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Mustafa Kemal and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi were men determined to gain status to make a difference in their politically weakened countries. With Mustafa serving the fragmented Ottoman Empire and Reza Shah the weakened Iranian Empire, both individuals had a vision to break free from the traditional government and practices under Islamic rule to move toward more Western-styled modern nation-states. There both had very complex and different reasons for such change. Many of the changes Mustafa set forth had been previously discussed in the Ottoman reform movement. “The history of Turkish secularism, the backbone or republicanism, goes back to the nineteenth century” (Heper and Sayari 2002:19). Despite the positive modern influences and infrastructure Mohammad Reza brought forth to the weakened war torn country; Iran’s conservative state was not ready for such alacrity and force, which ended in revolution. Throughout the 20th century authors and historians have compared and contrasted Turkey and Iran. They have tried to understand con