These people didn't really do anything but buy a bunch American weapons and pay foreigners to come and build a handful of things for them they were all morons especially Reza Shah
Again, I don't care for him personally, he was a despot, but he came at a time when we needed a despot. One should give the man the credit he deserves. Iran was in chaos when he took over, we were being run over by the British from the South and East, and by the Soviets from the North, no army, no organized government, no infrastructure and no institutions.....in short our leaders were useless during the Qajar period. In fact we still don't have good leadership....if only we could have a strong man rise as President. one thing is for sure we have so many fools and cloth heads in the government now that Reza Shah looks like Churchill compared to them.
PS: I'll give you the point about the dam, I may have been remembering his son.
From Wikipedia:
"In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Persia had become a battleground. In 1917, Britain used Iran as the springboard for an attack into Russia in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the Revolution. The Soviet Union responded by annexing portions of northern Persia, creating the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic. The Soviets extracted ever more humiliating concessions from the Qajar government, whose ministers Ahmad Shah was often unable to control. By 1920, the government had lost virtually all power outside its capital: British and Soviet forces exercised control over most of the Iranian mainland."
"By 1923, Reza Khan had largely succeeded in securing Iran's interior from any remaining domestic and foreign threats."
"While the Shah left behind no major thesis, or speeches giving an overarching policy, his reforms indicated a striving for an Iran which—according to scholar Ervand Abrahamian—would be "free of clerical influence, nomadic uprisings, and ethnic differences", on the one hand, and on the other hand would contain "European-style educational institutions, Westernized women active outside the home, and modern economic structures with state factories, communication networks, investment banks, and department stores."
"During Reza Shah's sixteen years of rule, major developments, such as large road construction projects and the Trans-Iranian Railway were built, modern education was introduced and the University of Tehran, the first Iranian university, was established.[31] The government sponsored European educations for many Iranian students.[32] The number of modern industrial plants increased 17-fold under Reza Shah (excluding oil installations), and the number of miles of highway increased from 2,000 to 14,000."
"Reza Shah initiated change in foreign affairs as well. He worked to balance British influence with other foreigners and generally to diminish foreign influence in Iran.
"He previously hired American consultants to develop and implement Western-style financial and administrative systems. Among them was U.S. economist Arthur Millspaugh, who acted as the nation's finance minister. Reza Shah also purchased ships from Italy and hired Italians to teach his troops the intricacies of naval warfare. He also imported hundreds of German technicians and advisors for various projects. Mindful of Persia's long period of subservience to British and Russian authority, Reza Shah was careful to avoid giving any one foreign nation too much control. He also insisted that foreign advisors be employed by the Persian government, so that they would not be answerable to foreign powers. This was based upon his experience with Anglo-Persian, which was owned and operated by the British government."
From Iranicaonline:
The concentration of funds through the state budget and monopoly trade companies played an important part in financing fixed investment during the 1930s (Karshenas, 1990, p. 75). This was particularly important given the absence of any modern credit organization and the absence of large-scale accumulation of money capital in the hands of Iranian merchants. The pace of capital formation particularly accelerated in the latter half of the decade. The major part of investment during this period was concentrated within the state sector. Transportation and industrial sector apportioned more than 40 percent of the total government expenditure during the decade (Moghaddam, 1956, pp. 158-69). About 60 percent of government investment was in roads and railways, which greatly contributed to the integration of the national market. Charles Issawi estimates that the average duration of a journey had fallen to about one-tenth of what it had been before the First World War, and the cost of transport was cut by some three-quarters by the end of the 1930s (Issawi, 1971, p. 375). This was important for the development of the ‘national economy’ and the enlargement of the domestic market—both of which were critical to the emergence of the nascent industrial sector under Reza Shah.
Oh, you're also wrong about him not starting the Iron industry, in fact he started it...he got the Germans to agree to give Iranians their first Iron plant.
