Part One: The First Shah of Iran

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part One – The First Shah of Iran

Podcast: Behind the Bastards (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Host: Robert Evans
Guest: Dr. Kaveh Hoda (podcaster, doctor, and musician)
Date: March 24, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the origins of modern Iran’s political turmoil by tracing its roots back to the 18th and 19th centuries and, more specifically, to the rise of the first Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Khan. With historical context on imperial meddling by Britain and Russia, Robert Evans and guest Dr. Kaveh Hoda reveal how external powers—through manipulation, bribery, and violence—shaped Iran’s monarchy, economy, and relations with the West, ultimately sowing the seeds for revolution and resentment lasting to the present day.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why the World’s Relationship with Iran Is So Broken

• The US’s role in Iran is shaped heavily by earlier British and Russian interference (00:36).
• To understand modern tensions, you must start with “the Great Game”—British and Russian imperial rivalry in the 18th and 19th centuries (01:54).
• The first Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Khan, is central to the story (03:47).

2. The Great Game and Imperial Meddling

• The “Great Game” refers to the contest for control of Central Asia, especially as Russia advanced toward British India (10:01).
• Persia (Iran) became a pawn—“one of the pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the domination of the world.” – Lord Curzon (11:33).
• Russia expanded at an average of 55 square miles per day in the 19th century, squeezing Persia between two empires (10:27).
• Both Britain and Russia used bribes, banks, and manipulation to control the Persian court (23:10, 27:59).

3. The Qajar Dynasty: Weak Kings, Foreign Puppets

• The Qajar dynasty (1785+) lacked legitimacy, facing internal ethnic divisions and constant foreign manipulation (16:07, 33:10).
• Fath Ali Shah—the “Super Procreant”—famously fathered hundreds of children and gave the world the “Peacock Throne,” supposedly named after his favorite concubine, who’s called “Peacock” (“tavu” in Persian) (17:23).
• The dynasty was seen as “an incompetent, ridiculous group of people who are only interested in procreating and wasting money on things.” – Dr. Kaveh (32:28).

4. Economic Plunder: Oil, Banks, and Bribes

• Early 20th-century Iran saw its resources leased out—often for paltry sums—to British firms (notably Burma Oil and William Knox D’Arcy), and both Russia and Britain established banks just to bribe officials (40:09).
• “Basically Persia’s just like a satellite state of the Russian Empire now.” – Robert (21:25).
• “Regular people in the country know they’re being fleeced…they are not unaware of that.” – Robert (41:35).

5. Popular Resistance, the Majlis, and Foreign Sabotage

• Amid mass discontent, Iranians formed a parliamentary assembly (Majlis) for constitutional government in 1905.
• “There’s this mass uprising that pushes the Cossack guards out of the capital.” – Robert (47:41).
• Russia responded by using the Cossack Brigade (trained and led by Russians) to dissolve the parliament by force, killing eight and burning parliamentary records (46:11).
• “The Russian officer Persian Cossack brigade moved rapidly to dissolve parliament and to impose martial law.” (46:52).
• Every attempt at Persian self-government was sabotaged by foreign-backed agents, often using the clergy as a wedge (45:56, 47:08).

6. The British and Russian Empire’s Cruelty—The Great Persian Famine

• World War I turned Persia into a battleground. Russians and British requisitioned food, causing a devastating famine (64:13–68:11).
• “Eight to ten million people, roughly half the pre-war population of Persia, perish in the great Persian famine.” – Robert (68:11).
• “I never knew about this.” – Dr. Kaveh (67:30).

7. The Rise of Reza Khan (the First Shah of the Pahlavi Dynasty)

• Born 1878, Reza Khan was the child of a Persian army officer and a Caucasian immigrant (mother abandoned him at 1 year old) (55:35).
• He joined the Persian Cossack Brigade as a teenager, rose through the ranks, gained the nickname “Machine Gun Reza” for his military prowess and brutality (57:19–59:14).
• “Basically this guy’s kind of stupid, but he’s well liked by his peers…he's the heavy, right? He’s the tough that you send out…cooked up in a lab to be a Western-backed dictator.” – Robert (59:12).

8. The Key Role of Oil and Naval Policy

• The episode details the British geopolitical obsession with Persian oil, especially after the Royal Navy decided to switch from coal to oil under figures like Winston Churchill (62:42).
• “[Persian oil] arguably led to Allied victory. The conversion of the British fleet to oil gave them advantages…” – Robert quoting Fair Observer (63:47).
• Britain paid Persia a “pittance” for oil (63:47).

9. The Playbook of Imperial Control

• Both Britain and Russia repeatedly propped up weak leaders, stoked uprisings, or used economic levers to keep Persia/Iran divided and dependent (Throughout).
• “We learned how to play the great game.” – Dr. Kaveh (27:36).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the impact of foreign meddling:

  "The US’s imperial ambitions cribbed off the notes of the Brits and the Russians from like a century or so ago." – Robert (02:36)

• On shifting influences:

  "What bothers me the most is that it's a story that most people in the United States do not know. They don't know the real reason why people in Iran may have taken over that Embassy back in ’79." – Dr. Kaveh (03:51)

• On the bureaucracy of occupation:

  "The British Resident is, to this hour, the umpire to whom all parties appeal... He may be entitled the Uncrowned King of the Persian Gulf." – Quoting Curzon, Robert (25:07)

• On the famine:

  "Eight to ten million people, roughly half the pre-war population of Persia, perish in the great Persian famine." – Robert (68:11)

• On oil exploitation:

  "In keeping with their imperial tradition, Britain paid a pittance to Persia for oil." – Robert (63:47)

• On failed reforms:

  "Historian Ruhollah Ramazani writes that [the Russians] destroyed the foundations of this new government twice in about four years." – Robert (45:56)

• On popular resistance:

  "There's this mass uprising that pushes the Cossack guards out of the capital, and Muhammad Ali Shah becomes one of the shortest reigned shahs in history." – Robert (47:41)

• On Reza Khan:

  "He was particularly good with a machine gun... They call him Machine Gun Reza, that's his nickname, which is pretty cool." – Robert (58:55)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & Current Events Context – 00:05–03:00
• Why We’re Starting with the Great Game – 03:00–07:25
• British and Russian Imperial Rivalry Explained – 07:25–13:13
• The Qajar Dynasty and the Peacock Throne – 15:43–19:39
• Economic Bribery, Banks, and Tea – 21:25–24:05
• Foreign-Backed Coups and the Majlis (Parliament) – 41:35–49:26
• WWI, Famine, and Massive Death Toll – 64:07–68:11
• Origins and Early Life of Reza Khan – 55:35–59:12
• British Oil Politics & Military Transformation – 62:42–64:07

---

Episode Takeaways

• The roots of modern Iran’s politics, and Western antagonism, go deep, tracing back to a century of British and Russian machinations rather than US policy alone.
• Attempts at Iranian self-determination—democratic or otherwise—were repeatedly sabotaged by outside forces, usually using a combination of economic pressure, propaganda, bribery, and violence.
• The effects were catastrophic: mass death by famine, national humiliation, and the rise of strongmen like Reza Khan who were often elevated precisely because they served outside interests.
• Much of this devastating history is unknown—even by many Iranians—because the scale of suffering and the details of foreign manipulation are vastly under-discussed.

---

Memorable Closing

"When we're looking at the hideous death toll of US actions already in Iran, it's also important to just, like, know this is the latest in a long string of just horrific human consequences to imperialists fucking around in that part of the world. It's all bad stuff." – Robert (69:42)

---

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

Call zone media.

What's illegal? My. US Invasions of several countries, actually that have been happening recently and also my entire life. I'm Robert Evans. This is behind the Bastards, a podcast about bad people, the worst in all of history, several of whom are currently in the Trump administration, where they have recently orchestrated what is already ramping up to be a blood war with Iran. We're covering what's happening in an ongoing basis on our daily news podcast. It could happen here, but you know, that's not what we do over at behind the Bastards. You know, we're not, we're not breaking news here. Our specialty is like pieces of shit. And that makes us, I think, well suited to talk about why is stuff like, why is the Western world's relationship with Iran what it is? Like, how did, how did all of this shift start? Like, what was going on that kind of led to the, the present situation. And if you want to tell that story, you have to start with the 1700s and the 1800s and the period of like, particularly what's called the Great Game, which is, you know, kind of this thing that happens at the height of British and Russian imperialism. And you have to talk about the Shah, the very first shah of Iran, because it's the shahs of Iran that lead us to the current regime in Iran and that lead us to a lot of things about the current conflict and like why it's taken on the dimensions that it's taken on. So in order to talk about all of this, we're bringing on my buddy and Dr. Kavehoda, also podcaster. Much more impressive than Dr. I should have led with podcaster Kaveh. I'm sorry, welcome to the show. And.

And musician. Thank you so much.

And musician. Many things. You're a multi talented, a polymath.

[Dr. Kaveh]

The key is to be bad at all of them. That's the key to doing this right. If you want to do more, that's

[Robert Evans]

a Polycraft, not a Polycraft mess, but yeah.

You want to know what you are good at though?

[Dr. Kaveh]

What, what am I good at?

[Robert Evans]

Being my friend.

[Dr. Kaveh]

It's my best job.

[Robert Evans]

Also being a doctor and a podcast. Yeah, you're a great doctor and your podcast. I've listened to your band.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I'm good at one of those three things.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I'm hoping it's doctor.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That's the one. That's really sort of the one I'm good at. The rest is you're gonna find out, listener and viewer, not as much, but, you know, give it my darndest.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Well, I mean, this is obviously like what's going on right now. The United States is doing, I mean, we've just killed a school full of little girls. Like a lot of really ugly stuff. But if you wanna, like the story of like, why did the US start fucking around with Iran? Like, why is the current Iranian the way it is? That all starts well before the US gets involved. Right, that, that starts with, you know, like most of our imperial ambitions. We cribbed off the notes of the Brits and the Russians from like a century or so ago. And it's those imperial powers who made sure that Iran wound up with a Shah in the first place. Which is why, you know, we have a revolution because the shahs rule so badly that they inspire revolution. Which brings us the Ayatollahs and all of these are, are, are stories in and of themselves. But this week we're going to be talking about like the first Shah of Iran of the Pahlavi dynasty. Right. Like that's, we're, we're obviously Iran had previous shahs, but we're talking about like the dad of the guy who got exiled when the current government of Iran took over. And how much do you know about the first, about Reza Khan, like the first of, of that line of shahs.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That's. So first of all, thank you for having me back on, first of all. Second.

[Robert Evans]

Oh shit, I talked right over that.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah, I'm so happy. No, I'm so happy that you're covering this topic because you're exactly right. There is a long history of involvement of Western powers. And as an American, American powers, you know, really explicitly in 1953, as we're gonna, I'm sure talk about that really set off a chain of events that led us to where we are now and you know, you could argue did a lot of damage and destabilize the region. So yeah, it, what bothers me the most is that it's a story that most people in the United States do not know. They, they don't know the real reason why people in Iran may have taken over that Embassy back in 79. They don't really know some of the anger, the anti American feeling that happened at that time. Yeah, because before that there was great relations, you know, for a while between the two countries. So yeah, I think it's a really important story. I do more or less the basics of it. I never was that interested in the shahs because the concept of a monarchy just rubs me the wrong way in general.

[Robert Evans]

Seems like a bad idea.

[Dr. Kaveh]

It Seems like a terrible idea. I'm not into it. But there are these characters in there which I'm sure we're going to talk about, like Mosadgh, who are really interesting people. And there is a story here that really explains a lot about what. What's happening here. The Reza Khan, his son, Mohammad Reza Khan, and now his son, who's now a player in what's happening currently the news. Reza Pahlavi from what, Maryland?

[Robert Evans]

Where he lives? Yeah.

[Dr. Kaveh]

So it is something I know a little bit about. But part of the thing is when you grow up Iranian and your parents came over after the revolution, a lot of these parents are very politically savvy, well read, studied, were politically active, but getting a lot of information from them was hard about what happened during the revolution. Not just because everyone has only their side of it, but because Iranians get so upset about it. Just be like, that bastard did this and that son of a bitch did this. And then you're like, you're losing the story here with this and you can't really get the story from your. Your family. So it is nice to. I think we're going to go into more depth about what actually happened now.

[Robert Evans]

And I get that in part, I think, because if I had to, if I got exiled and had to explain overseas like a bunch of the different infighting around leftist movements or like a bunch of the different right wing grifters who got us here, I would probably just wind up cursing like after a while, this son of a bitch and this piece of shit.

[Dr. Kaveh]

There's a lot of that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. You have to really work to be. And I want to clarify, we're not even getting past. We're only getting up to 1941 in these episodes. I wanted to do both Shahs at once, but there's so much behind how the British and the Russians maneuver the situation that leads to this dynasty into being and how the oil situation gets started that you have to really talk to. So we will come back and we will do the sequel to these episodes, which we'll talk more about Mosada as well. We're gonna talk about some in these episodes, but he's like, becomes the Prime Minister, I think at 51. So that's even a little past the era we're talking about. But this, this is really important because this is what sets, this is what starts like everything into motion that we're seeing unfortunately come to very, like a very bloody head right now.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

This is an Iheart podcast, guaranteed human. So we're Gonna start these episodes talking about a period of time this is gonna be kind of over to the. To the US this is like happening in, like, the Civil War reconstruction era. Right. And in Europe, that's also a time of great change and of war. You know, not only is industrial is Europe industrializing rapidly in the 1870s. The Germans beat France in 1870 in the Franco Prussian War. And the British Empire, you know, is kind of watching this. They're seeing Germany become a major world power because Germany becomes a country in 1871 as the result of that war. And very suddenly, France isn't the primary land power in Western Europe anymore. Germany is. And so Britain, which had primarily been worried about France previously, has two growing and major concerns in this period after 1871 is that you've got this Kaiser, and he seems really interested in expanding Germany's military capacity. Right. And the Brits are kind of fine with the fact that Germany's got the most powerful army in Europe. You Prussians can have your big army, right? That's fine as long as they stay on the continent. But once you start building boats, that's when the Brits are not having with you. Right? Yeah. No one else is allowed to have a navy. That's really the British Empire's primary foreign policy during this period vis a vis Europe is like, other people want boats. Wait a second. Like, hold the fuck up.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Can I also make a quick note? I love the way when you say the Germans. I don't know if you even meant to do this. You slipped into ze Germans.

[Robert Evans]

Ze Germans, yes.

[Dr. Kaveh]

It's very good.

[Robert Evans]

It was very nice. There's a beautiful case of a small town German man who went to New York City recently and had some salsa verde on a taco and is suing because the spice destroyed his body and for days made him ill. It was like, New York City city salsa verde. I was just thinking, man. Motherfucker. I canned some barbacoa last week that could wipe out all of Germany. If that's. If that's really the level of spice tolerance over there. I know this guy's just a hayseed grifter from a small town. Sorry, my German friends. I know you can handle spices.

[Dr. Kaveh]

No, no, listen. We had a whole series of commercials in the 80s, remember, where they're like, paste made in New York City. New York City. Got a rope.

[Robert Evans]

New York City salsa. Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Kaveh]

It was like a whole thing.

[Robert Evans]

Very offensive to me.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I don't think they should be allowed to have salsa.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So anyway. Yeah, so the Brits are looking at the Germans, start to expand their navy and they're like, well, fuck, like, if Britannia doesn't rule the waves, like, what do we really have, right? We can't. The home islands are in danger if we can't keep control of the sea. So that's one of Great Britain's major concerns in this period. The other thing that's really freaking them out is India, right? Protecting India. That is the jewel in the British Empire's crown. It's their most valuable possession, right? And the Germans are nowhere near India, thank God. But over the course of the 19th century, Imperial Russia starts expanding troublingly close to India, right? Like, they start. There's a couple of different fits and starts where the Russians will, you know, expand their territory and they keep getting closer to the British Raj. I want to quote from the article A Very British Coup in the World Policy Journal by Shireen Breisik. The British watched nervously as the distance between the Russian empire and India, 2000 miles at the beginning of the 19th century, shrank so much that by century's end, as the Russian Empire expanded eastward at the amazing average of 55 square miles per day, as little as 20 miles separated the two empires in central Asia's Pamirs. Squeezed between these expanding powers was Persia, described by George Nathan Curzon, one time Viceroy of India and subsequent Foreign Secretary, as one of the pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the domination of the world.

[Dr. Kaveh]

We're real proud of being a pawn. Real proud of that one.

[Robert Evans]

Great. Thanks for calling us. Pieces on a chessboard.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Fantastic.

[Robert Evans]

Curzon is. We're talking about him a lot in these episodes. I should do an episode on just him. He's one of these. When we talk about British imperialists, he is one of the imperialist of imperialists in the British Empire's history. And this is why Curzon's comment is why participants came to call this struggle in what's often referred to as like, the near east, right, between Russia and Great Britain as the Great Game, right? This is a diplomatic, propagandistic and sometimes military struggle between the British and Russian empires over Central Asia. One part of the Great Game is that the Great Britain invades and occupies Afghanistan for a while. Doesn't work well, right? But that's part of why that happens, right, is it's part of this stupid game they're playing with the Russians and it's all in the name of keeping India safe, right? They don't want Russia to get Afghanistan, and they don't want Russia to get Persia.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Right. It's perfect. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

The actual name, the Great Game, I think, comes in 1840, is the invention of a British spy named Arthur Connolly. He was corresponding with a colleague in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and wrote, you've a great game, a noble game, before you. Now, obviously, again, everyone dies. A lot of the British Expeditionary Force dies. So I don't know how great a game they thought that was by the end there.

[Dr. Kaveh]

This is the thing. This is the thing that bothers me. I don't know much about this time period, so this is really interesting to hear. I do know a little bit more about the coup, as we mentioned, that you'll get to at some point in the future. And one nauseating fact about that is the callous nature in which these British and American spies and propagandists, how they talk about it afterwards, like how much fun it was to overthrow.

[Robert Evans]

What a great game.

[Dr. Kaveh]

It was a game. It's so much fun. And they were good at it, and we won. It's just. It drives me.

[Robert Evans]

Ha.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Batty.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. In millions of people's lives. And I take some satisfaction that Connolly, in 1840, writes his colleague, you have a great game, a noble game before you in 1842, like the shattered remnants of the army that had marched in to Kabul during the first Anglo Afghan War, like, flee, because, you know, they get massacred, like, very badly. So at least a lot of times these guys got shot, but not nearly often enough. Kava. That is going to be not nearly often enough.

[Dr. Kaveh]

It's a recurring theme.

[Robert Evans]

A lot of people get shot in this story, but not the right ones generally. Usually some teenagers who got drafted from farms.

[Dr. Kaveh]

It's always the kids.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now, before that term was invented, the great Game, the Russians did have one of their own. They called it the Tournament of Shadows, which is objectively cooler. That is a cooler name.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That sounds like a fantasy novel that I would probably read.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Tournament of Shadows. Right. It's a great name for a prestige TV show. Right. That will really disappoint you in maybe the seventh season. Right.

[Dr. Kaveh]

The end is gonna get weird.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So for the British, again, the whole goal of this stupid game is to protect their territory in India. And the whole name of the game for the Russians was for the Tsar, each subsequent tsar, to prove himself a good ruler. And the main thing you had to do as Tsar to be a good ruler is expand the borders of the empire. That's why people forget this, because of how weak Russia seems. Entering World War I and is. But through the 1800s, again, 55 miles a day. The Russian Empire expands over the course of, like, years. It's crazy how fast this. I mean, and you look at the size of the Russian Empire at its maximum extent, and it's not that weird. So the Brits have a hard line of how close they want anyone, any European power to get to the Raj. And the Russians feel like we have to expand constantly. And ultimately Persia winds up standing in between both empires. So in Persia in 1785. You're gonna help me with the pronunciation here. I think it's the Quihar dynasty or Qajar dynasty. Q, A, J, J, A, R. I think it's Qajar. Qajar.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I think it's an actual J. I'm gonna preface this by apologizing to how many of our actual Iranian listeners you have, that my Farsi is only nominally better than Robert's. I mean, it's better, but not as good as yours. And I'm sorry.

[Robert Evans]

I'm sorry.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I was born in Indiana. You're lucky I speak English, much less Farsi. So fair enough. So sorry.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. The Qwijar dynasty took power 1785. And they are the descendants of Turcomen from Central Asia and aren't seen as authentically Persian by a lot of people. Right. Like, authentically not seen as belonging in what's called Persia. Right. Because there's a lot of different ethnic groups there now. Because the first Qajar king doesn't have, like, a really solid hold on power, he decides he has to put on a show in order to convince everyone he belongs in the job. Right. You know, a lot of people don't think I should be in Tehran at all. I have to really, like, make everyone believe I'm legitimately, like, God wants me here. Right. And so this first Qajar king is Fath Ali Shah. And he's known. His nickname is the Super Procreant. Because he has a lot of kids, by the way.

And just so if it's not obvious, the word shah translates to, like, emperor, ruler, king, etc. Just in case people weren't aware of that. Somebody asked me that question, like, a few years ago, and I was like, that's what it means. So just in case.

And it often, in these names, it will come as, like, a last name. But that is his title, right? Fath Ali Shah is. Fath Ali is the Shah. Right. Reza Khan will become Reza Shah, like, when he becomes the shah.

[Dr. Kaveh]

And he gave the name Pahlavi. Cause it was like the. I think it was like the ancient written script word for Persian. Yeah, I think it was something like that.

[Robert Evans]

And we'll talk about that. Cause that's important to this. There's a lot of ethnic groups in Persia at the time. And he's only really. The Shah's only going to be really interested in one. Right? And that's kind of a big part of, like, what occurs in his reign. But so the first Qajar king is known as the super procreant, because he's. He's fucking constantly. And that's also why the throne of the shahs of Iran gets its name, because it's called the Peacock Throne. Now, for an explanation of why it's called the Peacock Throne, I'm going to quote from Abbas Milani, the author of a book called the Shah. Here's how they describe it. That superb and barbarous divan of enamel and precious stones with its Arabesque Designs wrought of 26,000 gems brought back from India as spoils of war. It uses bright red rubies, deep blue sapphires, and verdant green emeralds, and is flanked by two golden snakes, each peering from one side. In the beginning, the Peacock Throne was called the Sun Throne. Its name was changed because the Shah, who had close to a thousand wives of, quote, diverse origin and had a favorite concubine. This concubine was named Tavu, and that name literally means peacock in Persian. And so this throne, the Sun Throne, they fuck on it the night they get married, and he starts calling it the Peacock Throne because he has sex with this lady whose name is Peacock on it. That's why it's the Peacock Throne. Hey, guys, I just want to clarify. This is one explanation I found in one book for why it's called the Peacock Throne. And this represents, like, a popular story more than it does kind of the literal truth. Because, you know, there's peacocks carved into the throne. There's some. I think I've heard some other stories as to, like, why it's called that. Right. Iran is called the Peacock Kingdom, or Perijet is called the Peacock Kingdom at around this time, too. This should be viewed as kind of a story that a lot of people told as to why the throne got its name, as opposed to, like, the absolute reason. Pretty cool name for a throne. Story for a throne's name, actually, that is pretty.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That is real Game of Thrones Y. That is very Game of Thrones Y.

[Robert Evans]

I like it better than the Iron Throne. It's a nicer story than A bunch of swords getting melted together and a fun night.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah, the Peacock Throne sounds better. The reality of these thousand women actually being into this guy, pretty low.

[Robert Evans]

Probably not great, so.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Makes it a little bit less charming for me, but, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's a great name when you think about. Yeah, the relationship dynamics. It's less fun, but, yeah, it's probably more comfortable than the Iron Throne.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Way better than the Iron Throne.

[Robert Evans]

You wouldn't want to have sex on the Iron Throne. Like, you'd get, like, tetanus pretty badly, I think. I don't think Westeros has vaccines for that.

[Dr. Kaveh]

And it's really cold, I think, to be on your way probably. I think if you were naked on it, I think it'd be really cold. I mean, there are things to hold on to, which is nice.

[Robert Evans]

There's a lot of grips. That's a good side.

[Dr. Kaveh]

There's a lot of grips.

[Robert Evans]

Did either of you watch a Knight of a Seven Kingdoms Game of Thrones show?

[Dr. Kaveh]

I did. It's my first time venturing back into the world of Westeros since the original series.

[Robert Evans]

Do I need to watch it? What's the vibe?

[Dr. Kaveh]

It's fun. It's good. I mean, it's much lighter. I think they kind of read the room and they're like, people don't want so much rape and incest and all that. And they kind of, like, they tried to mix it up a little bit. A little bit less castration in this one, which is a big plus for me.

[Robert Evans]

I was trying to describe.

We could talk about this for hours. We're talking about the peacock.

Sorry, got distracted.

Which has a much sexier origin.

My friends are here. We're gonna talk about Game of Thrones.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I could totally do that for, like, an hour, conservatively speaking. I have a lot of thoughts about

[Robert Evans]

it, but, oh, yeah, solidly an hour. So we've got this new king. He's incredibly horny. Famously horny. So horny that the throne is named for his horniness, which is, again, the coolest anyone will be in these episodes. Sorry, guys.

[Dr. Kaveh]

All downhill from there.

[Robert Evans]

It's all downhill from the Peacock Throne getting named. One of Fath Ali Shah's most consequential decisions was that he signs a treaty in 1828 that gives a big chunk of Persia away to the Russian czar in exchange for protection. Persia is not a strong country. It doesn't really have a functional military. Like, the military is kind of capable of keeping, like, the people from rebelling against the Shah, but it can't defend the country from other countries, right. And a lot of critics complain that this 1828 treaty makes Persia a virtual satrap of the Tsar. Right. Basically Persia's just like a satellite state of the Russian Empire now. And so subsequent rulers in the Shah's line would veer towards the British whenever they get worried that like the Russians are getting too much power, in part because they're getting criticized by the people. Like the people are pissed that you're giving everything away to the Russians. So they'll be like, well, maybe I'll make friends with the British. And then, you know, the Russians will have to kind of fight for my affection with the British and maybe we can gain a little more power that way, right? Really? What the Shah and their success, they just are getting bribes from both these sides, right? And they're getting a shitload of bribes from the British who are yet gain more and more power over the Persian court over the course of the 1800s, basically by being like, hey, those Russians, I don't think they're gonna stop at the stuff they got in that treaty. But you know, we've got British guns and we've got, we can send some sepoys over from the colonies and you know, we can really keep an eye on your backs, fellow. You know, if you just give us this little bit of some mineral rights here and there and let us build a factory here and there and you know, export these raw materials, you'll never regret your dealings with the British Empire. That's kind of what's going on over like the 70 year period.

[Dr. Kaveh]

You like tea, we like tea. There's no harm that could come out of relationship, ever.

[Robert Evans]

Two groups of people who like tea could never harm one another.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I will say. Actually fun fact, Iran is known famously for its tea consumption. Like an insane amount of tea consumption. But we were the old school coffee. We used to be all about coffee. I blame the British for becoming a tea country, which is in my mind something I'm not proud of. I want to go back to us being a coffee country. I don't want to be a tea country.

[Robert Evans]

You must be a turban.

[Dr. Kaveh]

God, it really bothers me.

[Robert Evans]

I know, I know. No, because Syria, the Syrians are really like kicking yalls asses in the coffee department right now.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Oh no, we lost our coffee department.

[Robert Evans]

I know.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Well, they have hipster coffee shops now in Iran. You can go to Iran, they'll do like the, the hipster latte sort of art and stuff. They have that. But I mean, it used to be like our Thing. One of our things, right?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So the situation going on between these British agents and these Russian agents, all competing with these various shahs, is complicated by the fact that this isn't just a contest for influence between England and Russia within the British Empire. There are two sets of competing envoys that are in Persia and are fighting with each other as well as with the Russians. One set of British envoys are answering to the Foreign Office back in London, and another set are sent by the government of the British Raj in Calcutta. And these guys. So they're like, representing British India in Persia and they have this huge office on the Gulf coast in a place called Bushehr. And here's Shireen Breisak describing, like, the ministry from Calcutta. The government of India preferred a highly decentralized Persian regime. That means weak. So from the outset, Successive residents, including Major Sir Percy Cox and Lieutenant Colonel A.T. wilson, cultivated ties with nearby sheikdoms. Curzon, an eventual Viceroy of India visiting in 1889, spotted the Union Jackson fluttering from the summit of the Residency flagstaff and wrote that it was no vain symbol of British ascendancy. The British Resident is, to this hour, the umpire to whom all parties appeal, having at his command an effective naval force imposed at will he may be entitled the Uncrowned King of the Persian Gulf. So basically, Curzon realized that, like, because we've, like, we're running the show by 1889 in Persia, outside of the areas the Russians have, like, literally taken over by treaty, we are governing the country in all but name because we have all of the weapons here. Right. That's what he's bragging about. Yeah, you do that.

[Dr. Kaveh]

You do that really well. And it's weird. Like, you get into that British character, it's not just the voice, it's the. You can get that entitlement. Like you.

[Robert Evans]

I'm channeling my ambassador.

[Dr. Kaveh]

You channel it.

[Robert Evans]

It's a brilliant. So the shop benefits from having a close relationship with Great Britain because British naval power is effectively his as long as he does whatever they asked. Right. As one such envoy wrote of the Shah, quote, he and his prime minister were worried by the Russian threat to Persian independence. They believed, or hoped, that by giving the British a large economic stake in the country, they would become committed to defending that independence. Basically, if we make. If Great Britain feels like we're an important part of their security and economic apparatus, they won't let us get taken over by the Russians right now. The Russians, meanwhile, are stoking unrest within Persia, often by Bribing or otherwise encouraging Shia clergy to preach against foreign involvement. Basically to be like, hey, these Brits are taking over your country, guys, and they're heathens. You know, like, aren't you? You should be angrier about this. Why is the Shah letting them get away with that? Right. So the, the Russians are operating a very effective propaganda. Like, it's propaganda, but it's also accurate. But Great Britain is running things in Persia that is pretty messed up. Now the Russians also want to run things in Persia. They're not any, like, better people here really, but like, this is how they're choosing to kind of like, it's actually kind of similar to what Iran does in Iraq when the US invades with Shia clergy in, like, Baghdad, interestingly enough, where they're realizing, like, this group of people are particularly unhappy with the foreign power that's occupying the territory. So I'm going to like, basically fund them to build support for insurrections and like, rebel movements within the country.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah, we learned how to play the great game.

[Robert Evans]

We learned playing the great game. Yeah, yeah, right. Unfortunately, yeah, it's never been that great a game and always gets a lot more people killed than anything else. So these, like, Russian propaganda, like instruments and whatnot within Persia, these attempts to stroke unrest within the clergy succeed in getting the shot a cancer. A number of projects, including a railway project that he'd taken on that was supported by British interests. However, they failed to stop a British agent from creating the Imperial bank of Persia. In fact, the Russians are so jealous of the British Imperial bank that they create a bank of their own in Persia, subsidized by the Czarist state, where the Imperial bank was actually a functional banking institution that you could trust. That was the upside of it is the British do know how to run a bank that doesn't like, go bust every 10 seconds. The Russians are not as good about running like a legitimate bank. And the Russian bank of Persia, its primary purpose is to bribe the Shah's top officials. Like, it's not a real bank for people to use. It's a bank to issue loans to members of the government so that they do what the Czar wants them to do. So basically what you've got here is Great Britain's holding kind of the whole country hostage by running the bank that the people who have money use. And the czar is influencing shit within the country by using the bank that he's created to bribe government officials. So this is what we've got going on here.

[Dr. Kaveh]

This is like where the sort of Archie Being courted by Betty, I think, and Veronica, where these people are fighting for Iran is, like, nice. This is, like, so far, not so bad. But I also know that it just. It gets worse and worse. So, like, right now, it's almost kind of cute.

[Robert Evans]

It's going to get worse than banks. Yeah, it's going to get a lot worse than banks. Right. So Russia's fortunes in the area ebb and flow on a daily basis, and they depended largely on the attitude of the reigning Shah. For example, in 1879, Nasser Al Din, who's the shah at the time, visited Tsar Alexander II in Russia. Alexander ii, intent on staging a good show for his neighbor, ensured that the Shah was wowed by a mass presentation of Cossacks, the elite cavalry unit who had Cossacks. I mean, they're also, like an ethnic group, right? But they primarily known as, like, a military unit or a series of military units. They'd started out for a long time, had been enemies of the Tsar, Right. Like, Cossacks had fought the czars for a very. There had been a rebellion not all that long ago, and they'd been converted over time into the Tsar's red right hand. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about that. But first, my red right hand, these sponsors of our podcast. And we're back.

Yay.

So I wanna quote from an article in CNN World News about the evolution of the Cossacks within Russia. During the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, the Cossacks fought for the Russian crown in regional wars against the Russian people, garnering a reputation as the Tsar's henchman. Acting on behalf of the Russian Empire, the Cossacks carried out pogroms or massacres of the Jews in 19th century Russia. The Cossacks go from these people who were these, like, nomadic horse warriors and didn't want to be governed to the government being like, but what if we give you money in exchange for murdering anyone who stands up against the Tsar? And the Cossacks eventually are fine with this. Right. And they do a lot of. There's a lot of genocide done by the Cossacks on behalf of the Russian Empire in this period. Right? Like, these pogroms are very ugly. There's. There's one that kills something like a million people in the 1800s, like 700,000 or something like that. Pretty hideous stuff. Now, there had been a Cossack rebellion led by a dude named Pugachev in the late 18th century. And in general, any expert on Russian history would have told you that a powerful autonomous Cadre of warriors with zero accountability sometimes rebel against. It's not always a good idea for the government, Right. To have like this group of warriors that you can't really tell what to do.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah. Seems like a bad idea.

[Robert Evans]

Right. And the Cossacks had always been a double edged sword, even for the Tsars. But Nasser Al Din, the shah at the time, sees all these Russian Cossacks and he's like, these guys look cool as hell, I want some Cossacks. And so he founds his own Persian Cossack legion. This is kind of in the late 18 or. Yeah, the late 1800s. He founds the Persian Cossack brigade. I had not known there were Persian Cossacks. I thought that was just like a cause. Cossacks are from Ukraine is where a lot of Cossacks originate from. So the fact that there's a Persian Cossack brigade is kind of wild.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I think we will take any concept and then we'll take it to an extreme. That's sort of what we do as a people culturally. If you've been to Los Angeles, you'll see that. But this Kajar dynasty, what's interesting about it is I know very little about it other than the way they are presented. The narrative is that they were just an incompetent, ridiculous group of people who are only interested in procreating and wasting money on things. And Nasr Al Din is the one name I recognize as the epitome of that. This is the most wasteful, terrible dynasty. Saying something for all the other dynasties that that have been around and went on.

[Robert Evans]

And it's important to note that they are this terrible because they're all from the entire time this dynasty exists. They're always puppets of two different competing powers. Right. Like they're never like from the beginning, any of these. For one thing, anyone who might be a decent ruler is not going to be allowed by the Russians or the Brits to do fuck all, right? So they're going to make sure that guy never gets close to power in the first place because they're orchestrating who was in power and they're doing that based on their own interests, not what's good for Persia.

[Dr. Kaveh]

And it happens time and time again. This is the story, this is how it's laid out from time to time. Thereon.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yep. And obviously like these individual shahs and their officials suck too. These are all really corrupt, bad people. But they're corrupt bad people who are being bribed by someone and that is completely dominating the course of politics. In Persia during this period of time. And it's not entirely on the regime. Right. Like, these two foreign powers have a lot to do with it.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

So the Tsar, Alexander ii, had had the Shah over and impressed him with these Cossacks because he wanted something like this to happen. He wants Persia to have a Cossack brigade. Because the point of having Cossacks is that they're supposed to directly support the ruler. Like, these are your. I've had a rebellion. I need someone to go in and massacre them. That's why you have an elite group of horse guards like the Cossacks. And so the Shah is buying these Cossacks, thinking, like, shit, this'll help me. Anytime there's unrest, I'll be able to have these guys just murder my enemies. And Persia does, in fact, pay handsomely to equip, train, and maintain a brigade. And this brigade is pretty much, for a lot of this period, the only effective military unit Persia has. And it's led by Russian officers. Right. The Russians are kind of subsidizing this effort, and they're sending their own military officers who report directly to Russia's minister of war. So if you're Russia, what you've done, as soon as the Shah starts adopts this idea, starts hiring Cossacks, you've ensured the Shah's bodyguard unit basically is controlled by your guys. That's a big win if you're Russia in this period. Right.

[Dr. Kaveh]

No, I think this is. It's so interesting to learn about this. I'd heard about the Cossack brigade and a little bit of the connection to the Pahlavi family.

[Robert Evans]

But it's a big connection. Yes.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I don't entirely understand the concept. Is it like the Hessian soldiers that were in America that came over from Germany, like they're kind of a mercenary force? Or is it more of like a. But it's a formal. Like, oh, what are the bad guys in Dune? Remember, like, the ones.

[Robert Evans]

They're more like kind of more Sardaukar. Well, Sardark. Cause Cossacks are. There is like kind of an ethnic group. Like, these are basically. These start out as, like, tribal groups of where Cossacks come from is, you know how through most of human history, you have, like, your settled civilizations and then these groups of, like, nomads on horses who periodically take over everything.

Right.

Well, Cossacks are one of those groups of people. They just happen to be around at the time that the modern world comes into being. And so they're those guys. But instead of, like, Bows and arrows. They've got, like, rifles and eventually machine guns. And as a general rule, in this period of time, if you're going to brutalize a protest, you're going to use guys on horseback, because horses are really good at breaking up mobs. It's very scary to be charged by a bunch of guys with sabers on horseback. And the Russian Cossacks, that's what they do. These are the guys you send in when these villages are rebelling. Kill them. Or we've decided we're going to ethnically cleanse this area of this group of people, Send in the Cossacks. Right. And once the Shah gets his Cossacks, that's the. That's what they're gonna be used for, is brutalizing peasants to scare them away from doing disorder. Right now, they're not good for much else. They're supposed to be bodyguards, too. In 1896, Nasser is assassinated while at a shrine, and his Cossack bodyguards fail to protect him as a general rule. They're not great at that part of the job.

[Dr. Kaveh]

We don't protect, we hurt. That's not our thing.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, no. All it gets taught was how to hit people.

[Dr. Kaveh]

More of an offensive thing, less defense.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, but once you've got these guys, you've got this unit of powerful horse guards that are close to the Shah. They're gonna remain a powerful force in Persian politics, which by the turn of the century, once the 1900s start going, are in a chaotic place, to say the least. Shireen Breisak describes the country during this time as a playground of Russian and British spies. Tehran is very much the way Berlin is going to be during the height of the Cold War. Right. It's this city where spooks from all over the world are coming and executing plots as part of these different great power games. And neither Russia or Great Britain trusted the local state security forces as far as they could throw them. So they brought in their own troops to protect their own agents in the country. The Russians brought in their own Cossack guards or used Persian Cossack guards, which were led by Russians. Right. Whereas British consuls in the country brought sepoys and Bengal Lancers from India to protect their guys. At the start of the 20th century, Russia and England had reached an accord, which Breisak writes was settled without informing, much less consulting the leaders of Persia. They split the country up into three spheres of influence. The British control southeast. Persia, Russia runs the north. And the southwest is like a neutral zone where they're both allowed to do like certain things, as long as they don't, like, cross other certain lines. And again, no one asks anyone in the Persian government about this. They are not consulted. Their consent does not matter. Russia's chunk of Persia is most valuable during this period of time. They seem to get off better, like the best of this treaty, right? Because they get the chunk of Persia with the largest cities, including Tehran. But here's the thing. In 1901, when this agreement gets kind of inked, neither power is really interested in Persia's oil fields. There's not a lot that's known about them. We'd only really figured out there were oil deposits in southwest persia in, like, 1892. That gets discovered thanks to the work of a French archaeologist whose findings are brought to this French guy who's digging for evidence of earlier societies, finds oil, and his findings get sent on to the Commissioner General of Persia. So an actual Persian government official. And this says a lot about who was bribing the Commissioner General of Persia. He goes straight to Sir Henry Drummond Wolfe, who's a Conservative parliamentarian in London, and he says, hey, we found oil in our country. I figured I'd go to London first. And Wolf introduces the Persian commissioner to a guy named William Knox D'. Arcy. I assume he's an actual descendant of Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, much less lovable. Honestly, he probably is, because William Knox d' Arcy is a millionaire who'd gotten rich speculating on gold in Australia. He sounds like that guy's kid or something.

Still blows my mind that Mr. Darcy is also Tom Wan's Gams from Succession. Blows my mind.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I don't know that show, but they're

[Robert Evans]

apparently doing a new Pride and Prejudice and it looks like shit.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I know women love Mr. Darcy, and I don't entirely understand why.

[Robert Evans]

Love Mr. Darcy.

They love that scene where he, like, she brushes his hand and he, like, twitches like crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Big scene. So William Darcy gets introduced to the Persian commissioner. And you know, this guy loves speculating. So he decides he's gonna branch out in oil speculation. As in 1901. He offers the rulers of Iran 20,000 British pounds and 16% of annual profits gained from exploiting their oil reserves. This draws little initial outrage within Persia as regular people have a lot bigger fish to fry, right? And nobody's thinking about oil as a huge industry. Yet it's 1901. The number of people who have, like, used gasoline for anything is very small. The vast majority. It's horses or walking for most people, right? And trains are a thing, obviously. So, yeah, you've got this guy Darcy who gets involved and he basically bribes the rulers of Iran with £20,000 and a chunk of annual profits to exploit as much oil as he can find there. And nobody cares because oil's not worth all that much yet. In fact, Darcy nearly bankrupts himself paying for the deal and trying to build the infrastructure to start taking Persian oil to market, because there's nothing there. Nobody's been digging or like nobody's been drilling or anything. He has to do all of that, like from the ground up. It's very costly and even a very rich dude like Darcy can't bankroll the project on his own. So he partners with a company called Burma Oil, which is, despite the name, based in Glasgow. And Burma Oil has the capital necessary to make Darcy's dreams a reality. So Darcy's now in business with this Glasgow based company and they're starting to build oil wells and whatnot and drill in Persia. And at the time, this is one of a bunch innumerable deals by which Persia's natural resources are being sold off for the benefit of foreigners. This is not just happening with oil. Everything valuable in the country is being sold to Russia or Germany, right? Like that's the way it's working for everything. So regular people in the country know they're being fleeced. They are not unaware of that. There's actually a very. Because the press is starting to become an increasingly significant thing in this period of time and literacy is fairly high in the cities. Regular people are very aware that they're being robbed by both the British and the Russians and that their leaders are selling the country out for what amounts to middling bribes. The current rulers, the dynasty had their origins in a tribe of Turkoman warriors who'd served as the bulk of the Safavid military. And the Qajars had a Russian branch, which, again, because these are Turkmen people, this is all very complicated ethnic stuff. But the, the ruling dynasty in Persia at the time are Turkoman, which means they have Russian cousins who are nobility in the Russian Empire, which means the Shahs of Persia are related to the Tsar, which endears them to the Tsar, right? They're not directly related to the Tsar, but they're directly related to other royals within the Tsar Empire. Right. And this. So a lot. That's part of why a lot of people don't trust them, right, Is they're both stooges of the British. And well, you don't, you're not really like or at Least a lot of Persians feel like you're not really Persian, you're more Russian and like you're much more aligned with the Russian government. So there's a lot of reasons why people are getting increasingly pissed off at their rulers at this period of time. They're selling off the entire country and they're doing it as if they're agents of other countries, right? That's increasingly how the, this dynasty is seen as Sharia. Kia wrote in an article for the National Council of Resistance on Iran or ncri, quote, the Quasar Crisis, influenced by Russia and Britain had led Iran to financial ruin and a political crisis. They were weak against foreign influence and oppressive of citizens. So by 1905, people are sick, they are fed up with this shitty ass dynasty. And the king is, because Nasser had gotten assassinated and his successor by this point is aging and ill. And there's enough unrest with elite in the capital that they form a parliament, right? There's this like national assembly formed in Persia called the Majlis as the result of a lot of work by a lot of different activists within the country. A lot of different, like very brave people who want the government that the people of the country deserve, that will actually functionally govern and modernize the country and won't be taken advantage of as hideously as the Shah's regime had. And the Majlis draft a constitution which was approved regretfully by the Shah right before he died. And the Shah is kind of in this position of like, if I don't approve this, it's, it's allow this bit of democracy or have a rebellion, right? That's, that's the dire situation he sees himself in. So once this parliament gets going and starts passing a constitution, the Russians are like, well, we can't have this. These guys aren't working for our best interest, they're working for their own best interest. That's not great. So they immediately set to work pushing their allies in the Shia clergy to sabotage this new experiment in functional self governance. Historian Ruhollah Ramazani writes that they destroyed the foundations of this new government twice in about four years, right? So the Majlis keep trying to install functional parliamentary governments and these clerics and other agents of the Russians that are working within Persian society keep sabotaging these efforts because they don't want this to happen.

[Dr. Kaveh]

This is the same thing, this is the same thing that happens with a National Front later. The same sort of dynamics they use to play against the second more secular elements, the religious elements. They use them the same exact manner God, just in such an easy playbook.

[Robert Evans]

It's always, it's so, it's really frustrating when you, when you lay it all out like this. So in 1908, Russian interests install a new shah on the throne, Muhammad Ali Shah. And he celebrates his newfound power by imprisoning his own prime minister who had been semi democratically elected by the Majli Per Shireen Brysak's article. With a loan underwritten by the Russian bank and with his own crown jewels as security, the Shah hired rioters to storm the Majlis. When the assembly successfully resisted, the Russian officer Persian Cossack brigade moved rapidly to dissolve parliament and to impose martial law. The Cossack shelled the parliament building, igniting a blaze that destroyed its records and killed eight people. The Russian commander proclaimed himself military governor of Tehran. That's fucking nuts. So the new Shah hires rioters and the parliament fights off the rioters so they have to blow up the building with our. It's fucking nuts.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That's insane.

[Robert Evans]

And obviously very sad.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah, and the moshleys, I mean, I don't know if you, if you know this but like so there are parliaments because I know that I always thought they were like a Senate or something, but I don't entirely understand. They were like the parliamentary force.

[Robert Evans]

I don't think any of these are like quite perfect terms. It's like a national assembly type deal. Right? Like it's a semi democratic body basically.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. But it doesn't translate perfectly to senators and senate and that sort of thing.

[Robert Evans]

Not, I mean it's kind of its own like thing like, I think the word literally means like, like a place to sit basically. And it comes out of tribal councils. But yeah, it's like a, it's a, it's a type of parliament basically that's close enough for our purposes. Right. So the Russians have massacred a bunch of people and shelled the parliament building and installed a Russian military commander as governor of Tehran. And this is not popular. In fact it inspires a mass uprising. And this is one of these beautiful moments where regular people in Tehran and in the areas outside of it are so fucking pissed off at what the Russians have done that all of these different normally opposed political groups unite together in resistance of Russian domination. And there's this mass uprising that pushes the Cossack guards out of the capital. And Muhammad Ali Shah becomes one of the shortest reigned shahs in history. He is not around much longer now because feudalism is a really bad system at the best of times. He is succeeded by his son Ahmed, when Ahmed is 12 years old. The reason why this is generally seen as good by the power that's backing this succession, the British, is that Ahmed is too young to rule on his own. That means he needs a regent. And the regent who gets picked to rule in his stead is a very close friend of British Foreign Secretary Nathan Curzon. So we have gone from Haha. The Russians took over, and basically this mass movement forces them out of power and forces the Shah to abdicate. But then the guy who takes over is a stooge for the British government again, right? It's this. They can't get out of this, you know?

[Dr. Kaveh]

And in the movie, the regent is played by Ben Kingsley. That's exactly who plays that character. He's half Indian, half white, to my understanding. And he has played an Iranian in, like, four movies. And they're never good. They're never good characters. Never.

[Robert Evans]

No. So what you've got now is a fucking regent who's running things in Tehran and everybody's tired because they've just thrown the Russians out and the British are kind of come in as the winners in this round of blows in the great game and shit like this. The fact that Great Britain kind of sits back while Russia commits a bunch of horrible war crimes and then winds up in charge is why England? Part of why they get their reputation being perfidious Albion is everyone's like, how the fuck did you wind up winning? Wait a second, like, we were fighting them. How did you win? What the fuck? Like, that's the way the British play stuff for this period of time. Great references. Wow. Now, one reason why you had this popular uprising against the Russians and why, like, the Majlis are able to gain and maintain a degree of power, is that regular Persians are fairly well informed about what's happening in their country, or starting to be in this period, because especially once the Majlis come into power, Persia has a shockingly free press. During this whole period of time, from about this point in the story forward up until we get the last dynasty of shahs, there's a really vibrant media ecosystem, particularly in Tehran. The first Majlis had put an end to the stifling control the aristocracy had exerted on media. And so even when the Persian people lacked the power to stop Great Britain or Russia from doing something, they at least knew that they were being fucked. Right. That's an important dimension of this story, is that people are not in the dark because there's a pretty good media at the time, which I was also unaware of. So folks are especially aware of the rampant corruption within the Shah's court. Public opinion of it is so negative that the Regent's foreign minister sends men out to find him a disinterested American expert to come to Tehran and fix the Persian economy. Now that fact alone should give you an idea of the very different regard Americans were held in during this time. That like foreigners who are meddling in a still other foreign country's economic system are like, we need someone reliable, trustworthy and unbiased to fix this economy. Let's find an American. The fact that that's the way things worked back then is crazy.

[Dr. Kaveh]

It is, it is wild. But I will say until the whole 1953 coup, there was a real. And then afterwards, if you talk to your rank and file Iranian, now they do, and they have for many years now loved Americans. But before this they used to have a lot of contempt for the British, they used to have a lot of contempt for the Russians and they used to always sort of know that they were meddling. But there was like a real warm spot for Americans because of the Americans that would come over and help them with the finance stuff. McCluskey, I forget his name, but like there's a few. Yeah, yeah, so there was a real like, you know, warmth.

[Robert Evans]

And this guy isn't bad at his job, I don't think. His name is W. Morgan Schuster. He's a middle aged lawyer who had worked and he'd been like a customs guy after the US had taken Cuba from the Spanish. And he basically rebuilt the tax system for the Philippines after the United States States took over the Philippines. Shuster is the first American that I'm aware of who has a significant political impact in the Persian government. And his experience couldn't have been more different from the Americans who would follow. For one thing, Schuster seems to have been genuinely welcome and desired by many Persians because the economy is completely fucked up, right? And he's as popular with like the local people as much as he is hated by European expats living in Tehran who rightly see his crusade for financial solvency as something that's gonna cut into their graft. Because Shuster actually wants the Iranian people to have a functional economy. And when he realizes they're being robbed blind, he's pissed about it. He's like, well, they're never going to have like, you're never going to have a happy country with a good economy if you rob them blind like this. If the goal is for Persia to be a functional country, you're screwing them. In 1911, Shuster, who's now the Treasury Secretary, sparks outrage with the Russians when he confiscates the home of the former Shah's brother, who was a Russian citizen. Shuster was in the right. By any rational observation, the exiled Shah's brother had not been paying taxes for years. But the British and the Russians file formal complaints against this guy with the Majlis who ignore the complaint to their peril. The Tsar sends his army in and he shells Tehran, killing many pro independence liberals and clergy members. They shell this the capital and kill a bunch of people because this guy Shuster takes one dude's house for not paying taxes. The Russian army also shells Shia holy sites as the British look on but avoid direct intervention themselves. On Christmas Day 1911, Shuster is forced to leave Persia. He goes back to the United States and he writes a book called the Strangling of Persia, which is all about how European powers are robbing the country blind and murdering any chance of it having a foreign functional government. Like, he's, as far as I can tell, he seems to genuinely be like offended on behalf of the Persian people.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah, and there are, I mean, in this whole story of all these terrible people, like it's, there's not a lot of heroes, but there were a couple and they were, I mean, early nice guys. Yeah, yeah, there was a couple.

[Robert Evans]

They tried.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah, yeah, right. At the end of the day, most of them couldn't affect things in a positive way, but there were a couple of Americans that, that did try to do the right thing.

[Robert Evans]

It tried to do the right thing like the Spike Lee movie. And you know what else is like a Spike Lee movie?

[Dr. Kaveh]

It's probably, and you know, I'm a good test taker. I learned that in medical school. Probably the ads and services that are going to be presented in these commercials.

[Robert Evans]

Bingo, bango. And we're back. So while all this is going on and while Persia is both finding itself split between British and Russian influence and fighting for its own autonomy, a boy was born and starts growing into a man. His name was Reza Khan Mirpanji, and he came into the world on March 15, 1878, in a town called Alasht in the province of Mazanderan. His father, Abbas Ali, was a Persian man and a major in the army. His mother, Noush Afarin, had immigrated from either Georgia or part of Armenia. Both were owned by the Russian Empire at that point. But she's Caucasian, like literally from the Caucasus region. We don't know exactly where she's from because paperwork isn't anybody's strong suit. But Reza from the beginning is like an example of how mixed Persia is at this point in time. Right. He is himself mixed. And that's interesting because he is not going to govern in that way. Rez's dad is a war hero, but he's the kind of war hero who dies when his son is 8 months old. After this, Nosh moves the family to Tehran to live with her brother. When she remarries in 1879, Rez is a year old and she abandons him to start a new family and leaves her firstborn son in the care of her uncle. This is not a wildly uncommon thing for a lot of people to do at the time. All over the world I've read a bunch of stories like this, but it is pretty fucked up, right?

Yup.

She's basically like, I gotta try with a new family kid. Sorry, here's an uncle, you know. Hopefully he'll take care of you.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That explains a lot.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Oh my goodness.

[Robert Evans]

Not great. Now from what little detail we get about his early life, we can conclude that Reza's family saw him as an opportunity to increase their fortunes and little else. In 1882, his uncle sent him off to live with a family friend who was a rare Persian officer in the Cossack Brigade. This helped him get entrance to the Cossack Brigade when he's, well, well, not an adult. It's unclear exactly how old Reza is when he joins the military. I've heard both 14 and 16 and either is really plausible. You can get a hint of why by looking at this 1909 photo of a unit from the brigade and look at the differing ages of those soldiers, because one of those I see, that's a child. This guy is clearly in like their 50s and there's like a nine year old and there's a few people who look like they're.

That's an actual child.

That's a straight up boy. Yeah.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That nine year old though, seems to have medals, which is pretty cool. There's a story there I'd like to hear.

[Robert Evans]

Nine year old has killed a lot of men.

[Dr. Kaveh]

He's seen some things.

[Robert Evans]

He's a hard nine. So Reza was illiterate as a young man. He had basically no formal education and his first job in the Cossacks was as a stable boy. He was, however, tall and handsome and extremely charismatic. He is very good at making the right friends, which assures that he eventually rises to have a cushy job guarding the Dutch Consul General. He does fight in a couple wars. He's a good soldier. He's particularly good with a machine gun. And he becomes like his unit's machine gunner. They call him Machine Gun Reza, that's his nickname, which is pretty cool.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Got a Wu Tang Clan sort of vibe to it. So.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, right, right.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That works.

[Robert Evans]

He rose rapidly through the ranks and by the 19 teens, he's one of the highest ranking officers in the Cossack brigade. Shahriar Kiya writes that he was also, quote, known for his role as a leader of religious bands and as a community enforcer in religious ceremonies. In her article, Shireen Breisak adds, he earned a reputation of being a fireman, someone who was sent to quell disturbances or round up thieves. So basically this guy's kind of stupid, but he's well liked by his peers, which are the most functional military unit in the country. And he's also, he's also kind of like known as being a religious hardliner. Like he's in very good with the clerics. He spends a lot of time making sure other people are doing the things they're supposed to do, like religiously in his community so that the clerics like him. And he just generally he's the guy who, if people are breaking the rules, he'll kick their asses. Like, that's who this guy is and that's the reputation. He's the heavy, right? He's the tough that you send out, right? So basically he was cooked up in a lab to become a Western backed dictator, right? All that was needed was the proper impetus. And this brings us back to William d' Arcy and the question of Iran's vast oil reserves. Anglo Persian Oil, the company Darcy eventually establishes, enjoyed a monopoly on Persian crude oil for years. But it's not until 1914 that the world gets a good. I look at just how big a deal this is going to be. Because in the lead up to World War I, Great Britain is hungry for any advantage they can get over the rising power of Imperial Germany. I talked about that at the start of the episode, right? Germany's building a fleet that can compete with the British Royal Navy. And so Great Britain needs an advantage. This enters into the picture Admiral Sir John Fisher. He was described by the press in his time as Britain's primary naval oil maniac. This means he was the first admiral with power in Britain to be like, we should switch to oil from coal, right? That's a good idea to become an oil based navy. There's benefits to doing this Right. Your ships can go further on oil than they can on coal. Without needing to refuel, they can go faster. There's a number of logistical benefits to eventually doing this, but it's a hideous cost. When you're thinking of moving the whole Navy over, You're spending a shitload of money. And there's not a lot of oil exploitation yet. Right, either. So Great Britain doesn't necessarily have a ton of oil to exploit. Darcy seeks out and befriends the admiral in 1903 at a bohemian spa, where Fisher engaged in his main pleasure outside of being an oil maniac, which was dancing. So Darcy basically.

Is that code for something, or is it legitimately dancing?

I think he's just a dancer. And I think Darcy befriends him dancing at this spa and they become buddies. Yeah, straight buddies, I'm sure.

I've been to a lot of spas. Don't remember anything about dancing.

Just saying, a lot of dancing at spas, they were different back then.

[Dr. Kaveh]

So let's be real. That sounds pretty fun. Like a spa where you just, like, relax in the hot tub and then dance. A dance spa.

[Robert Evans]

I think that's what Dirty Dancing is pretty much about.

Kind of. Honestly.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Yeah, you're totally right.

[Robert Evans]

It's a dance spa. Yeah, it's a dance spa. So there's a Dirty Dancing scenario. Right. That's very integral to this story.

And he had the time of his life.

Yeah, at the time of his life.

[Dr. Kaveh]

And Darcy's. This is Darcy, and I'm sorry, who is the person again, that he is courting here?

[Robert Evans]

Admiral Fisher.

Yeah, Admiral Fisher.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Admiral Fisher, the oil maniac. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And in 1904, after he and Darcy become friends, Fisher becomes the First Sea Lord, which is a real job in the British military hierarchy.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Oil maniac, the Sea Lord. That's not bad.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. He's the First Sea Lord.

[Dr. Kaveh]

That's crazy.

[Robert Evans]

Which I thought was a job for Aquaman, but.

Okay, I was thinking L. Ron Hubbard.

[Dr. Kaveh]

See, Commander.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So Fisher keeps on talking up this idea, and by 1911 or so, Winston Churchill has come around, and Churchill is like, we need to switch the Navy over to oil. Right. And so D' Arcy has, by 1911, successfully gotten this idea that primarily financially benefits him because he bought access to all of Persia's oil into the halls of British power. In 1914, the House of Commons supports a proposal to switch the Navy over to oil. Per an article in the Fair observer, the goal was to ensure energy security for Great Britain, where the Royal Navy switched From coal to oil to compete against the fast rising German navy. After World War I broke out, Persia remained neutral but supplied oil to Britain. In fact, Persian oil arguably led to Allied victory. The conversion of the British fleet to oil gave them advantages over the German fleet powered by a coal, greater range and speed and greater refueling. In keeping with their imperial tradition, Britain paid a pittance to Persia for oil.

That's fucked.

It plays a role in their victory. I wouldn't say it led to it, but it's certainly not an insignificant factor in the efficacy of the British fleet. The fact that they've switched over to oil. And again, Great Britain is fucking Persia. They're bribing the Shah but the Persian people are getting very little for their resources.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Again, something, a pattern that will play out many times for a long time.

[Robert Evans]

This is fucked up. But the real fuckery is still to come. During the war. World War I, Persian territory is a battleground between Ottoman forces and Russian and British forces. Right? And Russian and British are on the same side this time. So they go from competing to being on the same side. But they're fighting the Ottomans in parts of Persia right now. The realities of the war massively disrupt agriculture in Persia because farmers are constantly having dudes fight over their fields and shell them so they can't grow as much food. And also you have all of you have three different armies in the area. They're not growing their own food, they're confiscating it from the people who live there to feed their own soldiers. So people in Persia start to starve in huge numbers. As Zahra Edelati and Majid Imani write in an article for Third World Quarterly. Ayn Ol Sultana, a well known Iranian chronicler, wrote in a newspaper entry of 19 April 1917 that Famine and hunger prevail in all parts of Iran. Muslims and people of all faiths are dying in Kum in the center of Iran. Currently 50 die each day. In Hamadan, 30,000 have registered as destitute. In this heartrending description. He further stated that people in Tehran were taking sheep's blood from the slaughterhouse to feed themselves and their children. In fact, several Iranian newspaper reports in 1917-1919 highlighted the occupying forces attempts to seize food and grains and block people's access to food. So no one really debates that what happens next is a human engineered or at least a human influenced famine. Right? Is this intentional or is this just a byproduct of armies being armies? Right. There's debate over that, but it's caused by the fact that these foreign forces are in the country right now. There is a huge debate as to who is more at fault. Given the similarities between the Great Persian famine and the Bengal famine of 1943, a lot of people understand randomly blame the British. From that same paper quote highlighting the role of the occupying powers in the great Persian famine, some scholars have pointed to the issue of oil capitalism during the 20th century. The financial policies adopted by Britain, for instance, their refusal to pay oil revenues to Iran in the middle of the Great Persian famine indicates their lack of concern for Iran's starving people. For the occupying powers, Iran was mainly a strategic military asset. The dominant consequence was a lack of access to food among large, large parts of the population and what Amartyasian called entitlement failure. Thus, besides natural factors, pandemics, socio historical context and the incapability of the central government, the Great Persian famine was also caused by the occupying forces that pursued the war at the expense of the lives of many Iranians. And there's a lot of people involved in this catastrophe again, as well as some stuff that is just happening at the time. There's disease which is still related to the war and there's some environmental concerns. It's important I emphasize that the Russians are also hugely involved here too. At the early stages of the Russian civil war, once that kicks off, various Russian forces start seizing like housing materials, roofing and firewood and other basic supplies for their bases. And these are things that thousands of Persians need to keep their homes habitable. And like 100,000 Persians are made effectively homeless just by this. 10,000 villages are abandoned largely because Russian forces are are seizing everything that makes them habitable. 10,000 villages abandoned.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I'm just, I've never heard. I'm sure there's a listener right now, some auntie who's gonna be yelling at me right now because I didn't know this, but I never, I never knew about this.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, wait till you hear the scale of this disaster. So British diplomat Harold Nicholson wrote, quote, Persia had been exposed to violations and suffering not endured by any other neutral country in World War I. And it's hard to argue at that point. Eight to 10 million people, roughly half the pre war population of Persia, perish in the great Persian famine. Like about 40% of the pre war population die over the course of like World War I up to like 1919.

Wow.

As a result of all this. Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know the great Persian famine is vastly understudied and there's a wide range of scholarly disagreement over the death toll at the time. And for a very long time, contemporary reporting suggested two to two and a half million dead was a very reasonable, you know, range. But there's also scholars who are arguing with that more like 8 to 10 million is very likely. So this is not a kind of thing where, because of sort of the paucity of the scholarship on this at the moment, I don't. I don't feel comfortable saying, like, one is definitely right. I do kind of tend just on other. Because of other famines I've read about to lean towards the larger numbers, but we don't really know perfectly. I did not realize the scale of this. We don't talk about this because it's a very complicated famine. It's not as simple as just Russia or Great Britain starved Iran. There were a lot of factors, including some environmental ones and aspects of local government. But like Russia and Great Britain and the Ottomans play a huge role in why 8 to 10 million, half a fucking Persia nearly starves to death and nobody talks about it anymore.

[Dr. Kaveh]

Nuts. That's insane.

[Robert Evans]

It's nuts. Yeah. Wow.

[Dr. Kaveh]

I have to say, I really appreciate. This is a total. This is the kind of thing I'm supposed to say at the end when we're off air, but I really appreciate how you synthesize all this information. This is not easy. There's so many different factors. It's a lot of stuff, a lot of different books.

[Robert Evans]

I know I've left stuff out and obviously we're only going up to 1941, but. But, like, this is like when we're. We're looking at the hideous. The heinous death toll of US actions already in Iran. It's also important to just, like, know, like, this is the latest in a long string of just like horrific human consequences to imperialists fucking around in that part of the world. It's all bad stuff. So it is not until 1921 that Britain and Russia fully withdraw their forces from Persia, given that the tsarist, or largely given that the tsarist government had collapsed by this point, leading to civil war in Russia throughout most of the worst of the famine. Educated Persians blamed the British for it because they saw the British as being the controlling power in their lives. And there's an element, a degree, a sizable degree to which this is fair. The British, for their own part, are less concerned with Persia for its own sake and more worried about something else, which is that the Bolsheviks are now in charge of a lot of Russia. They're fighting a civil war for control of what had been the Russian empire. And it sure does look like Persia might become communist too. And that is gonna tee up part two. Kava, how you feeling?

[Dr. Kaveh]

I can't wait. I want to hear it now.

[Robert Evans]

Oh. Oh, well, you'll hear it in a second. You'll hear it in just a minute, Kava. But first, let's hear your pluggables.

[Dr. Kaveh]

So my podcast is called the House of Pod. It is a medical science podcast. It is a look at the world of science and health through an approachable manner. We've tried to make things as fun and as less scary, if that's a word that I can use, and do a terrible job explaining my show. You think after five years of doing this, I'd be much better at it. I'm not, but the show is actually fun. If you like this show, you're going to like the podcast the House of Pod, because we also take a look at medical grifters, and we look at all kinds of different medical malarkey that's out there. Try and present you the science in a way that is, I think, honest and nuanced and clear. So I think you will enjoy it. You should listen to it, and you will hear some episodes with both of these lovely people on that podcast. The House of Pod. You can find it anywhere you find podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Hooray.

Excellent. Well, listen to the House of Pod and, you know, do something nice in your own house. Or not. I don't control your life. Neither do you. Probably do any of us. Are we all just flotsam floating through cosmic debris? Yes. Goodbye, maybe.

But I'm definitely in control here. Bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com behindthebastards. We love about 40% of you. Statistically speaking,

this is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.