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1968, I think, was the year when the world changed.

Ever since then has it been fashionable to criticise those who are open to criticism but ignore those who are not. Ever since then has it been considered brave by society to attack those who have many enemies. And ever since then do we find this weird alliance between the left and the religious fundamentalists, between those who believe they are questioning authority and those who insist that their authority must not be questioned.

Those two groups are actually very compatible. The left believes that authority must be questioned. Religious fundamentalists (and I don't mean church-going Christians who object to foul language on television) have no problem with that. Religious fundamentalists believe that their authority cannot be questioned because it comes from a god. For all practical purposes, in that religion, the "supreme leader" of Iran is their god.

If authority must be questioned and one authority cannot be questioned, one can easily find a way out: one can question everything else. Backed up by one's own god, one can not only question authority but downright prove it wrong. It's a left-winger's dream.

The Shah was an authority. And his authority could be questioned. He himself allowed it. And despite legends told by left-wingers about their extreme bravery, the Shah did not actually execute or otherwise punish people for having an opinion or for speaking it. The Shah was not a god and never claimed to be. He never claimed for himself the authority to be a god or speak on a god's behalf. He was a human who could err and his enemies took that and the clerics' claims of their own supernatural ultimate authority as proof that the Shah was wrong.

Many left-wingers today claim that the revolution in Iran was a good thing after all and that the communists just failed to take over during it. But that claim is a lie. The communists never even tried to organise the revolution themselves. They just followed Khomeini's lead.

And Khomeini himself was celebrated by the western media. Freedom was brought to Iran under the spiritual leadership of a 79-year old cleric. Every word was written to create the impression that Khomeini was  a holy man and guide who would bring freedom and food to oppressed pesants rather than a vicious and brutal criminal from a social class who were seeing their wealth (land titles) distributed to peasants by the Shah and who were afraid of equal rights for women. The revolution, the press told us, happened on the initiative of the people, the wise cleric only added his blessing.

I have said it before, the left owes us a world. It owes us a stable and wealthy Iran.

We had one before that hateful revolution.

If the Tudeh party (the Iranian left) had a Lenin to replace Khomeini, everybody would know.

But as it is, left-wingers claim that Khomeini was not what they had in mind.

Despite the fact that the Iranian and German left worked directly towards Khomeini's revolution and celebrated the man as the great saviour.

And what they had against the Shah, I still don't know. And neither do they.

He took the land from the rich land owners and gave it to poor peasants. He gave women the same rights as men and in the 1950s and 1960s ruled over a country that was ahead of Europe and the USA in women's rights. He did everything the left claimed a communist dictator would do. And he respected Iran's minorities and minority religions.

There are other differences. Obama is an idealist, Khomeini wanted the outcome he worked for. Obama really does believe that talking to evil people will make them good. Khomeini was more the sort of person who knew how to profit from such stupd idealism.

I am still hoping for the day that Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah, returns to the throne. He once said that a democratic republican Iran would mean that 90% of his dream had been realised. But ultimately what the world needs is not only a democratic Iran but also a realisation that the left was wrong to remove the Shah from power. And the strongest signal the Iranian people could send to the world is to give the crown back to Reza Pahlavi and start from there. Only then will the western left realise that they cannot simply meddle in other country's affairs and expect to be thanked for it.

Which is which?