Changes

In the [[Western world]], Persia was historically the common name for Iran.<ref>[https://www.iranchamber.com/geography/articles/persia_became_iran.php Iran Chamber Society: When "Persia" became "Iran"], Iran Chamber</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 JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES vi. THE PAHLAVI ERA – Encyclopaedia Iranica]</ref>  Reza Shah<ref>[https://www.howardblum.com/blog-posts/reza-shah-and-adolf-hitler-irans-history-with-the-third-reich Reza Shah and Adolf Hitler: Iran’s History with the Third Reich], Howard Blum, Feb. 6, 2020</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 Iran Chamber Society: When "Persia" became "Iran"], Iran Chamber</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 JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES vi. THE PAHLAVI ERA – Encyclopaedia Iranica]</ref>  Reza Shah<ref>[https://www.howardblum.com/blog-posts/reza-shah-and-adolf-hitler-irans-history-with-the-third-reich Reza Shah and Adolf Hitler: Iran’s History with the Third Reich], Howard Blum, Feb. 6, 2020</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.

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]], and Iran was [[desecularized]] in 1979. 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.

[[File:Iran.jpg|thumb|225px|right|[[Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini]], founder of the Islamic Republic.]]

[[File:Iran.jpg|thumb|225px|right|[[Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini]], founder of the Islamic Republic.]]

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://web.archive.org/web/20180721062151/https://iranhrdc.org/files.php?force&file=reports_en/Covert_Terror_Iran_s_Parallel_Intelligence_Apparatus_467957487.pdf  Covert Terror Iran's Parallel Intelligence Apparatus] (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 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://web.archive.org/web/20180721062151/https://iranhrdc.org/files.php?force&file=reports_en/Covert_Terror_Iran_s_Parallel_Intelligence_Apparatus_467957487.pdf  Covert Terror Iran's Parallel Intelligence Apparatus] (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>