A Dim View Of The Shah

Both the ideologies of the United States and the Soviets were unchanging and unwilling to compromise. Given the Soviets recent advances like obtaining “the bomb” and Mao Tse-tung’s victory for communist china, Americans were beginning to conclude that something had to be done. Victory was the only option. This belief can be echoed by the fact that neither President Truman or Secretary Acheson were willing to give in to appeasement. Acheson announced that the U.S would not “pull down the blinds and sit in the parlor with a loaded shotgun, waiting.”

Having the distance of a visitor instead of one already immersed in the brainwashing in Ilium, the Shah is thus able to provide insight into the ridiculousness of a society that relies on a machine instead of humans for its knowledge and guidance. The Shah is also able to cut through the façade presented in Ilium about the powers of the President, as a spiritual leader or otherwise, providing insight into who or what truly holds the power in Paul Proteus’ world. To underscore the significance of the Shah’s insights as an outsider to Ilium, Vonnegut even has the announcer at the ceremony say ‘Perhaps the Shah will give us the fresh impressions of a visitor from another part of the world, come from another way of life’ (120). And so the Shah does, in ever a dramatic way, when he turns his back on the President and drops to his knees to perform some sort of worship ritual at the foot of EPICAC, as he asks a riddle which in his culture will identify the arrival of an “all-wise god” (122). When he gets no response from the machine, the Shah then likens it to “Baku,” or a false god. In doing so, the Shah once again underscores how ludicrous it is for the society of Ilium to essentially worship a machine.

“Afghanistan was a monarchy ruled by King Zahir Shah. On July 17, 1973, when the king was on away on vacation, a man by the name of Mohammad Daoud Khan attained power. The military takeover did not cause any bloodshed, but as we see through Amir's story, it was still a frightening time for the people of Kabul who heard rioting and shooting in the streets. For six years, Mohammad Daoud Khan was President and Prime Minister of Afghanistan. Then, on April 27, 1978, he was violently overthrown by the PDPA, People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Daoud was killed in

Washington D.C. in the summertime is constantly perspiring, a rather miserable place to be. And, although the summer of 1949 was equally as dredged, Paul Nitze, an expert economist who lacked status in the United States government, was about to receive the opportunity of a lifetime. George Kennan, longtime diplomat and Russian studies expert, was looking to retire to his quiet farm in Pennsylvania, but he needed to leave a successor for the Policy Planning Staff. He decided on Paul Nitze. However, just months later after Russia succeeded in building and testing an atomic bomb and Nitze’s appeal for an assessment of U.S. Foreign Policy, Kennan on September 30 wrote, “I face the work of these remaining months with neither enthusiasm nor hope for achievement.” Obviously, the Cold War would be a large undertaking for any Russian expert in the State Department, however, it is more than likely that he was referring to working closely with colleague whose foreign policy tactics evidently began to differ greatly from his own as time would show.

The United States history during 1977 to 1989 went through two presidencies and whirlwind of events happened. When President Jimmy Carter became president he wanted to lower the inflation rates to make life easier for the people of the United States. While that was his goal it got completely derailed. Near the end of Jimmy Carters presidency, a group of Iranian students took over the U.S Embassy in Tehran and took people hostage. Over the course of the 444 days the hostages where held captive while the people of the United States voted for a new president to help lead them into a new direction. The people voted for Ronald Reagan. While he was president things didn’t go as he planned as well. The issues with Iran did not calm down and escalated to something bigger. After the Iran hostage crisis, the US had another issues with Iran and it was the Iran- Contra affair. During this essay I will be talking about the book called “Taken Hostage” by David Farber and the information in the book. The book is about the time frame of Jimmy Carter’s presidency and the issues with Iran and the hostage crisis. The second half of my essay is towards President Ronald Reagan’s and the issues about the Iran- Contra affair and the lasting issues between Iran and the United states.

This type of suffering also occurred in 1722 with the Afghan tribesmen and yet again during the late eighteenth century and lasted until 1925. The Qajars, a Turkic tribe that was established near the Caspian Sea, conquered Iran this time. The kings who ruled under the Qajar Empire also were mainly responsible for the country’s poverty and resistance to modernity. The only difference between the Qajars and the Arabs is that now the people of Iran were not going to sit back and let these kings give foreigner powers the right to their country. The Qajars had “lost their right to rule, their farr. Armed with Shiite principle that endows the ordinary citizen with inherent power to overthrow despotism…Iranians rebelled in a way their forefathers never had” (28).

With the shah still sick, it was hard to manage what was back in Iran. The speed of change in Iran was too hard to get command. “The shah was in trouble, reaping the harvest of years of brutal and unpopular policies, including the use of secret police that controlled dissent with arbitrary arrests and torture.” It was obvious that the shah had lost all control of his people of Iran, but the president had hoped for an alliance of opponents to be formed. A man

So we have a proverbial arm wrestling match between the west and communism. Everything reaches its tipping point in two unsuspecting places. Fueled by a relentless group of U.S. Officials and what some have labeled as an “obsessed” Ronald Reagan, the Iran Contra became a pivotal point in U.S. history and wrote the book on covert foreign policy.

On President Jimmy Carter’s third year as president, the shah of Iran was in deep trouble. Iran had brutal and unpopular policies that many people did not agree with. Revolution broke out in the January of 1979, because many Iranians didn't agree with the shah's ruling. The shah had no support due to his “secret police” that would

The [Bush] administration found it consistently difficult to get the measure of Tehran. Bush depicted it as a “nation held hostage by a small clerical elite that is repressing and isolating its people,” but the reality was far more complex. (482)

Like most people who came of age in the mid-40’s and 50’s, his perceptions of his country and its role in the world were profoundly shaped by World War II and by the resulting Cold War against Communism (Schrag 30-31). The 50’s and early 60’s were an “age of consensus” when the American experience of World War II and the Cold War had so shaped American cultural assumptions that the country, on the whole, became “confident to the verge of complacency about the perfectibility of American society [and] anxious to the point of paranoia about the threat of Communism” (Hodgson 98, 104). Most Americans during this time of “liberal consensus” agreed that Communism threatened cherished democratic institutions and American capitalism. They thus believed that fighting Communism was necessary, and with the victories of World War II still fresh in their minds, they were sure that their nation was strong enough to fight Communism and win. “Few of them doubted the essential goodness and strength of American society” (Hodgson 98) or the goodness and strength of the government officials that led them toward their goal of containing Communism.

chance to be betrayed again. Shahrazad is the daughter of the royal vier and knows very well the fate of these brides, but still volunteers. “I would like you to marry me to King Shahrayar, so that I may either succeed in saving the people or perish and die like the rest. “(562). Shahrazad has the intelligent idea to tell the king stories each night, ending on a cliffhanger so the king will keep her alive to hear the end the next night.

As Michael Axworthy states on the back cover of his book, A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind, Iran is a “land of contradictions”. As this is true these contradictions is what makes Iran, Iran. Iran today is looked as the pinnacle of the Islamic faith in the form of a Government structure. Since 1979, Iran has been known as the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iran will continue being an Islamic Republic for centuries to come. Iran has a rich history of intellectuals and scholars. Iran is known for its vibrant culture that dates back longer than the Western Ideals were even conceived. However Axworthy asks a question about Iran and its impact on the world’s history and the current events that we see in Iran today, Axworthy asks “Is Iran an aggressive power, or a victim?” This statement is a true paradox, can Iran be the next Nazi Germany, the next Soviet Union or the next Great Islamic Caliphate or is Iran just fighting to keep its culture alive from a vast array of attacks from foreign entities and internal struggles.

Primarily, the selfishness of American and British politicians torments the daily lives of numerous Iranians. As displayed on multiple panels on page 21, politicians convince Reza Shah, who is attempting to create a republic for Iran, that he can become emperor and enjoy all of the power that he desires. The panels all depict the western politicians to be larger than Reza, showing how they have control over him and use intimidation to change his plans for Iran. The speech from specific panels describe how the western politicians are looking for oil, and they are not bothered about who they are affecting and the consequences of their decisions. The American and British governments completely removed the possibility of a republic when they convinced Reza Shah to take power for himself. Their actions ultimately negatively altered the lives of Iranians as a result of their own governments’ selfishness. Rather than contemplating the effects of their decision on millions of citizens, the corrupt governments put their economic concerns first to bring back as much money as possible to their country.

Also, people like Habibullah Kalakani and Ghulam Nabi Charkhi, who were potential political threat to the royal family, were liquidated by Nadir Shah. During this period, Afghanistan enjoyed peace and constancy. Nadir’s policies of national gradualism and positive neutrality and friendship were rather effective, and enabled him to establish control over the domestic environment.