret police is exactly what is required.

The US has the CIA, the FBI and others.
Russia has the KGB and others .
Britain has MI5 and others.
Germany has the BfV and others.

Perhaps Iran needed a secret police just as much and probably more than did these nations.

SAVAK may have been brutal in its treatment of fundamentalist extremists - but not nearly as brutal as the extremists were when they seized power.
Torturing folks who believe in cutting off someone's hand is justified for petty theft - is pretty much par for the course if one expects to get anywhere. Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Israel...heck all the middle east seem to use torture.

The region is barbaric. We fought the Barbary Wars in the early 1800's in the region and two hundred years later the region is still barbaric...at least to anyone who can define the word anymore.

In fact, I managed to get to know several families of many Iranian middle class families that fled to SoCal when the Shah fled. Amazingly well educated and generally softspoken - these families left quite an imprint upon me. While you heard tales of SAVAK - I heard tales of these wonderful "reformers."

If you are implying that it is better in Iran without the Shah...well you're a bit further away from the stream than I thought.

;-)

However, if you are merely pointing out that bad accompanied the good - I will concede that modernizing a primitive people is often very dirty work - almost impossible - and cite Peter the Great as the Shah's historic archetype.

Perhaps more Peter the Great's are needed in these regions to bring them into at least into an equivalent of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries.

The bottom line is barbarism and civilization don't mix. When they do - they clash. And of all the western weapons developed by western minds that are now in use and coveted by these barbarians - our atomic weapon technology is the most coveted of all.

Putin's ticked about Pakistan and their unstable government and nuclear arsenal - and justifiably so. Their nation is unfortunately barbaric too. He knows the Chechens would love to obtain one of Pakistan's nukes to use in Moscow.

The race is on. While the middle east slept through the past five centuries, now our technologies are giving them tools they are not yet mature enough to use.

A nuclear war in the middle east or between Pakistan and India is not a certainty - but with the sheer volume of primitive mentalities on the loose - it sure as heck does not look real promising.

I certainly hope that education can bring them up to speed - but the fundamentalists oppose western education for the masses and any education of women. Afghanistan will be the role model. So we better hope the international community stops whining about Bush and starts building more schools, libraries, etc. Churning out millions of western-minded kids is literally the only hope the region has.

;-)

SDAI-Tech1