As I said in my first contribution to this thread:

Once upon a time Persia had a democratic government. The USA and UK toppled it.
The coup threw out the then Prime Minister Mossadeq and replacd him with the Shah. Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh was Iran’s prime minister elected as such by the Iranian Parliament at a time when parliamentary elections were in fact considered legitimate in Iran. For millions of Iranians he symbolizes Iranian sovereignty and patriotism. During his short tenure in office (April 1951-August 1953) he managed to implement the legislation (which he had spearheaded in Parliament) that nationalized the oil industry, ending almost 50 years of British monopoly over Iran’s petroleum excavation, extraction, research, marketing and sales.
In contrast the Shah(Who was originally placed in power by outside interests) had an autocratic government and kept a whip hand on the population with his secret police, trained by the CIA.

My contribution gets misquoted by our resident troublemaker little jimmy to:
"Once upon a time Persia had a democratic government."
CRAP - DEMOCRACY UNDER THE SHAH

and then our resident pedant and nit picker shaw jumps in and takes hold of little jimmies contribution as fact and starts to argue with my opening statement and quotes:
So never a democracy, and it most assuredly never was under the Shah. without a single fact to back up his assertions.

Many others describe government under Mossadeq as democratic,not perfect by any means but democratic.
https://www.neiu.edu/academics/college-of-business-and-management/mossadegh-initiative/who-was-mohammad-mossadegh

Many Iranians regard Mosaddegh as the leading champion of secular democracy and resistance to foreign domination in Iran's modern history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh



Some contributors here just turn up spoiling for a fight, some cannot even support their "Facts" with verifiable links!

Further history:
"In 1935 the Iranian government requested those countries which it had diplomatic relations with, to call Persia "Iran," which is the name of the country in Persian.
The suggestion for the change is said to have come from the Iranian ambassador to Germany, who came under the influence of the Nazis. At the time Germany was in the grip of racial fever and cultivated good relations with nations of "Aryan" blood. It is said that some German friends of the ambassador persuaded him that, as with the advent of Reza Shah, Persia had turned a new leaf in its history and had freed itself from the pernicious influences of Britain and Russia, whose interventions in Persian affairs had practically crippled the country under the Qajars, it was only fitting that the country be called by its own name, "Iran." This would not only signal a new beginning and bring home to the world the new era in Iranian history, but would also signify the Aryan race of its population, as "Iran" is a cognate of "Aryan" and derived from it."