Iran never had democracy. Soviets were in the picture as well. It's almost like the US is not omnipotent and there is more than one actor.
Historically, ordinary Persian citizens, regardless of regime, were perfectly fine with both Jews in general and Israel in particular. At worst they didn't care, why should they, the two places are very far apart.
Little spoken about in western press even the Ayatollahs initially were not hostile to Israel, as their interests aligned. That's how realpolitik works.
This changed and they made the calculation like any number of colorful despots and dictators in the ME and further afield to distract their populations from their failures with an external foe.
> The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (Persian: کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953.
Just because the US, at the behest of the British, helped orchestrate a coup to reinstall a dictator, doesn’t mean they never had democracy. It’s just that said democracy wanted to profit off the oil in their own land, instead of letting the British continue their imperial theft.
The inevitable blowback from such a cravenly selfish act, means that we get the world the US created.
Historically, ordinary Persian citizens, regardless of regime, were perfectly fine with both Jews in general and Israel in particular. At worst they didn't care, why should they, the two places are very far apart.
Little spoken about in western press even the Ayatollahs initially were not hostile to Israel, as their interests aligned. That's how realpolitik works.
This changed and they made the calculation like any number of colorful despots and dictators in the ME and further afield to distract their populations from their failures with an external foe.