Protests in Iran: Inequality will always drive unrest
Four decades ago Iran’s then-leader, the western-orientated Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — the Shah of Iran, the self-styled King of Kings — began the last year of his corrupt monarchy.
Iran’s population, 80m today, had enough of their third-world existence in one of the richest countries in that troubled region. They, in the last quarter of the last century, turned to an unlikely figure to lead them to their promised land. By today’s standards, even by the standards of the late 1970s, Ayatollah Khomeini seemed an intolerant, bigoted and dangerous figure. From exile in Paris, the Shia leader called for “the blood of the martyrs to water the tree of Islam”.
