Mohammad Reza I of Iran Quotes

We were wrong to believe that the British are our friends. You are obsessed solely with yout own selfish interests and treat us as a people beyond the pale. But your attitude is a matter of profound disinterest. Your democratic system has already erupted into chaos. We shall soon overtake you and in a decade you will be struggling in our wake. Perhaps then you will remember how you treated us.

Thank God we in Iran have neither the desire nor the need to suffer from democracy.

I have learned by experience that a tragic end awaits anyone who dares cross swords with me; Nasser is no more, John and Robert Kennedy died at the hands of assassins, their brother Edward has been disgraced, Krushchev was toppled, the list is endless.

If [the British] have the fucking audacity to advise me ever again, I shall fuck them so rigid that they'll think twice before crossing my path in future.

For all its apparent tolerance, the USA maintains a peculiar balance between the forces of capitalism and democracy. To achieve this I feel sure the country is guided by some hidden force; an organization working in secrecy, powerful enough to dispose of the Kennedys and of anyone else who gets in its way.

We may be delighted to see Israel putting the Arabs in their place, but we have repeatedly condemned their occupation of Arab territory.

You approach the Mullahs as if they are normal people. They are not. You see them in your own image; you should not.

Let the dog bark; the moon shall beam on.

Government by inquisition has never been good. However, since January 1979, our country has been under the yoke of inquisitorial power. Five centuries after the Spanish Inquisition, Iran is living under the terror of a new Torquemada who is more pitiless and more sinister than its predecessor. In fact the Inquisition tribunals did not sentence men to be executed unless they were known to be heretics. They had the opportunity to recant and to repent; and they would call witnesses, which the Iranian Torquemada does not allow.
The tribunals are said to be Islamic. But the truth cannot be overlooked, and genuine Islamic law insists on the right of an accused man to defend himself. Islam is never served by hatred, vengeance and murder, but by justice, goodness, forgiveness and high moral standards. This explosion of hatred, supposedly "in the name of God", is an insult to God and to our religion. And this insult, I repeat, unfortunately threatens to do great harm to Islam, just as the Inquisition did great harm to Catholicism.

The consequences of the Ayatollah's blood-thirsty fiasco could be disastrous for the whole of Islam and particularly for Shiism. The systematic destruction, in the name of religion, of a state and a society which vigilantly safeguarded the peace, could have effects in this part of the world which would be disastrous for sincere believers of the Koran, and even for those who believe less wholeheartedly. The murderous megalomania and the agitation of Qom, combined with the miserable dictatorship of a handful of mollahs, are, I insist, all in direct contradiction with the essential principles of Islam.

Since the beginning of 1979, it has often been said that the Shiite religion, like the ephemeral French Republic of 1792 is "one and indivisible". Nothing could be further from the truth. Those in power do not represent the élite of the hierarchy. Narrow-minded and mediocre, they are as far removed as it is possible to be from the noble ideas of the Prophet. They are ignorant of essential political, economic and social realities of the day, but nonetheless they claim to legislate.

It is a fact that throughout my reign, representatives of the Red Cross were allowed to visit the kingdom's prisons at liberty. Our penitentiaries were open to all official investigators. Every prisoner's lawyer knew the details of the charges against his client, and had time in which to prepare his defence and find the necessary witnesses. Finally, a condemned man had the right of appeal, after which I often exercised my right of pardon. It is no longer like this. The so-called "Islamic tribunals" are an insult to the elevated principles of the Koran.

At no time during my reign were there more than 3,164 so-called political prisoners, most of whom were terrorists. Since February, it is certain that tens of thousands of men and women have been arrested and imprisoned under frequently inhumane conditions.

I cannot avoid wondering about the feelings of those who are now the apparent rulers of Iran. They are, despite their mistakes and the crimes which they have instigated, men of faith who claim to be sent by God. I hope they will eventually realize that the revolution which they believe they have brought about is not to the glory of God, but serves the forces of evil.

I am convinced that the majority of the religious hierarchy today deplores the hardship inflicted on our people. I am referring not only to the martyrs but of the families who have been dispersed and terrified, who have no resources, and to the four million unemployed who are suffering from the economic chaos of a country which only a year earlier was giving employment to a million foreigners. Those who have chosen to serve God must feel profoundly sad at seeing ridicule poured on the most sacred principles of our religion.