It was hardly more than a year ago that his grandiose dreams were scoffed at as the ranting of a petty tyrant and megalomaniac. In the aftermath of the “energy crisis” and quadrupling of oil prices, however, the world is beginning to think twice about Iran's monarch, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, or Shahansha (King of Kings), to give him his formal title.

Though he came to the throne in 1941, the present Shah of Iran did not really hold the reins of power until the overthrow in 1953 of the militant nationalist premier, Mohammed Mossadegh, in a CIA-sponsored coup.