Well ignoring the resident buffoon we can move on.
A potted history of Iran/Persia since Reza Khan

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/middle_east-jan-june10-timeline
I draw your attention to below:
1951
Nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq attempts to nationalize the British-owned oil industry. The shah opposes Mossadeq and removes him from power, but he regains power and the shah leaves Iran.

Now if the Prime Minister removes the Shah from power this makes absolute nonsense of the assertion above " but reforms within a dictatorship does not begin to approach democracy
Jim Carroll"
I have given multiple sources indicating that the great wide world regarded the period during which Mossadeq was premier he presided over a democracy. No one has stated it was perfect but it was not a dictatorship at that time.

Life under the Shah was by no means as repressive as portrayed.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/shah-of-iran-before-1979
The above link also explains much of the subsequent bad feeling towards the US(and west)
In a nutshell the US view that all nations had a "right to self-determination".was fine until it came to oil. Then subsequent Machiavellian games have caused havoc in the middle east and killed millions
Iran Iraq war estimated 1,000,000
Coalition Iraq war/s 600,000 (some report 2.4 million)
Libya, Sudan, toll unknown
An intro to the games played.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/04/george-hw-bush-saudi-arabia-donald-trump
Over a period of 35 years, having worked from Egypt to Eritrea back through the Yemen, Oman, Quatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria and flying visits to Saudi I can state there ain't one of them gets even close to being democratic. Iran managed to get far closer to being a true democracy than any nearby countries and this was prevented by thoroughly documented outside interference. The present standoff between Iran and the west needs to be looked at in context historically, the rights and wrongs are not as simplistic as the mainstream media would have you suppose.