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In the [[Western world]], Persia was historically the common name for Iran.<ref>https://www.iranchamber.com/geography/articles/persia_became_iran.php</ref> In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates and the [[League of Nations]] to use the term '''Iran''' ("Land of the [[Aryans]]"). The suggestion for the change of the country’s official name to Iran is said to have come from the Iranian ambassador to [[Third Reich|Germany]], who came under the influence of the [[Nazi]]s. German friends of the ambassador convinced him that the name change would free his country from the past influences of Russia and the [[British Empire]]. It would be a new beginning as an Aryan nation. Many Persian elites and intellectuals nurtured the idea of Aryan superiority.<ref>https://iranicaonline.org/articles/judeo-persian-vi-the-pahlavi-era-1925-1979</ref> Reza Shah<ref>https://www.howardblum.com/blog-posts/reza-shah-and-adolf-hitler-irans-history-with-the-third-reich</ref>said,
In the [[Western world]], Persia was historically the common name for Iran.<ref>https://www.iranchamber.com/geography/articles/persia_became_iran.php</ref> In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates and the [[League of Nations]] to use the term '''Iran''' ("Land of the [[Aryans]]"). The suggestion for the change of the country’s official name to Iran is said to have come from the Iranian ambassador to [[Third Reich|Germany]], who came under the influence of the [[Nazi]]s. German friends of the ambassador convinced him that the name change would free his country from the past influences of Russia and the [[British Empire]]. It would be a new beginning as an Aryan nation. Many Persian elites and intellectuals nurtured the idea of Aryan superiority.<ref>https://iranicaonline.org/articles/judeo-persian-vi-the-pahlavi-era-1925-1979</ref> Reza Shah<ref>https://www.howardblum.com/blog-posts/reza-shah-and-adolf-hitler-irans-history-with-the-third-reich</ref>said,
{{quotebox-float|“Germany was our age-old and natural ally, Love of Germany was synonymous with love for Iran. The sound of German officers’ footsteps was heard on the shores of the Nile. Swastika flags were flying from the outskirts of Moscow to the peaks of the Caucasus Mts. Iranian patriots eagerly awaited the arrival of their old allies. My friend and I would spin tales about the grandeur of the superior race. We considered Germany the chosen representative of this race in Europe and Iran its representative in Asia. The right to life and role was ours. Others had no choice but submission and slavery. We discarded the old maps and remade Iran into a country larger than what it was in Achaemenian times.”<ref>https://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2015/04/iranian-shah-flirted-with-nazis-in-1930s.html</ref>}}
{{quotebox-float|“Germany was our age-old and natural ally, Love of Germany was synonymous with love for Iran. The sound of German officers’ footsteps was heard on the shores of the Nile. Swastika flags were flying from the outskirts of Moscow to the peaks of the Caucasus Mts. Iranian patriots eagerly awaited the arrival of their old allies. My friend and I would spin tales about the grandeur of the superior race. We considered Germany the chosen representative of this race in Europe and Iran its representative in Asia. The right to life and role was ours. Others had no choice but submission and slavery. We discarded the old maps and remade Iran into a country larger than what it was in Achaemenian times.”<ref>https://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2015/04/iranian-shah-flirted-with-nazis-in-1930s.html</ref>}}
Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi legacies evoke consternation and controversy. Both were pro-Western modernizers, promoted science, Western education, women and minority rights, economic development, a judiciary more on a Western model as opposed to shariah and clerical rule. But the Carter administration viewed the [[Ayatollah Khomeini]] as a paragon of [[human rights]], an expression of the will of the Iranian people for self-determination. One of the Ayatollah's first acts was to issue a [[fatwa]] promising paradise for children who joined the Iranian military during the Iran-Iraq war. By 1982, with Shi'a clergy in command, the government asked children, age 9 years old and up, to clear minefields so the regular Army could advance against the Iraqi Army. <ref>[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), ''Iraqi Retreats, 1982-84''], Globalsecruity.org, retrieved 20 March 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/ahmadinejads-demons ''Ahmadinejad's Demons: A Child of the Revolution Takes Over''], Matthias Küntzel, The New Republic, 24 April 2006 .</ref> About 100,000 died as ''Basij'' child soldiers building the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran today is 75 million people with a ''per capita'' income behind Mexico but ahead of Brazil. Female enrollment and graduation rates in higher education now outnumber males.<ref>60% of college enrollees are female, as contrasted with the Sunni Pakistan Taliban where [[Nobel Peace Prize]] winner Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head for advocating education for adolescent girls.</ref> But if political repression during the monarchy was troublesome, Iran's human rights record and coercive measures against dissidents under its religious rulers has been abysmal.<ref>http://www.iranhrdc.org/files.php?force&file=reports_en/Covert_Terror_Iran_s_Parallel_Intelligence_Apparatus_467957487.pdf </ref> That, and its active sponsorship of terrorism to further its foreign policy objectives abroad. Its non-cooperation with international conventions in pursuit of nuclear power status is particularly worrisome. Iran's [[Quds Force]] (Jerusalem Force), as its name implies, carries out external special operations worldwide to further Iran's foreign policy aims.<ref>http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/iran/qods.htm </ref>
Iran's revolution in 1979 and the creation of an Islamic state based on [[Shariah]] law was a source of pride, inspiration and envy to [[Sunni]]s everywhere. The revolutionaries successfully deposed a Western leaning monarch and sent U.S. military personal and technicians packing.<ref>By 1970, Iran was the United States largest customer for weapons. Earnings from the oil boom after the 1953 coup were funneled into defense. Huge bases were built in the north to monitor the Soviets and along the southern coast to police the Persian Gulf. Higher paid technicians to operate the oil industry and maintain military hardware were mostly foreigners, leading to an obvious income disparity between the Shah's foreign allies and the indigenous population. This provided an opening for Soviet and Eastern bloc agitation amongst the Shi'a for revolutionary [[Marxist]] anti-[[Imperialist]] [[propaganda]] with a religious fervor. [http://ivl.8m.com/USMI.htm][http://revcom.us/a/094/iran-pt4-en.html]</ref> Initially Iran sought to export its revolution to the Gulf States and Lebanon. Iran was behind two U.S. Embassy truck bombings in Beirut and the Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. soldiers. As the Iran-Iraq war progressed, Iran concentrated its efforts to removing Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. After the war Iran began providing assistance to the radical Sunni leader Hassan al Turabi who took power in Sudan in 1989<ref>The Sudanese regime harbored Osama bin Laden and [[Ayman al-Zawahiri]] in the early 1990s</ref>, and to Hamas in Gaza. The 1990s marked a period of cooperation between Sunni groups such as al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and the Shiite revolution of Iran.<ref>Bin Laden shared with Iran a desire to depose the House of Saud, and Zawahiri shared with Iran his contempt of the Egyptian regime which made peace with Israel.</ref> It organized and created Hezbollah al-Hejaz, based in Saudi Arabia, which in conjunction with al Qaeda staged the 1996 Khobar Towers attack killing 19 Americans and wounding another 372. The 9/11 Commission Report suggested<ref>9/11 COMMISSION REPORT at pp. 240-41. </ref> and a U.S. Federal judge ruled in December 2011<ref>http://iran911case.com/ </ref> Iran was a material accomplice with al Qaeda in the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]].
Iran benefited greatly when the Sunni walls that had been erected around it - Afghanistan and Iraq - were torn down. Several analysts argue that since about 2005 Iran has evolved rapidly from a theocracy into a garrison state, in which the military dominates political, economic, and cultural life.<ref>http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/irans-revolutionary-guards-corps-inc </ref>
Unlike Sunnis who emphasize sectarian differences with minority Shiites, the Iranian regime emphasizes the Israeli bogeyman because they estimate this gains them Arab [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=street+cred street cred] and diverts attention from the Shia rise to power. They ultimately believe they have earned the right to speak on behalf of the whole Muslim world.<ref>https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/studio/multimedia/20061018/5400.html/_res/id=sa_File1/The_Shia_Revival.pdf </ref>
==Moral legislation in Iran==
==Moral legislation in Iran==