First I would like to ask if any regime which is considered by its own people as a puppet regime could survive a longer period of time.
In the case of Iran most people dont know the history of this country. I read in some threads here a statement of a 14 year old boy that Iran is lacking culture or by someone else that an iranian woman has to go 5 steps behind her husband or will be stoned to death. Thats on the one hand funny to read for an iranian, especially if I try to create a picture in my mind where one of my aunts would go 5 steps behind one of my uncles in Iran. On the other it shows how propaganda works.
First it should be known that Iran is a special country in the region. Unlike most of it neighbors which were created after WW1 - like Iraq, Saudi-Arabia, Jordan and so on or after WW2 - like Israel or even later after the end of the Soviet Union - like Armenia or Azerbeidjan, Iran exists for 2500 years.
It was never a colony and managed to keep its identity. So the attempt to arabize Iran failed, which resulted in the hate between semite arabs and aryan iranians.
Also the iranians changed the religion, mixing elements of the old Sassanid Empire and their religion with the Islam. The result was the shi ite islam, which is dominant in the regions of the old sassanid empire: Iran, the western part of Afghanistan and the southeast part of Iraq - like Basra.
Thats all very complicated, its enough to keep ion mind that there is a deep mistrust and hate between iranians and arabs, because of the history. So they call themself muslims but they are not friends. Both - the arabs and the iranians always wanted to be the leading nations of Islam. Today the centres of these 2 rivals are for the sunnites Saudi Arabia and for the shi ites Teheran or to be more precise Mekka and Ghom.
Iraq is on the battlefields of this conflict, where the Saudis help the sunnites (by helping the sunnite Al Kaida, who perform the suicide bombings) and the Iranians helping the shi ite militias.
But back to history.
Looking the last 150 years of iranian history, we see the Quadjar dynasty, which was corrupt and weak. This weakness was on the other hand a chance for changes. In WW1 Iran declared its neutrality but became a battlefiels, when british and russian forces on the one hand were fighting osman-turk-forces on the other hand in iranian territory.
Also the soviet revolution left an impression to the iranian people - so there were changes - like the creation of more right of the parliament (although Iran was a monarchy).
Then the founder of the short-living Pahlevi-dynasty deposed the last Quadjar Shah and declared himself the new Shah of Iran. Or Persia - to be more precise. Although the iranians always called Iran Iran - the name Persia was adopted from the ancient greek historicans by the european nations. Under the rule of Shah Reza Khan this mistake was corrected and Iran was officially called Iran = land of the aryans.
The new Shah wanted to make a modernization like the great Ataturk did in Turkey.
There was a mistrust towards countries like France and Russia and especially England. So Iran looked for new friends - finding them in the German Reich. This relation ship went on - even the uniforms of the imperial iranian army became similiar to the german design. Even the officer caps and Fritz-Steelhelmets were used in these times.
Then WW2 started and again Iran declared its neutrality. The allies wanted to force Iran to declare war to the German Reich and became part of the Allies, but the iranian Shah refused.
So Iran was attacked from the north by soviet forces and the south by british/indian forces. The country was occupied and the Shah deposed, replaced by his son. Under this puppet Iran became an ally and declared war to Germany and was used as an support route for the USSR.
These events created a deep hate against England in large parts of the higher families in Iran.
After WW2 Iran searched for a new friend who could be trusted. And they found this friend in the USA.
A relativly young country which was a superpower and the home of democracy. All this was very fascinating for the generation of iranians who were from the better families, studied in foreign countries and wanted to change Iran to a democracy. The USA seemed to be the perfect ally for this and there was a really deep trust in your country.
Also the USA helped to kick out this soviet puppet country Mahabad of the Kurds on iranian territory, which raised the trust to the new ally.
In 1953 Iran was very close to become a democracy. Not a democracy which was teached and orderd by foreigners and occupation forces. But a democracy created by iranians themself.
In an unbloody revolution the Shah was sent to exile.
Then Operation Ajax was performed by the UK and the USA.
The democracy was destroyed before it was born. The dictator was reinstalled. And the GeStaPo-like SAVAK was created with the help of the CIA and the Mossad. From this day the picture of the USA of being a nation helping other nations to vbecome a democracy was destroyed in Iran. Especially the young and intelligent generation was dissappointed and shocked by these events.
After the reestablishment of the Shah the western media showed these nice pictured of 1000 and 1 night of the florishing Iran with its nice and modern king.
In reality there were decades of horror. Every year tenthousands of iranians were tortured or killed by the SAVAK. The infamous Evin-prison was a symbol of this terror. Most of them were from the younger generation, the democrats who wanted to create an iranian democracy. And so - during these times - only the radical elements survived. Like the religious fanatics or the left-wing-radicals like the MKE or the Tudeh-party.
The bloody revolution in iran was not done because of some religious reasons. It was just the moment, when the people who had enough of the terror of the Shah-regime wanted to finish this.
The people didnt thought about the next regime - thex just wanted to eliminate the Shah regime and its SAVAK and to make sure that it could never be re-established like it happened in 1953.
Also the attack against the US-embassy was done because of this fear: The US-embassy was the command-centre of Operation Ajax in 1953 and so many iranian feared that history would repeat.
There were still innerpolitical fightings when Khomeini had arrived and when the Shah died of cancer in exile. But when Saddam and the arabs invaded Iran all inner political fightings ended. A foreign nation was attacking Iran - and so the iranian people supported the actual regime in order to fight the invader. This is a typical iranian behavior and will repeat again, when a foreign nation attacks Iran.
So in the next 8 years Iran has to fight a war against an Iraq with a terrorregime which was helped by the whole western world.
When the Iraq used gas weapons, killing 130.000 iranian soldiers with gas, the so called civilized nations used their Veto-option in the UN and so prevented sanctions against Iraq. This event destroyed the meaning of the UN as a neutral world organization for many iranians.
They managed to live with embargos and although there were so bitter circumstances, they started again to try to build a democracy.
And although the terroristic regime of the mullahs was even more dangerous than the Shah terror regime there were successes in reducing the power of the mullahs. Especially in the years after the war against Iraq and before 9/11.
Then 9/11 happened and Bush called Iran a member of the axis of evil, helping the radical mullahs to tell the iranians the propaganda story of the USA which wants to attack Iran.
So these years were a major setback for the iranian democrats - but they have not been destroyed. They are still growing in power and in the last year Ahmadinedjad got a major defeat in an important election. His time is running out. If there is no event which would rally the iranian people behind him (like an attack for example) he will be soon history.
To come back to the topic: Yes - the iranians would fight any installed puppet regime. There is no accepted alternative outside Iran.
The son of the deposed Shah is not accepted as a ruler. The so called democratic female president in exile Radjavi is seen as a traitor, because her MEK-terrorists fought during the Iran-Iraq War on the side of Saddams hordes against Iran.
This MEK/MKO is in so far interesting, because its on the one and defined by the USA as a terroistic organisation. On the other hand they are protected by US-soldiers in Iraq. They live in their military camp, which was given to them by Saddam when these traitors fought against iranians.
They perform terror-attacks in Iran - like bombing civilian targets. Like terrorists do. So there is the question why the leading nation of the War against Terrorism is protecting a large group of terroists which they define as terrorist by themself.
But this is another topic.
The mullahs of today who are ruling Iran are corrupt. They want to become richer and more powerful. Ahmadinedjad has no real power, because the real political decisions in iran are not made by the president but by the Council of the guardians.
And all this terror-suppressing regime of the Mullahs in Iran cant avoid that more and more iranians of the younger generation will continue to create finally a democracy in Iran. Without the help of foreigners, which are mostly not trusted.
The Iranian democracy must be done by iranians in Iran. Not by foreigners, not by some exile dreamers.
And I am sure that this will happen one day. The mullah regime is again in defense - like it was before 9/11.
I just hope that the coming events wont help again the mullahs.
