Why would I be bitter the Americans deserted me?  I suppose they felt I hadn’t done enough.  During World War II, after the British forced my anachronistic father to leave the throne and installed me, I opened a vital Persian Corridor for Anglo-American supplies Russia used to defeat the Nazis.  In the 1950’s I again embraced the West when the Iranian parliament unanimously voted to nationalize the oil industry.  President Truman refused to cooperate with the British attempt to frame democratic Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh as a communist.  I waited, as my sponsors instructed, until Dwight Eisenhower became president and initiated a coup that failed and forced me into exile until my CIA-supported forces stormed the residence of Mossadegh and arrested him so he could be tried for treason and convicted, and Western control of Iranian oil reestablished.

In the 1960’s, despite being shy and reserved, I repeatedly used my diplomatic gifts to promote harmony among Persian Gulf States and Iran, and in 1975 signed an accord to sooth Iraq by granting it equal navigation rights in the Shat al-Arab river.  Both Arab and democratic leaders trusted me and acknowledged I was the wealthiest and most powerful man in the Middle East.  In that position I confidently became the first Muslim leader to recognize Israel.  I was also a visionary who promoted land reform and literacy and rights for women, even though they are “evil and schemers, every one of them.”

I was guiding our once-great Persian nation into the technological age.  Some officials I’d trusted proved corrupt, and that emboldened opponents I had a right to restrain with the SAVAK, my secret police who specialized in torture and assassination.  Their mission intensified when I decreed the communist-infested multi-party system must be abolished and everyone absorbed by my Resurrection party.  The religious zealots resisted and rioted while America watched.  Early in 1979, I had to leave my native land.

And I now urge you to look what Iran has since been doing.

Very soon they took hostages at the American Embassy in Tehran, and weakened the economy and military and in effect invited Saddam Hussein to attack with soldiers and conventional weapons and, ultimately, chemical devices that suffocated us by the thousands.  None of this would have happened if I’d been in charge instead of theocratic fools.

The Ayatollah Khomeini may be dead but his position is held by another ayatollah, this one called Khamenei.  He’s less disastrous than the other but not of the modern world.  And in another power center, subordinate to Khamenei but troubling enough, is the Holocaust-denying, nuclear-obsessed President Ahmadinejad.  Together these men and their zealots have supported as many anti-Western attacks as possible.

I’m not going to argue I’d still be in charge if the Americans had intervened to save my government.  I’ve been dead since 1980 and even without cancer would have long ago relinquished power to my son and thereby maintained 2,500 years of dynastic rule.  Wouldn’t a friendly monarch be more trustworthy with nuclear power than fanatics who preach and practice holy war?

The United States and the West definitely thought so, helping us start the Tehran Nuclear Research Center in 1959 and providing an American nuclear reactor fueled by “highly enriched uranium (after) the facility became operational in 1967.”   I was a most cooperative ally, and soon signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which explicitly gives my country the right to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, only.  We had planned to build at least 20 nuclear power stations by the turn of the century.  Unfortunately, some NPT overseers accused me of “conducting research into military applications.”  That was never proved nor was it verified I really said Iran “will have nuclear weapons without a doubt and sooner than one would think.”

I would nevertheless like to ask this: if I had maintained power and survived cancer and helped my country develop a nuclear deterrent, would Iraq have attacked us and killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians in the 1980’s?  Nations possessing nuclear weapons – America, Russia, and China, in particular – are delighted by the certainty no one would dare launch a strategic attack against them.  I suppose they feel ultimate security is their divine and exclusive right.

The Western powers might have accepted a nuclear nation led by me, but will not do so now since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has declared “it is clear that Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations…with respect to reporting nuclear material and its processing and use, as well as the declaration of facilities where such material has been processed and stored.”  This “pattern of concealment” has befuddled the IAEA into announcing that while there’s “no evidence” of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, there’s also no evidence one doesn’t exist.  (Didn’t we hear the same perverse logic about Iraq?)  The Iranian government and President Ahmadinejad have exacerbated international concerns by rejecting offers to cease nuclear enrichment and “officially announcing that Iran joined the group of countries (with) nuclear technology.”

Since Iran arms Hezbollah and other terrorist entities, couldn’t it someday smuggle a nuclear weapon to a stateless and suicidal cell that can’t be deterred?  The answer is yes.  Yet, a positive response must in theory also be given to the Iranian position that it has an “inalienable right” to develop nuclear energy.  With considerable discomfort I am compelled to note that African slaves and Native Americans and Armenians and Jews and countless others had rights that were not respected.  Is it by comparison so unreasonable to insist that Iranians open their nuclear facilities to thorough international inspection?

As the Shah of Iran I frequently misread the sentiments of my own people while understanding the souls of others.  So to my beloved Iranian people I humbly say this: more powerful nations will not at this time permit you to have nuclear weapons.  Though you’re surrounded by worrisome nations that include Iraq, Afghanistan, some former Soviet republics, and Pakistan as well as that floating nuclear nation, the United States Navy, you must be satisfied with a conventional deterrent.  I assure you that our geographical neighbors will not attack Iran.  I just do not know what you, the eternal people of Persia, are going to do.