In 1935, Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty felt the winds of history blowing across the world. He was a friend of Germany who would support the Nazi takeover in Austria and across Europe. He knew the Aryan myth was foundational for Nazis and he saw the Reich as the power that would replace the remnants of the Roman Empire with a new Aryan empire, of which Persia was the cradle.
In a stunning move, Reza changed the name of his country from Persia to Iran—which in Farsi means “land of the Aryans.”
A decade later, the thousand-year Reich is dead, and the world expects Iran to revert to Persia. It doesn’t happen. Despite cries from within and without, Iran remains the name of the former Persia. The monarchy resisted calls to revert to Persia right up to 1979 when Islamic fundamentalists overthrow the Shah and declare an Islamic Republic.
Would the Mullahs keep the name decreed by a Nazi-loving Shah? Yes. For the Mullahs, the name Persia recalls a time before Islam, so they left the name as Iran. And Naziism still had a hold on Iranian culture, just as it did among Palestinian Muslims.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent much of World War II in Berlin. When he returned to Jerusalem after the war, he was a fully indoctrinated Nazi and led the implacable opposition to a Palestinian state co-existing with Israel.
The de-Nazification that swept across Europe after the war never happened in the Middle East. The Shah and the Grand Mufti remained devotees of Nazi beliefs. The Jihadis that wanted to wipe Israel off the map and slaughter Jews everywhere got their murderous beliefs from the Nazi-loving Shah and Grand Mufti.
The Middle East suffers from an Addams Family bouquet of bad beliefs, including a living belief in Nazi philosophy.
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