If an uprising is a truly popular revolution, the regime will succumb to the revolutionaries, as long as no foreign power intervenes in favour of preserving the status quo. The majority of the army will defect and the few loyalist remnants will not be able to resist against the masses.
Consequently, the morally right option is never to intervene in cases of revolution, since your power will disrupt the procedure and inevitably disorientate the revolutionaries. After all, let's be realistic, the foreign states only care about the protection or enforcement of their own interests, not about any humanitarian principles.
Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
"The Romans had a distinct talent for devising bizarre methods of punishment"

Or for a more modern example

"The Germans have a distinct talent for managing and organising large construction projects"

Another -

"Anywhere in the world where there are people trying to dig things out of the ground you will find a Cornishman with a pasty"

The last from a Cornish miner.

Face it - torture is an art form, and the Iranians have been known for millennia as refined practitioners - remember how the Parthians killed Crassus by pouring liquid gold down his throat? They did that to be ironic.

You only think it's racist because you perceive torture as a negative thing - again - this is a cultural norm, it's far from universally accepted.

I don't agree with everything in that review by a long stretch but I agree with the core point - we were wrong to assume that Western democracy was a natural state that all peoples would "progress" towards.
All your examples attribute certain characteristics to a group of people, based on their racial status, which is not only stupid, but also racist.
Efficiency at different actions, like torturing or management, concerns either specific personalities or political institutions, not people, so the author could have supported his argument only by mentioning how all the people who were opponents of the Shah were also interested in torturing, before the Shah was deposed. Of course, such a task was impossible, so he was forced to make an incoherent reference to the Iranian past.

By the way, Crassus was already dead, when gold was poured to his mouth, so that action shows disrespect for the dead, not a tendency to torture. A better exaple would be how Darius II got rid of Sogianus.