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Causes Explanations advanced for why the revolution happened include actions of the Shah and the mistakes and successes of the different political forces: Errors of the Shah Precursors to the revolution Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came to power in 1941 following the deposing of his father, Reza Shah, by an invasion of the British and Soviet troops in 1941. Reza Shah had signalled neutrality in WWII and refused to allow the Allies to use the Iranian railway to transport war supplies to the Soviet Union that had been shipped from England. Reza Shah, a military man, had been known for his determination to modernize Iran and his hostility to the clerical class (ulema). Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi held power until the 1979 revolution with a brief interruption in 1953; when he had faced an attempted revolution. In that year he briefly fled the country after a power-struggle had emerged between himself and his Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who had sought control of the armed forces and attempted to nationalize the country's oil fields. Through the aid of a joint CIA and MI6 covert operation, codenamed Operation Ajax, the Shah was returned to the throne and fired Mossadegh, who was then arrested. Like his father Shah Pahlavi sought to modernize and westernize his country. He maintained close relations with the United States and most other western countries, and was often praised by American leaders for his policies and steadfast opposition to Communism. Opposion to his government came from leftist, nationalist and religious groups who criticized it for political corruption and the brutal practices of SAVAK (secret police) that also elicited condemnation from many parts of the international community. Of particular importance to the opposition were the religious figures of the Ulema clergy who had proved themselves to be a powerful political voice in Iran with the 19th century Tobacco Protests. The clergy had great influence on Iranians, particularly poorer Iranians, who tended to be the most religious, traditional and alienated from any process of Westernization. The future leader of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini first came to prominence in early 1963 leading opposition to the Shah and his program of reforms known as the White Revolution -- universal suffrage (voting rights for women), changes in the election laws that allowed election of religious minorities to office, and changes in the civil code which granted women legal equality in marital issues, breaking up property owned by some Shia clergy. Following Khomeini's public denounciation of the Shah as a "wretched miserable man" and arrest on June 5, 1963, three days of major riots erupted throughout Iran with police using deadly force to quell it. (The Pahlavi government reported 86 killed in the rioting; Iranian exiles claim thousands died; post-revolutionary reports from police files indicate more than 380 were killed.) Khomeini was kept under house arrest for 8 months and released. He continued to agitate against the Shah on issues including the Shah's close cooperation with Israel and especially the Shah's "capitulations" of extending diplomatic immunity to American military personnel. In Nov. 1964 Khomeini was re-arrested and sent into exile where he remained for 14 years until returning in triumph with the revolution. A period of "disaffected calm" followed during which Khomeini developed a powerful and efficient network inside Iran of his students and ex-students talabeh/mullahs, and small business leaders or bazaari. Added to this religious opposition were more modernist students and guerrila groups who admired Khomieni's leadership though they were to later clash and be suppressed by his movement after the revolution. The Shah launched a new effort to assert his control over Iranian society. This effort attempted to minimize the role of Islam in the life of the empire, lauding instead the achievements of pre-Islamic Persian civilization. Thus, in 1976, the beginning of the Iranian solar calendar was changed from the Islamic date to the ascension to throne by Cyrus the Great. Muslim and Marxist publications were also heavily censored. Pre-revolutionary conditions inside Iran The poorest section of the Iranian population tended to be the most religious, traditional, and opposed to foreign influence. The poor were largely rural, or inhabited slums outside the large cities, especially the capital Tehran. Many of them wanted the basic Shi'a Islamic lifestyle to return, in opposition to the Shah's efforts for modernism, which they believed to be imperialism. They viewed the Shah's reforms as self-serving and his promise of providing "progress" to be false, based upon the massive gap between the rich and poor. In addition, in the years following his restoration in 1953, the Shah's position became increasingly perilous. This was due in large measure to his close ties to the West, unsuccessful reforms enacted during the White Revolution, internal corruption, and the despotic nature of his government, especially its secret police known as SAVAK. In the early 1970's, as the price of oil continued its upward climb, many became increasingly angered by the regime's cronyism, internal corruption, and repressive nature. The internal decadence is well illustrated by the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. These celebrations consisted of a three-day party held at the site of Persepolis in October, 1971, to which only foreign dignitaries had been invited to attend. Officially, the celebrations cost $40 million, but unofficial estimates were more in the range of $100-120 million. The party included extravagances, such as over a ton of caviar, prepared by some of the two hundred chefs flown in from Paris. Meanwhile, many within Iran had insufficient food and shelter of their own. In the 1970s, as the rise in global crude oil prices increased the gulf between rich and poor in Iran, the pressure for a change in government policies became more acute. Even pro-Western elements in Iran became disturbed by the increasingly autocratic style of government and increased activity of the secret police. Many fled Iran before the Revolution, and others began to organize. At the same time, a broader populist movement found its source of organization in mosques, and in sermons that denounced the wickedness of the West and Western indulgences. The collision between a young and growing population, and a social structure which offered neither advancement in a modern state, nor the stability of a traditional society, created the conditions which were ripe for revolution. Early protests In 1977, following human rights pressure from U.S. President Jimmy Carter (who threatened to cut arms shipments), more than 300 political prisoners were released, censorship was relaxed, and the court system reformed. This loosening of restrictions led to more campaigns from the opposition, where writers campaigned for freedom of thought, and people began to demonstrate. Further contributing to the Shah's problems, the policy of land reform which the Shah implemented under pressure from the Carter administration infuriated the mullahs, who declared a holy war against the Shah. This early opposition was led by Mehdi Bazargan and his Freedom Movement of Iran, a liberal, secularist group that was closely linked to Massadegh's National Front. This group saw significant support in Iran and abroad in the West. More revolutionary was Ali Shariati, a popular and well respected teacher and philosopher who sought to achieve social justice and democracy through a modern interpretation of Islam. Prior to the rise of Khomeini, Shariati was the most prominent and outspoken leader of the opposition. His murder in London in 1977 greatly inflamed tensions. As a result, Khomeini eventually became the primary leader of the Revolution. The clergy were divided, some allying with the liberal secularists, and others with the Marxists and Communists. Khomeini, who was in exile in Iraq, led a small faction that advocated the overthrow of the regime and the creation of a theocratic state. In late 1977, Khomeini's son Mostafa Khomeini was found dead of unknown reasons; Khomeini himself blamed the Shah's secret police. The various anti-establishment groups operated from outside Iran, mostly in London, Paris, Iraq, and Turkey. Speeches by the leaders of these groups were placed on audio cassettes to be smuggled into Iran and listened to by the largely illiterate population. United States Facing a revolution, the Shah of Iran sought help from the United States. Iran occupied a strategic place in U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, acting as an island of stability and a buffer against Soviet penetration into the region. Pahlavi was pro-American, and domestically oppressive. The U.S. ambassador to Iran, William H. Sullivan, recalls that the U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski “repeatedly assured Pahlavi that the U.S. backed him fully." However, President Carter arguably failed to follow through on those promises. On November 4, 1978, Brzezinski called the Shah to tell him that the United States would "back him to the hilt." At the same time, certain high-level officials in the State Department decided that the Shah had to go, regardless of who replaced him. Brzezinski and Energy Secretary James Schlesinger (former Secretary of Defense under Ford), continued to insist that the U.S. would support the Shah militarily. Even in the final days of the revolution, when the Shah was considered doomed no matter the outcome of the revolution, Brzezinski still advocated a U.S. military intervention to stabilize Iran. President Carter could not decide how to appropriately use force, opposed a U.S. coup and ordered the USS Constellation aircraft carrier to the Indian Ocean, but soon countermanded his order. A deal was worked out with the Iranian generals to shift support to a moderate government, but this plan fell apart when Khomeini and his followers swept through the country, taking power 12 February 1979. Escalating protests During the period up to 1978, the opposition to the Shah mostly came from the urban middle class, a section of the population that was fairly secular and would support a constitutional monarchy. It was the Islamic groups that first managed to rally the great mass of the population against the Shah. In January 1978 the official press ran a libelous story attacking Khomeini. Angry students and religious leaders protested against the allegations in the city of Qom. The army was sent in, dispersing the demonstrations and killing several (allegedly 70+) students. According to the Shi'ite customs, memorial services are held forty days after a person's death. In mosques across the nation, calls were made to honour the dead students. Thus on February 18, groups in a number of cities marched to honour the fallen and to protest against the rule of the Shah. This time, violence erupted in Tabriz, and over a hundred demonstrators were killed. The cycle repeated itself, and on March 29, a new round of protests began across the nation. Luxury hotels, theaters showing "unethical movies," and other symbols of the Shah regime were destroyed; again security forces intervened, killing many. On May 10 the same occurred. The damage from the demonstrations, along with rampant inflation, further ravaged the Iranian economy. As a result, in the summer of 1978, the government introduced austerity measures that saw many public works projects shut down and wage freezes imposed. These measures created widespread unemployment and labour unrest, mostly among the poor labourers living in the slums around Tehran and other major cities. More and more, the working class joined the students and the middle class in the protests against the regime. Overthrow of the Shah By September, the nation was rapidly destabilizing, with major protests becoming a regular occurrence. The Shah introduced martial law, and banned all demonstrations. On Friday, September 8, a massive protest broke out in Tehran, and in what became known as Black Friday, the regime used the full force of its weaponry to crush the protests. Tanks, helicopter gun ships, and machine guns killed 88 people including three women. Black Friday succeeded in alienating much of the rest of the Iranian people, as well as the Shah's allies abroad. Clerical leadership spread the message (untrue but widely believed) that "thousands have been massacred by Zionist troops." A general strike in October resulted in the collapse of the economy, with most industries being shut down. The protests of 1978 culminated in December, during the holy month of Muharram, one of the most important months for Shia Muslims. On December 12, over two million people filled the streets of Tehran's Azadi Square (Then Shahyad Square) to protest against the Shah. On January 16, 1979 the Shah and the empress left Iran on demands of prime minister Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar (a long time opposition leader himself), who sought to calm down the situation. He dissolved SAVAK, freed political prisoners, ordered the army to allow mass demonstrations and promised free elections. He allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to return to Iran after years of exile, asking him to create a Vatican-like state in Qom and called upon the opposition to help preserve the constitution. Ayatollah Khomeini fiercely rejected Dr. Bakhtiar's demand and appointed an interim government on his own. As Khomeini's movement gained momentum, soldiers began to defect to his side. To avoid a collapse of the military, on February 11 the Supreme Military Council announced their impartiality in the conflict. The overthrow of the monarchy was completed at the hands of the revolutionaries led by Khomeini. Khomeini takes power
Western/U.S.-Iranian relations Anger began to build against the United States for accepting the Shah into the country for cancer treatments. In response youthful supporters of Khomeini took a number of hostages at the American embassy, in what became known as the Iran hostage crisis. In America, supporters of the Shah saw Carter's lack of action in support of the Shah as appeasement responsible for the transformation of Iran from ally to enemy and for the hostage situation that followed. Many saw Khomeini's support for the hostage-taking (which happened on Nov. 4 1979), as a shrewd political move to divide opposition to his new theocratic constitution, the referendum for which was held one month later. Anti-theocratic liberals opposed the hostage taking, but leftist guerilla organizations abandoned the fight against the theocratic constitution to side with the anti-imperialist assertiveness of occupying the "nest of spies". Failed Nojeh Coup In July 1980, the U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski met Jordan's King Hussein in Amman to discuss detailed plans for Saddam Hussein to sponsor a coup in Iran against Khomeini. King Hussein was Saddam's closest confidant in the Arab world, and served as an intermediary during the planning. The Iraqi invasion of Iran would be launched under the pretext of a call for aid from Iranian loyalist officers plotting their own uprising on July 9, 1980 (codenamed Nojeh, after Shahrokhi/Nojeh air base in Hamedan). The Iranian officers were organized by Shapour Bakhtiar, who had fled to France when Khomeini seized power, but was operating from Baghdad and Sulimaniyah at the time of Brzezinski's meeting with Hussein. However, Khomeini learned of the Nojeh Coup plan from Soviet agents in France, Pakistan, and Latin America. Shortly after Brzezinski's meeting with Hussein, the President of Iran, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr quietly rounded up six hundred officers and executed many of them, putting an effective end to the Nojeh Coup *. Saddam would decide to invade without the Iranian officer's assistance, beginning the Iran-Iraq war on 22 September 1980. Opposition by neighboring regimes The leaders of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States were also alarmed by the Iranian revolution, as a Shi'a minority exists among their nations (except in Iraq and Bahrain where Shi'a are the majority) and could ignite a civil war. Under the slogan "neither East nor West" (i.e. follow neither Soviet nor American/European models), revolutionary leaders in Iran gave and sought support from non-Islamic as well as Islamic Third World causes -- e.g. the PLO, Cuba, and anti-aparthied struggle in South Africa. Iranian revolutionaries called for an end to social injustice, monarchy, Western influence, and corruption in the Middle East and the rest of the world. The emergence of a radical Shia-dominated theocracy and its calls to overthrow monarchies and replace them with Islamic republics scared many of its Sunni Arab neighbors. Thus, in 1980, Iraq (politically controlled by Sunnis at this time), invaded Iran in an attempt to seize the oil-rich predominantly Arab province of Khuzistan and destroy the revolution in its infancy. This began the eight year Iran-Iraq War, one of the most destructive and bloody wars of the 20th century. A combination of fierce patriot resistance by Iranians and military incompetence by Iraqi forces soon stalled the Iraqi advance and by early 1982 Iran regained almost all the territory lost to the invasion. The invasion rallied Iranians behind the new regime, and past differences were largely abandoned in the face of the external threat. For those who did remain opposed to the new regime, mostly the Soviet-backed leftist groups, the war became an excuse for harsh treatment that saw the new regime use torture and illegal imprisonments, just as the Shah had. Realizing its mistake, the Iraqis offered Iran a truce but were rejected by Khomeini, who announced the only condition for peace was that "the regime in Baghdad must fall and must be replaced by an Islamic Republic." The war continued for another six years with hundreds of thousands of lives lost and great destruction from air attacks. While in the end the revolutionaries failed to expand the Islamic revolution into Iraq, they did solidify their control of Iran. The one area where Iranian influence was extended was into the Lebanese Civil War, where Hezbollah became closely allied with the Iranians, fighting Sunni and Christian factions in Lebanon, and later the Israeli occupation. This support for a group regarded as terrorists by much of the world further ostracized Iran from the world community. Since the end of the civil war, Hezbollah has developed a significant domestic base. Nevertheless, its dependence on Iran for military and financial aid is still heavily debated and the Israel-Hezbollah 2006 War was eye-opening to the world in that some Hezbollah weapons were said to be Iranian imports. * * Exile of previous regime Upon the ascension of the new Shi'ite regime, scores of the Shah's secret police, SAVAK, and thousands of other supporters of the Shah and members of the civil and military elite were executed (most importantly by Sadegh Khalkhali, the Sharia judge). Among those executed - practically without trial - was Amir Abbas Hoveida, former Prime Minister of Iran. Another former Prime Minister, Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar, was assassinated in Paris, 1991, after a previous failed attempt on his life. The Shah himself found political asylum in Egypt under Anwar Sadat. The Shah, already terminally ill with cancer, died in Cairo on July 27, 1980. Post-revolutionary impact Most observers agree the legacy of the revolution has been mixed. Some general revolutionary goals -- particularly the elimination of secularism and American influence in government -- have met with unqualified successes; others -- such as greater political freedom, economic equality and self-sufficiency, mass cultural focus on Islam, and honesty and efficiency in government -- have not. Grumbling once done about the tyranny and corruption of the Shah and his court is now directed against the "mullahcracy." Fear of SAVAK has been replaced by fear of Revolutionary Guards, and other religious revolutionary enforcers. Despite some degree of representative governnment or republicanism in the post-revolutionary political structure (see politics of Iran for more depth), the violations of human rights by the theocratic regime is said by some to be worse than during the monarchy, and in any case extremely grave.* Torture, the imprisoning of dissidents, and the murder of prominent critics is commonplace. The oppression of women, whose rights were promoted under the Shah, has been common since the revolution. So has the oppression of religious minorities, particularly the members of the Bahá'í Faith, which has been declared heretical. More than 200 Bahá'ís have been executed or killed, hundreds more have been imprisoned, and tens of thousands have been deprived of jobs, pensions, businesses, and educational opportunities. All national Bahá'í administrative structures have been banned by the government, and holy places, shrines and cemeteries have been confiscated, vandalized, or destroyed. In March 2006, a United Nations report informed the world that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has instructed a number of government agencies, including the revolutionary guard and the police force, to 'collect any and all information about members of the Bahá'í Faith'. — * Iran's economy has not prospered. Dependence on petroleum exports is still overwhelming. Per capita income, which fluctuates with the price of oil, has fallen to as low as 1/4 of what it was during the Shah's era. Unemployment among Iran's population of young has steadily risen as job creation has failed to keep up, a high level of corruption being blamed in part. Gharbzadegi ("westoxification") or western cultural influence stubbornly remains, brought by music recordings, videos, and satellite dishes. The revolution also left Iran isolated internationally, outcast from both the capitalist and communist worlds, with significant trade sanctions that continue to this day (by the United States). Since the revolution, the internal political system has evolved. Since 1997 with the relatively high level (for the region) of Internet penetration (as of 2005, Iran had about 7.5 million internet users — *, see also Iranian blogs) makes it difficult to stop this continued internal evolution of political thought and organisation, even though "the government systematically blocks websites with political news and analysis from inside Iran and abroad" The Iranian revolution is credited by many historians as launching an era of Islamic radicalism, with subsequent Islamic movements such as Hezbollah and Al Qaeda seen as influenced by the notion of a "revolution" to bring about a pure Islamic state. See also Further reading Bibliography | |||||||||||
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