The Shah. He had a few questionable policies (redistributing portions of land away from the aristocracy was one) but in general, he seemed like a decent, and most importantly, pro-western figure.
lol
Is wikipedia biting me in the backside again?
It's just pretty hilarious (yet also sad) that, among all the horrible things Palavi did, the only thing you manage to point out is actually pretty good.
Well, I guess we see the world in completely different and irreconcilable ways.
They weren't really "aristocracy" in the European sense. Middle Eastern cultures have never had any kind of landed gentry or titled nobility because it would have been a threat to the absolute monarchs and emperors that ruled that region for most of history. There was the king/shah/emir and then there was everyone else; some of the "everyone else" had quite a bit of money and others lived in squalor, but socially speaking, Islamic societies were extremely egalitarian throughout history compared to their western neighbors in Europe with their dukes and viscounts, and compared to their eastern neighbors in India with their rigid caste system.
But whether you agree with it or not, it was a bad long-term move politically speaking. When things turned ugly in Iran, the Shah lost support in the rural areas fastest. The wealthy rural Iranians disliked him for parceling up their lands; the poor rural Iranians disliked him for declining to humor their backward views on things like education and women's rights.
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