When the Shah of Iran was secretly diagnosed with cancer a revolution was already underway
mohammad reza pahlavi shah of iran revolution shah
Matt Bevan Yasmin Parry www.abc.net.au matt-bevan yasmin-parry
In 1974, two French doctors were called to the Iranian capital, Tehran. The doctors — specialists in blood diseases — had been asked to assess a government minister with cancer, but the appointment was odd.
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In 1974, two French doctors were called to the Iranian capital, Tehran.

The doctors — specialists in blood diseases — had been asked to assess a government minister with cancer, but the appointment was odd.

The minister didn't seem to want their professional advice, he just wanted to have a nice lunch with the doctors and a chat.

But it was all a ruse. As the dinner was ending, they were taken into another room to see their real patient — the Shah, Iran's King of Kings.

Iranian culture is extremely secretive about illness — even more so when it's the king who is sick.

The Shah was in his 33rd year as his country's absolute monarch. In the eyes of the West, he was a benevolent dictator.

He was in his 50s, handsome and fit, but told the doctors he'd felt a lump on his left side under his ribs.

He wanted them to find out what it was, without leaving a paper trail. No X-rays, no scans, no charts, no notes.

They did some tests, and diagnosed him with cancer — leukaemia.

This cancer diagnosis led to a Shakespearean tragedy that not only brought about the end of the Iranian monarchy, but also directly led to the situation we are in today, where Iran has, for 45 years, been the arch-enemy of America.

Since the Iran-backed group Hamas attacked Israel in October, both Israel and the United States have been striking other Iran-backed militant groups around the region, in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

Meanwhile those groups have been accused of attacking American military bases and navy ships.

Open warfare between the US and Iran becomes more and more likely by the day, and it all began in the spleen of one man.

Daddy issues

Mohammad Reza and his twin sister were born in 1919 to a military officer with no connection to the royal family.

His father was ambitious and violent — he liked to kick insubordinate subordinates in the testicles if they didn't follow his orders.

When Mohammad was six, his father led a military coup against the sitting Shah, and seized the crown of Iran.

The young crown prince had a difficult childhood.

The new Shah thought that if fathers showed affection to their sons it could lead to homosexuality.

He didn't want this for his favourite son Mohammad, so he basically ignored him until he was a teenager.

His twin sister became the more dominant of the two. Mohammad was reclusive, and many described him as "sad".

During World War II, the British and Soviets invaded Iran and forced his father to abdicate. At the age of 22, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became Shah of Iran.

Man of the people... sort of

Mohammad Reza was very ambitious about what he could achieve as Shah.

He saw himself as a man of the people, of sorts. He would drive around the streets of Tehran in one of his many sports cars and chat with average Iranians.

He vowed not to be crowned until his people were educated, well-fed and lived lives equivalent to Europeans.

Thankfully, the enormous oil reserves found under the Iranian desert made that a real possibility.

The Shah intensified the modernisation program started by his father.

Supported by the British and American connections he'd made during the war, he spent big on road, rail, health, education and defence projects.

But his reputation as a man of the people didn't last.

In 1948 while out in public, he was shot, and he withdrew from contact with the public.

And after a coup in 1953, the Shah decided he couldn't trust a government to deliver his modernisation plans, so he dispensed with democracy altogether.

Modernisation at any cost

The Shah decided he would modernise the country through sheer force of will.

The feudal system was abolished and gradually, the big estates of wealthy landowners were shared among their former serfs.

He believed that once the country was industrialised, it would be ready for democracy.

By the mid-70s, Iran established itself as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Women were able to work and vote, and many young people wore 70s European fashion.

His regime was celebrated by western leaders, but it was far from perfect.

The Shah surrounded himself with 'yes' men, and led a regime many would later describe as "remarkably repressive".

His position was protected by the fast-growing military and agents of the SAVAK secret police, who kidnapped and tortured political opponents.

Careening toward collapse

After his cancer diagnosis at the age of 54, the Shah feared his teenage heir would be unable to complete his modernisation efforts. The plan would have to be accelerated.

Government spending increased. He started lending huge amounts of money to neighbouring countries, hoping to increase the general stability of the Middle East by making everyone richer.

With American help, he set up a nuclear energy program, hoping to fast-track his country into superpower status with nuclear power and possibly nuclear weapons.

To secure his family's position, he entered into a number of spectacular arms deals with Western countries.

But many Iranians were upset by his leadership. Persian culture had a 2,500 year old history, and the Shah was trying to replace that in the few years he had left.

His reforms were also undermined by corruption and the secret police became more brutal. Months of violent riots and protests followed.

In February 1979, 45 years ago this week, the revolution was complete.

The monarchy collapsed, the Shah fled the country, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an Islamic religious leader, took control.

Refuge and retaliation

The Shah was in a predicament.

Other countries were building relationships with Iran's new rulers, and didn't want to anger them by giving the Shah refuge.

He was forced to bounce from country to country, all the while becoming more and more unwell.

Years of trying to keep his condition a secret had led him to get worse medical care than even a middle class Iranian would have been able to get.

He wound up in Mexico, where the doctors thought he had malaria, and suggested he be transferred to New York for specialist treatment.

And despite the risk that this would seriously irritate the Ayatollahs, president Jimmy Carter agreed.

As expected, it did irritate the Ayatollahs. The chief justice of Iran's new Revolutionary Court put a bounty on the Shah's head and issued this statement:

"I have asked all Muslims and Iranian students in the United States to wait outside the hospital, and then go inside and take him away.

A legacy of sanctions

Nobody killed the Shah in New York, but in Tehran, a large group of Iranian students decided to take vengeance on the Americans, through their embassy.

Armed students took over the US Embassy, and held 52 diplomats hostage.

They demanded Washington send the Shah back from America, but the United States refused.

The US piled crushing sanctions onto the Iranian economy to try and force the government to send the hostages back.

The hostages were released the hour after president Carter left office — a deliberate punishment against him.

By then, the Shah was dead, and the damage was done. The hostage crisis led to sanctions, and the sanctions were never lifted.

The US and Iran have been enemies ever since.

This is the lasting legacy of the Shah.

He's a man who instituted sweeping reforms, many of which — the giant military, the nuclear program, the secret police — are now keeping the Ayatollahs in power.

He is also a man who was supported, then harboured by America, leading to a retaliation. And a lasting atmosphere of hostility between the US and Iran.

So far, the tension has not exploded into open warfare.

Hopefully it stays that way.