If Ronald Reagan had been president at the time of the Iranian Revolution would the Shah of Iran still be in power today?
The Shah died of cancer in 1980, so no, he wouldn’t be in power today. His son Reza Pahlavi is still alive, so his son would be the Shah in this scenario.The Shah wanted absolute power, and in trying to hold onto power, he became a bloody tyrant. Ronald Reagan had a blind spot regarding communism: anyone who claimed to be anti-communist was fine with him, even when they used the same tactics, such as torture and arrest without trial, that communist rulers used. That’s why he supported the anti-communist Shah until the only way he could have helped the Shah keep his Peacock Throne was to condone the very tactics that were pushing the Iranian people to revolt.Not all Iranians were in favor of a theocracy. But the Ayatollah Khomeini, safely in exile, was the only person willing to lead an anti-monarchy movement, so Iranians rallied around him. If the Shah had been willing to become a constitutional monarch like Elizabeth II, his family might still be in Iran.
Was Reagan a bad president? Why? If you think Reagan was a bad President, what were his failures and shortcomings?
This is not a yes or no question. It's a yes AND no question.When Reagan took office, inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all in the double-digits. That's unthinkable today, but that's how it was. When Reagan left office, all were in single digits. It's hard to knock that. On that score, it was a successful presidency. Here are some other good things:In 1980, the United States seemed like a nation in decline. Just four years later, you would never have thought that. The country rewarded Reagan with a one-sided near-sweep in the 1984 election. Mondale took Minnesota... Reagan took the rest of the states.Reagan loved Gorbachev. The two men hammered out treaties and nuclear reduction treaties. Reagan signed an acid rain treaty with Canada. The Soviet Union was going bankrupt - Reagan helped hurry its demise. On the other hand, there were the bad things, screw-up, and scandals:Reagan's disastrous idea to deploy troops in Beirut led to the deaths of hundreds of Marines. Not one balanced budget. Nowhere even close. Deficits soared and the debt ballooned. He armed Iraq and was friends with Saddam Hussein and we all know how that ended a few years later.Reagan hated the Soviets so much he armed and funded radical Afghan fighters to fight the Russian occupation; many of those fighters would go on to form the Taliban.Reagan vilified the Iranian mullahs, but still saw fit to swap arms for hostages, sell weapons to Iran, and use profits to fund an illegal war in Central America. Reagan's administration was terribly corrupt - look up how many of his team were indicted... your jaw will hit the keyboard. (Hint: more than 137 but less than 139.)Every president's legacy is a mixed one, but with Reagan, it was extreme highs and extreme lows. When he was good, he was excellent. When he was bad, it was unimaginably terrible.
What was the reaction of Ronald Reagan becoming president?
David Allen pretty much says what I would say. In addition to the movie “Bedtime for Bonzo,” the chimpanzee movie, I knew him best for a movie in which he wakes up from an amputation and says “Where’s the rest of me?” and from his host role on 20-mule team Borax cowboy show. Cowboys were quite popular when I was a kid.The more I knew about him, the less I liked him. He was not very bright, and when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, many people said, “Like that’s a surprise?”Worst of all, when he became president, I took my first airplane trip. Ever. In my life. To Florida, in the off season (August), where I could not believe the heat and humidity. Although the trip was fun and interesting, he’d begun threatening to fire everyone in the Air Traffic Controllers’ Union, and did in fact fire them all, and left airports scrambling for ATCs while I was in Florida. I had no innate fear of flying, but learning that he’d fired all the competent help and was scratching in dark corners for coverage didn’t make me like him any more.My family is blue collar and no matter how high any of us rise, how much education we have, what job we have, we will be blue collar workers. There’s a reason unions were formed. Conditions for workers were terrible, pay was scant, job security nil, and people could not negotiate separately for basic guarantees.Essentially, the workplace now is what it was when unions began to form. Many people demonize unions as crooked and self-serving, with little interest in the average worker.But without them, how do most large scale employers view them? Let me tell you, a whole lot worse. The worst place a nurse wants to work is in a non-union hospital, and it’s the worst place to be a patient, as well.
What was President Ronald Reagan's speech "Evil Empire" About?
This speech emphasized the religious and moral basis of a number of policy initiatives discussed by Reagan. These initiatives included anti-abortion legislation, discrimination against the handicapped, prayer in public schools, and a foreign policy casting the United States and the Soviet Union as the embodiment of biblical good and evil. The most famous phrase from this speech is Reagan’s explicit reference to the Soviet Union as “an evil empire” when he discusses the folly of a nuclear freeze, but throughout the speech he uses biblical terminology: morality trumps privacy, and the Supreme Being trumps the Supreme Court. Reagan truly believed that sin and evil were in the world disguised as the godless workers’ revolution, and one of his stories in this speech concerns a man who would rather his little girls were dead then grow up under Communism without God. The speech is frighteningly effective. It contains almost no logic in the form of a presentation of facts, analysis of the facts, and a conclusion; rather, the conclusion is obvious to Reagan and the audience based solely on the truth of the Bible, supported by short quotes from Washington, Franklin, de Toqueville, and Lincoln. This speech was not pandering to a special-interest audience, but presenting President Reagan’s sincerely Bibliocentric world-view and manifesto.
Why does everyone refer to Ronald Reagan as a great president?
Beyond whatever Reagan did, he was undoubtedly "presidential." He led with conviction and communication, exuded confidence in America, and presided over prosperity. Reagan's spirit is embodied in his final speech when he said "Whatever else history may say about me, I hope it will be said that I encouraged your greatest hopes and not your worst fears." And that was certainly true.But Reagan has been greatly exalted since his death for other reasons:1). What other president do Republicans have to exalt? Bush I? Bush II? Trump? Against this crowd, Reagan -- and even Nixon -- just look better and better.2). Republicans have generally demonized both Democratic presidents since Reagan, which in their eyes also makes him look legendary.Though I admire his leadership and spirit, I also remember Reagan for:-- Being the first president to openly critize the opposition party for its ideology, not its policies. He set in motion the ongoing attacks on liberals, attacks which have since grown fangs.-- Scaring the bejeezus out of us with his rhetoric about the USSR, including "joking" about bombing them-- Doubling the deficit-- 100+ officials in his administration indicted for one crime or another-- Iran-Contra, which proved he was out of touch more than in control.-- In the midst of all the eulogy, who remembers that his popularity rating in 1983 was 40 percent or that it dropped to about that after Iran-Contra?So if you want style, and yes, leadership, Reagan's your man. If you want substance and policy, his greatness depends on your politics.
Which US President suffered a debilitating stroke iand was compelled to hand over control to his wife until hi?
It was Woodrow Wilson. He took office a few weeks after my mother was born. Legally, he did not hand over power to her but she kept things going for him unofficially. It is said that when they were developing the treaty of Versailles at the end of WW I, he was in such poor shape that a lot of what went into the terms would have been different had he been healthy.
Did Ronald Reagan have a successful presidency?
Depends. He is one of the most -- in some surveys the most -- respected presidents in the past 50 years. He won two terms and left office with much support. Of course he also left a gigantic debt, he promised to shrink government but actually enlarged it, he had more White House staff charged with crimes than anybody before (not sure about since), he rarely answered an off-the-cuff questions with anything but generalities, he let his wife's astrologer make some governmental policy, but he did look good smiling. So I guess it depends on your expectations.
What were three accomplishments of Ronald Reagan while in Presidential Office?
He strengthen the military. He stop Latin America from communist takeover. He forced the Soviets to stop aiming their Intermediate Range Missiles at Western Europe. DTG