The Army and Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1921-26In 1921 Riza Khan, a colonel in the Iranian Cossack Brigade, rode on Tehran and, in a military coup that was to change Iran's destiny, took power. Appropriating the state-building objectives of Iranian constitutionalism and nationalism, Riza Khan embarked on the task of constructing a strong, modern centralized state at the heart of which lay a new national army. Ruthless and cunning, he used the emergent military and political institutions to crush both civilian and military opposition, and in 1926 crowned himself Shah of Iran. |