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Some in the Trump administration appear to be smitten by royal nostalgia — just not the Megxit kind.
On Wednesday, the State Department’s Twitter feed released a short video extolling Iran’s “rich history of human rights from the time of Cyrus up until the 1979 revolution.” However, experts on Iran say that is glossing over some major problems — mainly the U.S.- and British-backed reign of the Pahlavi dynasty, which before its ouster in 1979 was a force for social and economic development but also of well-documented political repression.

Iran has a rich history of human rights from the time of Cyrus up until the 1979 revolution. The Iranian people have suffered from a regressive regime and deserve a brighter future. pic.twitter.com/LN1VRcfApl

— Department of State (@StateDept) January 15, 2020

“We’re all aware of the Islamic republic’s terrible human rights record,” said Holly Dagres, a nonresident Iran analyst with the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. “But the Trump administration wants to demonize the Iranian government every way possible, even if it means whitewashing the human rights record of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.”
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