Part Two: The First Shah of Iran

Welcome back to Behind The Bastards, a podcast about the worst history and all of people. Or people in all of history, whichever is accurate. I don't know, I randomly put words together based on a predictive text algorithm. Much like an LLM, except for I use this collection of bones with runes inscribed on them.

“And that's how the podcast comes to you every week, thousands of bones with runes inscribed on them.”

That I pick at random. Great. Kava, how would you like me to read some random bones that might be about the shot or not? Let's do it. Let's roll the bones.

But first, you want to look back to the shot.

Yeah, yeah, I was going to say, "Kava is here." Yes, thank you again for having me, my name is Kavehoda. I am a physician. I'm a gastroenterologist and I'm also the host of a podcast called the House of Pod. It is a humor adjacent little medical podcast we look at.

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Have you done an episode about our mutual enemy yet? Which one? I feel like we have a number. Are you a junior? I've done a number.

No, no, no, no.

“Our mutual enemy that we talk about on the side often.”

We did talk about, can I say his name?

Is that okay? I don't like to give him more airtime than he is, but Vinay Prasad. Yeah. I like him. I like him.

He doesn't like me. I have no problem with him, but he's been involved in a lot of aspects of medical, our medical care recently in the country that I've disagreed with. And we actually did talk about him recently in our more recent episode. So yes, you can listen to the podcast and here are the episode is Influence versus Evidence.

And we talk about kind of what's happening out there right now in our current health care administration. That's not a fan of his. It's mostly good, right? Oh, I mean, 99% great.

Everything's fine. Everything is great. Everything is really, if you're really into communicable diseases, this is a good time. Excellent. I love communicable diseases.

And my favorite communicable disease is knowledge. I was going to say it. I swear to God, I was going to say it. Let's spread some together. Yeah.

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bloody and constant conflict between Britain and Russia. Again, there's this brief period in World War I where they're kind of fighting together, against the Ottomans in Persia, as opposed to a fucking with each other, and then we've got our revolution and the Bolsheviks, our fight in the whites, and Britain goes right back to fight in Russia, right?

Now, I guess it's a little different, and that they also have allies who are Russians in this case too, so they're not fighting all of the Russians, just most of the Russians.

And basically, the kind of broad strokes of this conflict are the Brits see Persia, because

they've already got a good base in the area, and they get resources, they have interests there, they have a lot of forces that they can get there. It's a great springboard, it also borders Russia, so it's a great springboard for them to

“use as a base from which to support the white army and the Russian Civil War, right?”

The Soviets, meanwhile, don't want Britain doing that, because it's bad for them, right? So the Soviet Union annexes chunks of northern Persia, and they create a the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic, right, there's like a, I mean, it's more complicated than that, right? And obviously there's local, and like, like, with the, like, Persians who are communists who are

part of this and, like, want to, there's partisans and stuff, it's much more complicated than all that, but broadly speaking, you've got the Brits and the area they control in Persia

that they want to use as a base to support the white army in Russia, and then you've

got this chunk of northern Persia that is aligned with the USSR, that is itself, at least nominally Bolsheviks that the Bolsheviks are using as a base, right? And there's fighting, the Twix, the two. Now, the, the, the, the, the quizers are still, like, that shot them, that, that line of shots is still in control, technically at the point at which all this is going on, but

“they're fail to exert, they, they don't have any power, right?”

Like, the shots are useless in this conflict. They don't really have any ability to influence what the Russians are doing, because the Bolsheviks had just killed their Tsar, so they're sure it's not going to listen to some shot in Persia. The thing, for respect to begin with, meanwhile, the shot, like, personally, like the

guy who was shot now, is that dude who was like 12 when he came to power and has been

ruled like a region was running things, and there's like a triumvirant of guys who aren't the shot were mostly running things in the Persian Central government. And so during this period, after World War I, the Central government's like bleeding provinces and big chunks of the army just kind of disappear into comical puffs of smoke, because they didn't really want to be in the army.

And when Pushkin to shove, they're like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, no, no, no, no, thank you. Yeah. So the only meaningful force opposing the Soviets are the Kossacks and the Kossack Brigade and their British backers. Again, it's a little more complicated than that, but that's the broad strokes.

Now, but the Kossacks at this point, the Kossacks are not reporting back. Yes, and no, so I, that's the part I don't understand. Here, well, it's weird, because again, Russia's not, not everyone in Russia's a Bolshevik. There's a cop, there's a Civil War, right? So you've got a bunch of Russians or white Russians who support at least not the Soviet Union

happening, right? Generally, they support some sort of return to the, the monarchy or whatever, right? So the, and a lot of like, Kossacks support the white Russians, like, because the Kossacks had been the Zars shock troops as shitload of them wind up in the white forces, right? And when during this period of time, the, the Persian Kossack Brigade is still led by a Russian

officer, like, it's still a Russian Colonel who's in charge of the brigade, but that Russians are white, right? So he's siding with the British in their efforts to help the whites against the Bolsheviks. These are very messy wars. Does that make sense?

You know, as someone who is currently living through the Iranian diaspora dealing with the Iran war, I think I can understand a little bit the complexity of this, and this is all starting to make sense in historical context to me. It's, it's fucking messy, this whole period, because it's not just Britain that's intervening in the Russians of a world, the United States has forces too, like there's all allied intervention

force. Yeah, they're one barely talked about anymore, but really complicated everything that's going on in this period of time. I'm, I'm really smoothing the edges down just because we can't get into too much detail about all of the shit that's going on.

“But right, that's what the Kossacks are on the sides of the Brits here, you know?”

So this is not 1919, 1919, 1921. This is not when, like, Domino theory doesn't really exist in the form of it's going to exist, but conservative reactionaries have already started sussing out the basic tenets. Right. They're already telling people, well, look, if Persia falls to communism, where will it stop?

Now obviously, Great Britain's real interest here is that if Persia falls to communism, they're

“not going to get cheap oil anymore, or the Navy, and that's a real problem.”

Right. Love that oil. Their other problem is they have to keep troops in Persia during this whole period of time, like their own guys, the Kossacks alone can't hold shit. If they want to know that that oil will save, they have to have their own dudes there,

and that costs a lot of money. So in 1921, Great Britain's two main interests in Persia are stop it from falling to the communists, and if we didn't have to keep our soldiers here to do that, it would sure be great. Right.

Those are their primary concerns. Now, I want to take you back in time. I know I just was talking about the Russians of a war era to talk a little bit about how things within the oil company working in Persia evolved over the early 1900s up to 1921.

Right. Because we didn't really talk about that so much in the last episode, and it does matter. So in 1909, that entrepreneur Darcy, and the company that he partnered with, had transferred

their rights, basically a gotten in bed with another company, because they needed more money

to do the infrastructure necessary to get oil out of Persia. And this new company is called Anglo-Persian Oil, or APOC, APOC. Remember these names? You're going to be, it's going to be real interesting what happens to Anglo-Persian oil in the modern era.

Now the way in which APOC functioned from 1909 to 1921, does a good job of showing how dysfunctional

“the central government of Persia was by this point?”

How bad the quesia monarchy is at actually governing the country, because APOC doesn't deal with tyrannet all. They don't talk to the shop. They ignore the capital completely, because their oil wells in shit aren't near the capital. And the oil wells are in the territory of a bunch of like, there's a mix of like shakes

and bactari cons, which are like, basically tribal level leaders, who actually control the territory where they're drilling for oil and transporting oil. And so the oil company is like, why would we talk to tyrann? They don't have any power here. They can barely keep the capital.

I'm going to make deals with these local guys. They have the guns and the labor force, right? The capital is not going to do anything but take bribes for me. So that shows you how weak the government is at this point in time. As a matter of fact, when the deal between APOC and these different tribal groups was concluded

in 1910, the company illegally imported a thousand laborers from India without talking to any one of the Persian government.

“They take a thousand Indians and make them work in Persia and they don't ask anybody in”

the fucking government. And it's like, they don't talk to the first, there's no visas for these motherfuckers.

They just don't look like this, don't look like this, but they never do.

They never look at Persians as real people. Now, they just, they can't, they, this colonial mindset in, it doesn't, it's so, never goes away. I mean, maybe now it's gone away. But like, it was so, it didn't change it to who they, right, intrinsic to who they were

as people that they just couldn't see the people living there as being worthy or warranting even that kind of discussion. Yeah, it's fucking nuts. And it's, it's really like, it's so, as an idea for like how messed up their attitude towards like Persians is period.

They, part of the agreement with these like local shakes and cons is, will hire a thousand locals to work in the oil plants, right? But they legally start bringing in a bunch of Indian workers to do most of the work. Like, they aren't going to hire any more than the minimum they have agreed of local people, right?

I want to quote again from that peace-sharing brisac road for the world policy journal. And what became a chronic grievance, APOC gave Britain's and Indians the best jobs, relegating Persians to menial roles, foreigners occupied the best houses, claimed to membership in the exclusive Persian club and sent their children to schools and segregated cantonments.

They were even found smart not for Iranians feeding the cycle of enduring resentment that was to characterize subsequent relations. Wow. Basically, they're not giving like, they'll let you like transport shit, but they don't give you anything.

They're not getting like the most dangerous jobs, but they're not getting good jobs either. They're not getting anything that pays well. And in the areas where the company is activated, their segregation against the indigenous people who live there.

And they're so smart, they're never going to let the Iranians that are there get to

hire positions where they can actually learn the oil industry, where they're going to actually learn how to do this, because having for big, if they weren't, yeah, they would run at them. So purposely keeping them in the dark. And then imagine their segregation in your country, because a guy came in last week

and is like, nah, you don't get to use the same like water fountains because we're getting oil out of here now. Like, if it's just, if it's just a thing that happened a week ago, like how that would like pit like piss you off, like what were you guys just got here, like we are so easily

So people like to tell you, this is like, you need one would be in this. Yeah. This I'm hearing.

“I've seen Iranians get pretty offended from much less than having a segregated water”

fountain. So this is nuts. Okay, because some fucker just comes in a week ago and is like, oh, no, this isn't your place anymore. There's oil here.

This is British property. So as I noted in the first episode, in 1914, the British parliament had voted for a proposal pushed by Churchill to fuel the Royal Navy with Persian oil. As part of this deal, the British government purchased 51% of Anglo-Persian oil, ensuring it would remain an all British company, which is again, them saying, we're not going to

let the locals run anything. We won't even let them know how to run anything.

This is always going to be our shit.

So by 1921, Northern Persia is a Soviet satellite and guerrilla fighters are advancing on Tehran, which basically can't defend itself without foreign help. There are the Cossacks, which are primarily made up of Persian soldiers and they are functional, but the government can't even pay them, right? Like the Cossacks are being paid entirely by Great Britain by this point in time and Great

Britain has to send her own soldiers to occupy large tracks of Persian territory in 1918 just to stop a total Bolshevik victory in the area. Now one of these Cossacks, getting paid by the British in 1921, is our friend Reza Khan,

“who at that point has been promoted to Colonel, right?”

This is machine gun resa. That's right, still can't read, but he could shoot that gun good. Han and his men, and about 5,500 British colonial troops are holding the line against the communists, right? While British foreign secretary cares on, drafts what becomes known as the Anglo-Persian

Treaty. This authorizes the stationing of British veterans to build a functional army for the central government. Basically, Britain's going to send experts so that the central government can build an army that actually works, right?

That's not just the Cossacks. We want there to be a functional army here, so we don't have to keep ours here, so we're going to send experts in. And we're also going to put a bunch of investment money into Persia to build railroads and reorganize the economy.

All of this is to keep the oil flowing. None of this is for the benefit of regular Persians. The army and the railroads in the economy are also, this is a stable place for the Royal Navy to get its fuel from, right?

Now this plan is to be paid for by a £2 million loan issued by Great Britain, who would

collect custom studies to pay the loan back directly from Persians. In effect, British tax collectors are now directly taxing Persian citizens to pay for the things that they're doing in order to make sure Great Britain has continued access to basically cheap oil, right? It was a wilder than straight they now.

So it's really insulting. So angry. I'm sorry. But the more I learn about this history, it's really thing, it's a good thing. I love your colleague James Stout so much.

Sometimes I learn about the things that British do and I get so mad.

“But he's so lovely that I remember OK, it's OK, it's OK.”

We are Americans. It's not like we can get, we don't have that much of a leg to stand on these days. Sure. I'm so confused. I'm torn between two groups of terrible things.

That's right. That's right. It's the team Jacob team Edward of Colonialism. Oh, yeah, great. Great Britain's taxing Persian directly and if it's not, if the British aren't directly

running the government, most Persians sure is how they think they are at this point in time. Right? At the end of World War I, the Bolsheviks had published a bunch of documents that they'd seized from the Zars Palace, revealing secret wartime packs.

And one of these secret wartime packs was Britain offering Russia the Darden Ells and exchange for giving Britain Persia. Right? So this comes out and people in Tehran educated Persians are obviously like, oh, so like

they, they just bought us, basically, they would bribe the Zars for us and they think they

own our entire as country now. And this helps bond massive resistance to this treaty that Secretary Kurzon has put together. Initially, Kurzon is not all that concerned. He states, the case will be settled by cash and then he proceeds to organize 131,000 pound bribe to the three-man triumvirate governing Persia on behalf of the Shah.

These three guys agree to the bribe and Kurzon being a genius is said to have declared the treaty a great triumph. And I have done it all alone. Like, great branding. He's like, so we're going to tax these people to build an army to protect our oil, basically,

and to keep them oppressed. And the people are like, we don't like that. And he's like, but I bribe three men, solving the problem forever all on my own.

And they reported on the fact that Persia's growing triumvirate had sold the country for a song, next per Brisex article. The treaty was blocked by the Mojli's and three successive Persian prime ministers fell.

So basically, three successive governments fail to gain whatever they need to do in the

parliament to be able to govern as a result of resistance to this treaty, which gets blocked in Tehran. Now, this causes chaos, because the British are, this is fucked up of them, but also

“British money and guns is the only thing propping this government up at the time, right?”

So when the treaty gets blocked, things aren't just like, good, you know, think this is the bad thing. So they could sell them from that peacock throne, they could sell the peacock throne. It looks like it's worth some money. Yeah.

Yeah. So chaos envelops the capital city. And back home in London, the lords of the Admiralty are really, have real reason to fear that they might lose their hook up to cheap gas.

Now, Kurson had basically been like the fuck around and pretend we care about international

law guy like he's bribing these dudes, but he's trying to frame it as like a legal treaty in an agreement between states. And since Operation Bride III guys failed, all lies turned to one of the top ranking generals in the Royal Army. killed Marshall William Edmund Ironside, who was referred to as the Lord Ironside, a named

George Lucas would laugh at you for giving to a character in a fictional story. Like the Lord Ironside really, it's a big, it's a big, it's a big, it's also a nickname tiny. William, tiny Ironside? That makes a lot better.

It's really fun. Any Ironside. That's pretty amazing. It's got a sub tubing born with that cool name and like knowing you're going to be a military leader, but also being a little guy, like because people are going to call you

tiny, like tiny Ironside is just less cool than the Lord Ironside. What that name, your options are limited, you're like, if you're an Ironside, you can only be in the military. He doesn't claim him for joining the Army. Or you could be an actor from Starship Troopers.

And that's it. That's it. That's it. That's right. And unfortunately Starship Troopers had not quite been invented yet.

We had barely harnessed the technology to create Paul Verhoven at that point. You know, he was he was still gestating, I believe.

“So the best way I can describe the Lord Ironside physically, if you're not looking at the”

video version of this, because most people listen to it, because it's a podcast. The best way I can describe them is that he had the face of a man who didn't understand why other nations beside England should exist. That's how I look at this guy's face, that is a face of confusion that there are other countries.

What are they doing? Look at them with their browns and their clothes and their clothes, their smells coming off their food. What is this spitting? I'm tasting the food.

God, it's not home, what's that? I'm afraid it's terrible going everywhere there, I think you're more consistent than me. He's got Lord Mountain energy. Yeah, yeah, he does, he has strong the IRA should have blown up both this guy was on

energy. That's what I'll say about this fucker, although he has bad luck with planes, not boats. So iron-side had been made commander of the Allied intervention force in northern Russia during the Russian Civil War, and he had been reassigned to Persia in 1921. And basically, as soon as he arrives in country, he sees Colonel Con or Resa at the time,

and he spots this guy, and he's like, this dude looks like a good person to charm and put in position, as like a military strongman, that might be what happened, or Resa might have looked at this guy, and immediately even like, "This is the British dude, I need to charm." Right?

I don't actually know which is true. There are two different versions, one of which is that iron-side manipulates Resa because he needs a guy. The other is that Resa manipulates iron-side because it gets him what it wants.

“I think probably both are true, both guys see each other as useful, right?”

That said, the typical narrative about Resa, Con, is that he was not an extraordinarily bright, not well-resistant mention, but he did have a sense for power, and really good, yes. Yeah, and he could root out sort of a little bit of, "Oh, this dude seems to be like a good, you know, shipped it, took whatever I don't know the same, took my ship to or whatever."

What's the deal? I don't know. But he probably pitches boat to or whatever. That's right. A tie is horse to, I don't know, but this is good, that is a good point about like, I try

to make this point often about what intelligence is, because there's a bunch of climate

scientists out there, and any one of them is smarter than Donald Trump in a million ways,

society and use it for your own benefit.

Now, part of why he's smarter at that is that he has absolutely normal, scruples, whatsoever, but he's completely negated, many people's lives work, who are much smarter than him, because he has that kind of intelligence, and Resa Con is also that kind of guy. He can't read, he's not super bright in that way, but he's incredibly intelligent, socially, and he is very good at making every British guy he meets, love him, and that

“is all that matters, in Persian politics at this point in time, and that's what you”

like. Hit my wagon too. Hit my wagon too. I can't believe none of us could fucking figure that out. Oh, boy, boy.

Um, sorry. And there is evidence that the Lord Iron Side Tiny is charmed by Resa. He describes him upon meeting him as, quote, "A man, and the straightest I have met yet, the real life and soul of the show." He doesn't mean that like a sexual sense, but it is funny to be like, that is the straightest

man I've met yet. Almost as like, and I've been fucking my way through this country too, so I can tell us straight one. It's funny too, because like, you know, when Resa Con is raising his son, Mohammed Resa, which goes on to be a v-saw that people think of as a shaw, in modern times, will say

the shaw they're talking about this guy's son, yes. When he's raising him, he is, there's like no emotional connection there of any kind. Absolutely not. He treats him as a support in it because he was one of these old school dudes who was under the belief that showing your son affection would make them gay.

That was like, that was his whole bag. Absolutely. And again, to be fair, his mom abandoned him after her husband dies when he's eight months old to be like, I'm gonna try again with a new family. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. His uncle probably wasn't great either. I mean, for sure, his uncle was not a super enlightened guy, you know.

This kid's first healthy relationship is with a machine gun.

Like, it's not shocking, he becomes the man he is.

“You know, who else had a healthy relationship with automatic weaponry?”

Hello, fresh. I hear, they, they love him. Oh, my God. Love him. Can't get enough of them.

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And we're back. So we just let that happen, huh? Okay. Cool. So yeah.

Good stuff. So Resicon, as we've noted, was not a bright guy in a lot of ways, but he's very well-liked by British people, particularly by the Lord Iron Side, who promotes Resa to bring a dear general and make some commander of the Cossack Brigade in 1921. He sits down with the newly minted general and the British officer acting as paymaster

for the local Persian forces, and he tells both men, "Britain won't stop him if he sees his power."

“Basically, he sits down with these guys and he's like, "Look, if you want to take control”

of the country, we won't do anything as long as you don't depose the current shot." Right? Technically, our friend, so keep Ahmed Shah's name, keep Ahmed Shah the shot, but you

can do anything else you want, basically.

And Resa's like, "Hey, bro, sounds cool to me, you know, I'll take that deal any day of the week." And he takes that deal. Right? Is that the 12-year-old?

Is that the Ahmed Shah is the 12-year-old Shah? Are we onto a different shot now? I mean, he starts his 12th. He's not 12-year-old. I recognize that people don't stay the age that when you meet them, you know, but yes,

he is that kid. That's how he gains power initially, right? Yeah. Iron site is like, "Hey, man, if you want to be in charge, just don't depose the shot. We'll back your play."

And then he goes, "Claps of hands together, wipes them off and leaves the fucking country for Egypt." He's just gone. Right? He sets up the dominoes and he fucking bounces.

So not long after he leaves on February 20, Resa marches a column of 600 men, 600 costs acts towards the undefended capital. All other military forces in the local police were ordered to stay inside and keep their goddamn mouth shut. And the coup that follows isn't totally peaceful, but it's like a fairly minimal amount

of bloodshed for a coup d'état, right? But it is a coup d'état. Now, depending on which historians you like best, Resa Khan is either a bold opportunist who executes his own coup with a little help from his British friends beside their promise not to intervene, and they don't do much other than not stop him.

And the other way to look at this is that Resa is a total pawn of the Brits, a chess piece maneuvered into position by the Lord Ironside to block the Reds and keep the Royal Navy fueled.

I'd never want to argue for reduced British culpability in all of this, but if Ironside

was the mastermind here, he was a very hands-off one. Because as soon as he leaves Iran for Egypt, he's grievously wounded in a plain crash. And he's like recuperating in the hospital while the Khan overthrows the government and takes power, right? Uh, Princeton historian Richard Olman writes, "It is idle to speculate upon whether or

not he would eventually have come to power had Ironside not singled him out, but it is clear that Ironside and his British colleagues were largely instrumental in placing Resa Khan in a position to bring about the coup d'état." And then if that's accurate, Resa Khan doesn't need much help from them other than backing out, right?

He's got the guys in the guns to do this, and he has a skill for building an army. He's going to very effectively get more guys and more guns because he doesn't have enough

“at the start of this to control much more than the capital, right?”

Once he takes power in the capital, he still has a lot of shit to do. And there's a years long road before he becomes the Shah. He's not the Shah after this coup. He's technically the Ward Minister for Persia, which is a new position that makes him the

And here's how he looks at the time, by the way.

“This is like how he looks when he's minister of war for the country.”

Great mustache. It must be said. Great hat. Everyone was wearing hats like that back then. I don't know why, but they do look, that one does look comfortable.

I love it. I love a hat. Pretty baller. Cossack hat. Look at that.

Yeah, those like shockos or whatever. Don't normally look at that cozy. Like his looks like it's knitted together at a wool. He does look nice. He's got this like sneer sort of thing down pretty good like smirk.

Yes. Pretty good. And that Ramsey's look. Yeah. He's got it knocked down.

I love that. stunning. Yeah. My people's eyebrow game has been strong forever. Yeah.

Those brows. Powerful. Fact. So all residents to do now at this point is in the war with the Soviets and defeat his numerous local rivals, most of whom are major tribal leaders who had gotten these

are the guys that the oil company Apoc is paying. Right, like those local leaders are his now his main rivals for power as well as like the Soviets. Um, so great Britain sends him a friend right around this time to help him out, you know, now that he's newly the minister of war and this friend is a British diplomat. So Percy Lorraine now, Persia is not seen as a great place to be a British diplomat at

this point in time. It's kind of like a career death sentence because things have not gone great for a couple generations of British diplomats here. It's been messy for them. He's not the Empire's best.

He is smart, but he's also awkward and he's bad at being social or at editing his own dispatches down into something people would want to read. His co-workers nickname him Ponderous Percy, which is a huge, huge bird British people.

So basically names, these names, these names, they're so interesting and tiny.

It's getting more British as the story goes along. Right. This shy bookworm dude is supposed to be like that liaison to Resa and he immediately falls for this handsome and heroic seeming fucking machine gunner who's just made himself the shot in all but name, right?

Just like Ironstein, Resa sums this guy up and charms him immediately and Lorraine writes back to his boss, Kerson. He gets straight to what he has to say and does not waste time and exchanging the delicately phrase, but perfectly feudal compliments so dear to the Persian art, an ignorant and uneducated man.

Nevertheless, he betrays no awkwardness of manner nor self-consciousness. He has considerable natural dignity and neither his speech nor his features reveal any absence of self-control. So that's how he's derived by Lorraine. I have to say he is in some ways so e-typical for a Persian man, from like not wanting

to show his kids love to like not using flowery poetry, like especially this age and like every older Persian man, fancy himself, a poet, like the language is so flowery. You say like, instead of saying, I miss you, you say my heart tightens for you, instead of saying like, you know, we wish you were here, we kept a space for you, it's empty. You know, we have all these like flowery little bits of language and this guy is so like

the opposite of that. That's what's so interesting about him, he's so a typically Persian. It's it's both because I mean, partly he's only half Persian, right? Like his mom is Caucasian, all the films one drop probably are muted, right? He's wonderful.

We claim you. Sure. But he's he's probably he's not raised the way, like, I mean, he's certainly not raised in a traditional Persian family at all.

He's almost basically an orphan, right?

Like he's he's so he doesn't have and I think part one of the things that results in is that unlike a lot of other people who have stuff like art to learn and culture and family that mattered to them, all he thinks about is power.

“It's the only concern in his mind, his entire life is gaining and taking power, right?”

And guys like that tend to be the ones who gain and take power in situations like this, right? Because it's all they think about. Yeah. Cool.

Good stuff. Just like the podcasting. In medical school. Yeah. Just like podcasting.

Yeah. So Lorraine uses what influence he has to convince his superiors to advance a resa enough money to fund an army of 18,000 men. He also argues that resa should be the one that the British back over several local shakes and cons who previously worked with Anglo-Persian oil.

General Lyon side also helped his friend, machine gun resa filing a report with the British war office that promised resa would quote, "solve many difficulties" and enable us to depart in peace and honor.

Basically, if we let this guy be in charge, he'll build an army that works and we

won't have to, we can leave and we won't have to be ashamed.

“We won't leave like we did Afghanistan, just like getting beat out, right?”

And we can keep getting our oil, right? That's the argument, iron size making. So it takes about two years of fighting in the heartland of Persia for resa to take a hold of this chaotic situation to beat back his rivals and to restore a form of order

Now the pretense of a constitutional regime still exists, but resa's prime minister is like, well, now that you're the commander-in-chief, that's a civilian job, you have

“to retire from your military job and leading the Cossack Brigade, right?”

And resa's like, "No, I'm going to keep my private army."

Obviously, you never give up your private army, you never give up your uniform if you want

to be dictator, right? That's a bad idea. I hear right there. That's right. Keep that sucker on.

More medals on it. More more medals. Yeah. And once this happens, basically everyone in the government realizes like, "Well, this guy is the shot in all-but-name," you know, so after he returns in like 1923 to the capital

at the head of an army that had at least been semi-victorious, Con was appointed prime minister himself. Now he's still bound by a pinky swear not to overthrow Amad Shah, but somehow Amad got the idea that life in Persia might not be safe for him with the resa in charge of the king for looming monster machine gun loving, yes, right, yeah, they figure out.

“So he flees to Europe where he spends the remainder of his life in exile, right?”

Now resa has at this point they've basically made a kind of piece, you know, that things

have been settled enough with the Soviets that they're not worried about that, about like communist taking over the rest of Persia. And resa sits down with the parliament and says basically, "Hey, if you guys noticed I have all the guns," and parliament says, "You sure do, resa, how do you like to be dictator for life?"

And he says, "That sounds dope." And it also told him, "I have to be." I'm smoothing some things over, but in October of 1923 he was appointed his serene highness in King of Kings, although again, he's not the Shah yet. In fact, resa debates briefly after this point what kind of government should he impose

upon his newly won land, for the world policy journal? Resa Con had toyed with proclaiming a republic, following the example of Kamal Adeterk, the Turkish soldier reformer he sought to emulate. The King of Kings claimed to be a reluctant monarch, only agreeing to ascend the throne at the urging of the Olima, or Moulas who thought that conservative Persia would fair

better with a Shah than with a democracy.

“At the time, royal titles were very much in the desert air, hence King Faisal of Iraq,”

so he chose the peacock throne. So he picks being a king, it's supposed to be like a president, the who would have been the same as a Shah, he would have actually given up power, but he decides, "Well, I'll just make myself basically king," right, so he's, yeah, it is interesting that he goes and he tries to connect with the Turkish leader and is seeing what's happening in Turkey

at this time because he loves Adeterk. Yeah, I'm sure he sees like a strong guy who's maybe modernizing Turkey at that point. That's exactly what he sees. Do that, but it seems like you'll know better than me, but I feel like he's not the politician to do that, he's not the leader to do it the same, with the same sort of

clarity that the Turkish adeterk would do. Yeah, no, and he's not nearly as bright. Adeterk was interested in actually building a functional state, right, the Shah is primarily interested in getting as much out of Iran of like he wants to rob it, blind, right, that's why he's in the, he wants to be the Shah, and it takes him about a year of badgering

power limit, but he succeeds in convincing them to formally oppose the old Shah and make him the new Shah, and almost as soon as, as that becomes his job. And we'll talk about the actual process of crowning him. Resicon changes his name to Resa Shah Palavi. Now this is an auspicious change during the ancient, as you noted, during the, the, the

sassited empire, which dominated a lot of the Middle East and North Africa, except for the bulk of the landmass of the Arabian peninsula that's like a lot of the coast, the language by most that most Persian spoke, they, it was called Palavi, right, like that's was the term for it. And Resa changed his name, like, he does this, like, the reason he does this is, is what

Medi alavi and Atul Singh, writing for the Fair Observer call, a very clever public relations stock. He's basically making a nationalist picture to, like, Persian, saying, like, hey, or, I mean, specifically to, like, Iranian Persian, saying, like, I am going to be your leader, and this is going to be your country, as opposed to, and if these other groups of people who currently

live here, right, like, that's the, the pitch that he's made. Palavi was great branding. This whole thing was great brand. Palavi. Yeah.

Yeah, changing the name, then he goes on to, I mean, his son actually goes on changing the, uh, Anglo-Iranian, uh, or Anglo-Persian oil company to Anglo-Iranian. Yes, yeah. Well, we'll talk about that. Yes.

Great. It's especially the father. There's solid branding. Yeah. It's, yeah.

It's lasted to this day, some of the branding they did. And there's, there's a lot of this stuff. So in their book, The Shaw, uh, Abbas Malani writes that prior to obtaining total power, Reza began playing at Piety in front, or really, we talked about this a bit.

He'd always kind of been, like, the enforcer, like, religiously, that had, he'd gained

He likes being in good with the Shiite clergy, and he really ups that during the years

when he's, like, you know, in charge, but not yet the Shaw, quote, he participated in religious mourning processions. And like the most pious of the mourners, he beat his chest and brushed his forehead in the top of his head with ashes of sorrow and grief. Not long after he was crowned, Reza Shaw would change course and begin a carefully planned

policy of limiting the power and role of the clergy in Iran. So he's, this is going to be a pattern for him. The people that he needs to get to power, he's going to fuck over fairly quickly. And that doesn't include the clergy. And there will be Titanic.

You can tie the fact that the clergy are in charge in Iran today, to his decision to fuck the clergy.

“And some of the things he does is a result of that, right?”

We're going to talk about all of this. There's really long-reaching consequences to this, but nobody calls his bullshit at the time, right? And everyone's fooled.

Well, not everyone's fooled by Reza's charm, actually.

Um, Alavian Singh, note in their piece for the fair observer, not everyone bought into Reza Shaw's sham, four courageous legislators opposed the new Shaw. One of them was Mohamed Mosada, who would go on to become Prime Minister years later. The British managed Reza Shaw's coronation using the coronation of King George V is their guide.

So you do have people who oppose him, including Mosada, who will talk, I mean, we Margaret should talk about it in episode on her show, actually. Yeah, exactly. So it's pronounced, yeah, I'll give you the, the two versions of it. Easy one.

And by the way, again, apologies, because my far sea is garbage. Mosada deck is probably easiest way to, with more of a few sound, but I think it's pronounced more Mosada. It's, it's one of these sounds that's hard for Americans. Yeah.

Mosada deck is a GH at the end. Yeah. And that's, I was out there. Perfect. Perfect.

I mean, he had some flaws.

“I mean, but he was like, he's one of these heroes that's held up in secular Iran.”

I heard his name for the first time mispronounced in songs that were angry about the CIO

for throwing it right there about our government's role and it's overthrow. Right. Oh, I love that. But yeah, we're not going to talk about him much more in this episode, but I don't want to note that like, they're, they're not everyone is fine with what

raises doing. There is resistance, there's very brave resistance. So when he is coronated, as, as I noted here, the British used, bit like, that quote said the British, I'm going to go into a little more detail about what that actually means.

When it says the British used Ressis Shah's coronation, like, used the, the coronation of kingships of fifth is their guide. I want to talk about like, what that means. So one of the British people who's in Tehran at the time is a writer named Vita Sackville West.

She's a prominent author, and she's a good friend of Virginia Wolf. And she happens to be in Tehran for the coronation because her husband is a British diplomat. And she kind of embagals her way and to helping to plan the coronation, which resizes both a way to show his continuity with Persia's grand past and to celebrate

the coming new modern regime. Now Sackville West is not a fan of Tehran, which after a decade of nearly a decade of war in starvation isn't in great shape, right? She calls the city squalled with, quote, few pretentious buildings and mean houses on the verge of collapse and little else, which is not nice given that like, your government

really help for the family that you'll like have the people who lived in the country. Like, yeah, contributed to that London wouldn't look nice if 40% of British people died in a family cycle. I'll bet that might run. Oh, right.

Yeah. Yeah. I can take a lot of criticisms, but like, when they come from the imperialist force, that's not a fair one. That's not a fair one.

Nope. So Vita and the wife of the head of the British litigation literally sit down with books about the coronation of King George the Fifth, because resizes like, and resizes people, I should say, are like, we got to figure out how to coordinate this guy, because this is kind of a new thing, because he's not being like the rest of the shots, how should it

look? And they leave it to the British people, because like, well, you know how kings and queens are supposed to take the throne, right? You figure it out. And so these two women sit down with these books about the coronation of King George

the Fifth, and they make notes about, oh, there's all these symbols of power that they handed in. There's all these swords and sectors and crowns and precious stones that mean all these things. These fancy names that are part of this whole process, and they kind of make their own version of it for the coronation of the shot.

I want to read you a quote about this whole process of planning the coronation from a very British coup by Shireen Bricec.

“But as I read all this, I need you to remember that, again, seven years earlier, about”

half the country died of famine when we're talking about how obscene the display of wealth that this represents really is. As Vita Sackville Wester called, the linen bags vomited emeralds and pearls, the green buys vanished, the table became a sea of precious stones, the leather cases opened, displaying jeweled cimetars, daggers mounted with rubies, buckles carved from a single emerald, ropes

of enormous pearls.

diamonds, a cap with a tall agret, secured by a diamond larger than the mountain of light.

“Two crowns, like great heretic tiaras, barbaric diadoms, composed of pearl of the finest”

orient. We plunged our hands up to the wrist and the heaps of uncut emeralds and let the pearls run through our fingers. We forgot the Persia of today. We were swept back to Akbar in the spoils of India.

Soon, orders went out to shops throughout Europe, but after the intercession of Lady Lorraine, Vita was given authority to order China, glass, cutlery, and stationary from Lundans royal perveires. She commissioned red livery for the palace, modeled on those worn by the British Legation Servants, apropos of the coronation, Vita Sackville West writes to her friend Gertrude Bell, she and Luis Lorraine have been very busy painting the throne room pink.

It's like I'm envisioning, I'm envisioning the scene from the cartoon movie Aladdin where he comes in as Prince Ali Aboblaw, and I wish you could talk about that movie for a long time. I got thoughts. Oh boy, it's so opulent.

Yes. Yes. Yes. And this all this wealth that light could have been used during the famine years, maybe help with the famine, wasn't used for that.

And also, there's an opportunity here in this capital that's been devastated of like, well, we need a shitload of cutlery and stationary in China and glass. You could have a lot of that made by people in Tehran, by people in the greater Persian area. No. We're sending off to London.

We're sending money out of this starving country to bring in stuff from London. It's just better, you know. Be a job creator. Right. Nothing else.

Yeah. So this pisses people off, too. Oh, really? I want to. Yeah.

I want to talk about how the shot gets coronated. And here's how the biography of the shot describes though it resists stepped into the hall where he would be coronated. He's arrived. He's known as a very punctual man.

In fact, he's accused often angrily of bringing like the concept of punctuality to Persia that like Iranians didn't give a shit what time it was before recess. Like he's still doing weird people say I'm calling you out LA, I'm calling you out LA Persia. Sorry.

“But so it's not where he shows up late as like a power move because he can, right?”

Quote, at last there was a stir. The doors were opened and the six year old Mohammed Reser, that's his son appeared in the hall behind him, walked the procession of the 22 political dignitaries led by the prime minister. They were carrying the many royal accoutrement necessary for the coronation three different

crowns, a septer, three swords belonging to past kings and even a diamond-studded royal bow and arrow.

One of the swords belonged to Nadir Shah, a powerful king united Iran and was reported

to have been planning limits on the powers of the clergy. Nadir Shah was also alleged to have attempted a reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis and he was Reser Shah's great hero. So he's kind of signaling some of what he's going to be trying to do, right? By what stuff they pick for this.

So the Shah's son, after he's crowned, Mohammed Reser Palavi, was pronounced crowned Prince. Initially, now that Reser's the Shah, he promises a reign free of religious influence or internal strife. And he promises, quote, "European style, educational institutions, westernized women

act outside the home and modern economic structures with state factories, communication networks, investment banks, and department stores."

“In the words of historian, Ervand Abrahamian, right?”

He's saying, "We're going to be a modern country like all those European countries," right? And, you know, there's a lot of good stuff that sounds like in those promises. Right. You know, cut the power of these religious tyrants, let women do more stuff, sounds great, roads, sounds good.

A lot of that stuff will, in fact, happen.

Now, first off, it's always debatable how much of this is actually, how much of the good

stuff that happens has anything to do with the Shah or is it just stuff he takes? It's credit for, but the other thing that's important to know is that like what he does he does by instituting the most direct one man who will possible. And this means cracking down on, in many, and in many cases, eliminating all of the local leaders, the tribal leaders who had previously been friends to his British patrons, and

it doing so in a very brutal way. Ending internal strife means ending any fiction that Persia is a nation of many peoples. And so it was Reser Shah who officially changed the name of his country from Persia to Iran. Per the fair observer, Reser Shah's de-tribalization and Persianization led to ethnic cleansing

and genocide. William Douglas and noted American judge had the following to note about one community that fell fall the Reser Shah. Lure after Lure, that's the group of people that's the ethnic group like the tribe that he's going after, Lure after Lure was beheaded again and again.

The plate was heated red hot and slapped on the stump of a neck. The colonel started betting on how far these headless men could run. Every man woman and child had been killed, not a living soul was left.

This is the kind of shit his soldiers are doing to wipe out any other groups that might

be a threat to his power. Like they're they're beheading people and coturizing the bodies and then like seeing how far the their headless corpses will sprint like this is a brutal dehumanizing crackdown on everyone else. That's a big part of what the Shah does.

Oh my God. Have we had two ad breaks Sophie? No. Okay. Great.

This is a good time for one. No, it isn't, but let's do it anyways.

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We're back! So, the new shot also put a violent in to what hit at that point been some 80 years of increasing press freedom. Over the course of his reign he grows increasingly obsessed with the way Mastafa Kamal

It was now with legal for Iranians to wear anything but Western dress.

“Now, this is something that gets missed a lot.”

When you see conservatives or other people, post pictures of Iranian women and headscarves next to old photos of the second shot in this line of women during the reign of that shot in Tehran, dressed like Westerners, right, looking like women in Western cities, right?

And it's always framed as like, and it is fucked up that people don't have freedom to

choose what they wear on their head, but what is not talked about is how those pictures came to be. And so, I want to read you a quote from a lobby in sings article about why you have those pictures of women without headscarves in Tehran. If they did not do so, give up their traditional dress, they were beaten and even taken

into custody. This policy caused a massive rupture with tradition. Its small towns and villages, people ignored the Shah's edict, and cities, people suffered, especially the women. Many women stopped going to public places to avoid harassment and became involuntary

prisoners within their own homes. This is not a nice process. He's not freeing people. So he's saying you'll be beaten if you do this thing that you've been doing your whole life still.

This is the point where I have to say two things, there's two things I have to mention. One, and this is for all the aunties out there who might be listening or hear this episode. Please know angry emails. We can accept two truths happening or have happened, which is one, the Shah's were repressive and fascists, and also the Moulas are repressive and fascists.

And I would argue there were, and I would say most Iranians would say it's worse, but it doesn't mean that what they were doing was good. This is not a nice time. It's not a nice time. Also, it probably led long-term to some of the conflicts that we had down the road with

the Moulas, and those fascists, Islamophacists regime. Another thing I will have you note, when this meme was popularized, where it's like they show like the picture of like the women that this is Iran in the 70s and now look

there and all sort of, always has a weird vibe to it.

I posted one of my more popular tweets when I was on X or Twitter was a picture of John Travolta in Saturday night fever, and it was him dancing with the full-on dance thing, you can imagine ways like on the dance bullets all lit up, and I said this is an actual picture of my father in pre-revolutionary Iran dancing. And to be fair, it does kind of look like my dad, and it does look like the kind of dancing

he would do. It's extraordinarily Persian. In fact, there's never been a more Persian coded picture than John Travolta dancing in that, and it was very popular, and up to everyone who thought that was real-life apologizes.

I'm sorry. Yeah. It's important to know that like, again, there are much better ways to, yeah, it's bad to tell people they have to or can't wear a certain thing. You can do that without saying it's now illegal to wear what we're wearing before, and

you'll get beaten in the street if you do it. The shot could have just said you don't have to dress like the clerics want you to anymore, do whatever, and doing that also probably would have caused a lot less of the kind of resentment that builds up in the right. Right.

It's just he's he's a dick about everything. He's a huge asshole. That's that's a shot, basically. So Iran does modernize a lot during rest time and power, and early in his reign, there are other people who are doing hard work, and in good work, we're like competent political figures

“in allies who is able to entrust to execute and create policy, right?”

And this is part of why there's a lot of development in the country.

Much of these men, though, grows too powerful and popular for rest is liking.

He is not a guy who is good at trusting. The encyclopedia of the world of his law notes, they were gradually eliminated from the political arena, and most of them were murdered humiliatingly at his behest. So not a great dude to work. God, I don't like that sentence murdered humiliatingly.

No, that is very haunting. That sounds bleak, horrible. Oh, I mean, he likes cauterizing stuff. So we know that there's some fucked up shit going on here. By 1931 or so, the shot is about as close to a total desperate as one could be.

But as cruel as he was to his own people, he was deeply aware of how fragile his hold on power remained. He had seen an action, how little effort it took the British to help him onto his throne. Over the years, though, he'd also grown increasingly paranoid about their plots. At the same time, he was terrified of the USSR, and he actually gives the Soviet Union a

big chunk of what's today Turkmenistan in 1933 to try and buy them off and keep them happy. And he does the same to British oil interests. He gives them a, like, concedes a bunch of Iranian soil.

“He does this a few times to any, I think he does this to Turkey as well.”

He gives away a sizable chunk of his country in order to preserve his reign and try to make friends with these foreign powers that he's hoping will help keep him on his throne. And this obviously pisses people off.

Look authorities in the media were ordered to describe the Shah as a reformer who would modernize

the country. He was given credit for reforms instituted by other past leaders like Amir Kabir, while

“his secret police punished anyone who spoke out about the darker side of the regime.”

Percherine Brisek. Reses Shah's whim was absolute, his memory extraordinary, his thirst to avenge proverbial, his skin, gossamer, no elective constitutional system was allowed to grow roots under the Pilavis. The concept of a free press was unfathomable.

When Resa discovered that Iranians were still using postage stamps bearing the portrait of the deposed Amit Shah, he sent his troops to seize the entire supply. For some weeks, Iran remained stampless, and since the newly minted ones with Resa's portrait were slow in arriving from Holland, the old stamps had to be retrieved and circulated. I'll bite with the exiled Shah's effigy blacked out.

Somebody had to go through each one of those stamps and just write it out. When you just had a temper tantrum, he's like, "Oh, this stamps confiscate them all." And they're like, "Well, no one can use the mail." Hey, hey, boss, we got kind of a problem here. He's like, "You got sharpies, don't you?"

Wow. Yeah. And I'll have you note this is where the corner of the show, which I talk about, Persian contributions to the world, the postal system, you like the postal service. Persians came up with that.

You like that? I love it. That's our thing. What are our things? And he fucked it up.

Fucked it up. It's our thing, man. And he fucked it up. Yeah. Yeah.

“Did you think it's been your thing for a while?”

Yeah. So when the Great Depression hits, oil revenues from Great Britain dry up sharply. Again, the British are nominally supposed to pay quite a bit to Iran for the oil that they take out. During World War I, they stop paying because they're like, "Why would we pay it times

our hard?" And during Great Depression, oil revenue was also dry up sharply. And they're finding ways to fuck with them. They're still selling oil. They're often lying to the government.

Because again, Apoch has never cared about the government to Iran.

So they're often, like the government to Iran doesn't usually know what the British Navy is paying for oil. Right? Right? Like, that's all kept in a black box from them.

This pisses off the shot. There's years of ongoing arguments with the shot and renegotiations of that contract with Darcy, where the shot's like, "You're fucking us." And they are. The shot's not wrong.

He's being fucked here. So it is still Apoch, the Anglo-Persian oil company. At the time though, it will eventually be renamed, as you noted, the Anglo-Aranian oil company or AIOC. And just in case you're all curious, it's renamed one more time.

And it still exists today. How did you know what Apoch's AIOC is today? I bet it is. Famously known for taking care of the environment. They are now known as BP.

Wonderful company. British petroleum. British petroleum. That's right, baby. That's these motherfuckers.

They were back from the beginning. It's so funny. Uh-huh. They were always evil. Always evil as fuck.

Even when they weren't killing like ducks and stuff. No. No.

There's never been a leader of that company who didn't deserve to be flung into the sun.

Absolutely. So, the fact that Great Britain's fucking him and that the oil company's fucking him really wears on Reza and resentment over this builds at the same time is an awful lot. So, in the 20s, up to the 30s, he's getting increasingly angry at Great Britain and increasingly

paranoid at Great Britain. And at the same time, a lot of Germans start coming to Iran. And like a lot of tourists come and a lot of vacationers. No. Right, you're in investors.

Come on, you have. We're going to look into this. Come on. Business. You have.

Oh, no. To not very German regime. That's fine. Nice. Then, you know, a guy gets elected in 19, you know, on the 30s who's not as nice, but

but who Reza Schoff finds himself actually in agreement with a lot. That guy is named as Adolf Hitler. And Reza Schoff's like, this Hitler guy, he's saying a lot I agree with about how the British your evil and untrassworthy he's saying a lot of other things that Reza agrees with to stuff on genocide that Reza might not be against.

And Germany, this is actually one of the most successful German, it's a mix of like a spying and like an economic influence effort that like the Nazi regime like carries out over this period of time, which is that by 1940, nearly half of all the Iranian imports come from the German Reich and 42% of all the Iranian exports are entering Germany.

“So by the time World War II starts, Germany is kind of more important for the Iranian economy”

in a lot of ways than Great Britain is. And Reza Schoff has come to believe that like, well, I've got these Germans who were

Like these, these guys will be good friends to me. And he starts, he hates Britain and Russia, both pretty much the same at this point in time. But at the start of World War II, he makes a bet that like, I bet Hitler's going to win. I bet this, I bet things are going to keep going well for aid all of Hitler.

Yeah, yeah.

This goes wrong for him almost immediately, for first off, he shocked at the the Molotov

ribbon trot pact in 1939, that like the Soviet Union and the Nazis have a detent and invade Poland together because he's like, wait, but I don't like Russia.

“I thought that we were on the same page about that Germany, right?”

And when World War II starts, he's like, Iran's neutral, trust me, neutral. We want that. We're not siding with the Germans here. But when the Germans invade the USSR, that makes Russia and Great Britain allies. And they're, the British are increasingly unhappy with this guy who seemed very sympathetic

to Hitler being on the throne. And to make a long story short, the shot is forced to abdicate. He tells his son, I cannot be. And this is because like Russia and Britain, like primarily Britain, like since soldiers into Persia, right?

They basically take the country because they need the oil for the war that they're fighting with the Third Reich. And they don't want this guy who's untrustworthy to be able to cut off the Royal Navy's fuel supply. Right?

It's part of why there's a conference in Tehran during World War II. The Tehran conference. It's a big deal. Right? And the shot, yeah, Resa is not a fan of any of this.

He abdicate, telling his son, I cannot be the nominal head of an occupied land to be dictated to by a minor English or Russian officer. His son, who's 21 years old this time, Mohammed Resa Palavi, is immediately proclaimed "Shah" by the Majlis right after this. And yeah, that's more or less the end of this guy's story.

Resa, the former Shah, gets put on to a British boat.

He goes to Mauritius first in the Indian Ocean, but he doesn't like the climate and he eventually

takes into Johannesburg, South Africa, where he stays under a house arrest dying from a heart attack in 1944. And that's the end of his life. That's fascinating. First of all, when I heard that we were doing the shot, I had the wrong shot in mind.

So this is fascinating because this is the shot I know the least about. So that's really interesting to get all this background. I thought this was all going to be the first like two pages of a script on the other shot. The context we need and I just found it so interesting and worth telling.

And I like, especially once I hit the fucking Great Persian fan and I was like, "Shit." This is like, I need to refocus these episodes. No, absolutely. And I do think it's so important because it lays out the groundwork for what happens next. Yeah.

Really importantly, and it makes it so much easier to understand what happens next. I was under the impression that he had flirted with the Nazis just because he hated the British so much. But I didn't realize he was quite so sympathetic. It sounds like the allies had their fears, which may or may not have been grounded.

But it makes sense as to why they went in and opposed him. Yeah.

“It's always weird to me that dynamic, like, "What does that mean?”

As the sun? How do you stay behind?" And that's just so weird. I guess you have to. You feel like it's your duty in the best case scenario.

Get to be the king. Your dad's never been that great.

You're 21. Probably always figured you could do a better job. I mean, I'm curious because at this time, I think the 21-year-old Muhammad Reza Shah, the sun, was just out there in, like, Europe hanging out with, like, be great celebrities and actresses and partying hearts. So I didn't.

I'm curious to know where he was at in the stage in his life, but we'll have to get to it at some other point. Do more episodes, please. Yeah. Don't worry.

We will, friends. We will. But we're not going to do that today. Today, we're going to do something else. We're going to end that episode with you plugging your plug-ables.

Wow, beautiful. You're very good at this.

“So if you like this show, I think there's a very good chance you're going to like my podcast,”

the House of Pod. It is a humor adjacent medical podcast. I have on a rotating crew of co-hosts, and I try to mix up medical expertise, and people who are just fun, and I like to be around, like Robert and Sophie, for example. And we'll talk about important medical topics.

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There's a lot of looking at how we decide what happens in our healthcare now, and how we're drifting away from evidence. So, anyways, you'll like it. I promise. Well, everybody, that's been behind the bastards for this week.

Check back next week.

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YouTube.com/at behind the bastards. We love about 40% of you, statistically speaking. In 2023, Bachelor Star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.

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In the new podcast, the secret world of Roll Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. "What?" "You probably won't believe it either." "Was this before?"

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Including the story of the woman who last participated in a Formula One race weekend, the recent uptick in F1 romance novels and plenty of mishab scandals and sagas that have made Formula One a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to no grip on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A shocking, public murder.

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