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It really wasn't until the mullahs derailed South Korea-level economic growth.
Turkey is not a shithole, and that's the closest approximation to Iran on a number of levels (though they are not oil rich).
There is in fact a history of democracy and constitutional monarchy. The lack of widespread support for theocracy after nearly 50 years is why we're having this conversation.
I have rather cursory knowledge of the pre-1979 Iranian monarchy but based on this I can say that whatever level of economic growth it was showing was not sustainable. It was rather uneven and had a distorting effect on multiple sectors. Also the Shah was mortally ill and had zero inclination to rule as a monarch and to raise his son to be his heir, and at the same time the monarchy was losing legitimacy overall. The population was being subjected to rapid cultural and economic change that it was unable to adapt to. (One American scholar likened it to trying to make people drink water from a fire hose.) Iran was not and was never going to be South Korea or any Asian Tiger.
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How well did that work out for them?
Operation Ajax
Eh, Mossadegh was not actually that great at democracy since he violated the law to seize power and dismiss parliament.
One could also argue the US/West owe Iran a debt since we helped get them into this mess. (Which we did by basically facilitating Khomeini's return and believing his lies about running a democracy.)
Great or not it was the result of their democratic process. What came after was less so.
I would argue the best way to repay the debt would be to stay out of it now.
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