Iran ranks second in the world in oil and natural-gas reserves. Forty days later, on March 29, attendees of a commemorative religious service in Yazd were energized by the words of a fiery preacher, who inspired them to take to the streets shouting Death to the Shah. The police again shut down the street protest by firing at the crowd, precipitating a three-day crisis that killed over 100. Nahavandi affirms that, within Iran the Voice of America, the Voice of Israel and, especially, the BBC virtually became the voice of the revolution, moving from criticism, to overt incitement of revolt, and from biased reporting, to outright disinformation.. His answer was always the same: I have received no instructions. It came to the point where the CIA became very prominent in the process of supporting the Shah and of containing Mossadegh. [7][8], Reza Shah was deposed in 1941 by an invasion of allied British and Soviet troops[9] who believed him to be sympathetic with the allies' enemy Nazi Germany. Watch on. Because his incendiary remarks had contributed to violence and rioting then, he was exiled, living mostly in Iraq, where Iranians largely forgot him until 1978. They included the communist Tudeh Party of Iran; two armed organizations, the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (OIPFG) and the breakaway Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (IPFG); and some minor groups. [112] As the Shah realized how dependent his government and the Iranian economy was on the US, he decided to liberalize his policies. The Shah responded by granting amnesty to 357 political prisoners in February and allowing Red Cross to visit prisons, beginning what is said to be 'a trend of liberalization'. Rather, a knowledgeable observer would probably have noted that this mourning cycle had been put to protest purposes only once in Iranian history, in 1963, and that movement had come to naught.[117]. The Iranian Revolution is the only modern revolution which was deliberately and coherently fomented by a revolutionary movement consisting of different social classes united under the leadership of a senior Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Its outcome an Islamic Republic "under the guidance of an 80-year-old exiled religious scholar[46] from Qom" was, as one scholar put it, "clearly an occurrence that had to be explained."[47], The revolution was unique for the surprise it created throughout the world,[48] and followed the maxim of appearing "impossible" until it seemed "inevitable". Before dying, many exclaimed, God save the King! On February 17, reported du Berrier, General Huyser faced the first photos of the murdered leaders whose hands he had tied and read the descriptions of their mutilations. At the years end, the military emasculated and no longer a threat, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. By late 1974 the oil boom had begun to produce not "the Great Civilization" promised by the Shah, but an "alarming" increase in inflation and waste and an "accelerating gap" between the rich and poor, the city and the country. These hopes proved illusions. Very few conservatives are aware of the pledge's socialist origins. A group of radical Iranian college students takes fifty-two Americans hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, demanding that the United States extradite the shah. Darius the Great created the first taxation system as a way to generate revenue for his infrastructure projects. Autopsies revealed that most in the crowd had been killed by ammo non-regulation for the army. The Iranian Revolution was the Shia Islamic revolution that replaced the secular monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with a theocracy led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.. Its causes continue to be the subject of historical debate and are believed to have stemmed partly from a conservative backlash opposing the westernization, modernization and secularization efforts of the Western-backed . Iranians sought to end the repressive dictatorship of the Shah, who was seen as both corrupt and beholden to extravagant Western governments. [13] Khomeini was detained and kept under house arrest for 8 months. Least noticed was the impact of the Iranian Revolution on Saudi Arabia. Before the next round of fortieth-day services the regime took increasing action; it used the secret police SAVAK to intimidate leaders of the secular opposition while abandoning a few of its most criticized policies and issuing apologies. In mid-1977, the Shah allowed an open discussion forum for the Rastakhiz Party to discuss social issues publicly. The CIA had even rented the house next door. Partly in retribution, on November 4, 1979, Iranians took 52 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Teheran. As a concession the Shah appointed former opposition-leader Bakhtiyar as Prime Minister. Carter faced a dilemma. As protests against the Shah began, the Shi'a clerics could claim legitimate leadership of the protests and the Husayn legend provided a framework for characterizing the Shah as a modern incarnation of the tyrant Yazid. Comparable in its mission to Americas FBI, SAVAK was engaged in a deadly struggle against terrorism, most of which was fueled by the bordering USSR, which linked to Irans internal communist party, the Tudeh. Ambassador William Sullivan (CFR) assured the Shah that, if he exited Iran, America would welcome him. Anwar Sadat who, like the Shah, advocated a peaceful Middle East, and defied the American establishment by saving the Shah from infamous death, did not survive much longer himself. Seen as a proxy for the Russian menace in the north, Marxists groups were illegal and ruthlessly suppressed by SAVAK internal security apparatus. Briefly speaking, If they revolted was not related to being against a modern society, but they revolted due to several significant causes such as: I think only of their suffering. In Cairo, a grand funeral honored him. U.S. The Combatant Clergy Association comprised Morteza Motahhari, Mohammad Beheshti, Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Mofatteh, who later became the major leaders of the Islamic Republic. Workers went on industrial strikes throughout the summer, demanding health insurance, bonuses, and wage increases. The New American magazine, published twice a month in print and daily online, is the essential news source for freedom-loving Americans. I was astonished by the insignificance of the reports he gave me. Why was the Shah overthrown in Persepolis? Numerous of his opponents were executed, usually without due process, and often after brutal torture. Three million Egyptians followed the procession. The source of tension. Some of the issues we must address at present include: 1. The interpreter stood, saying, The Ayatollah is tired. De Villemarest registered his concern with the French Ministry of the Interior, but reported, They told me to occupy myself with something else.. Iran from Royal Dictatorship to Theocracy. Some Iranians supported the Shah because of its giant strides. Cleverness and energy of Khomeini's organizers in Iran who outwitted the Shah's security forces and won broad support with their tactical ingenuity amongst other things, convincing Iranians that the Shah's security was more brutal than it was. The paralyzing crisis of the state made the Shah concerned about the future of his throne. This was achieved through demonstrations and strikes advancing with fervor against even lethal military repression. Suspension of social and sports activities, 141. Teherans police officers loyal to the Shah were slaughtered. Although they played an important part in the chaos of 1978 before the overthrow of the regime, they had been weakened considerably by government repression and factionalization in the first half of the 1970s. Suddenly, the Shah noted, the U.S. media found him a despot, an oppressor, a tyrant. Kennedy denounced him for running one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind., At the center of the human rights complaints was the Shahs security force, SAVAK. Four decades have now passed since a mass political movement espousing the triumph of sacral authority over secular toppled Iran's absolute monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . Some of this is obvious, as in their interference in Lebanon, and of course more recently in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The Iranian Revolution was the Shia Islamic revolution that replaced the secular monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with a theocracy led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. To replace the shah's regime Khomeini developed the ideology of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) as government, postulating that Muslims in fact everyone required "guardianship," in the form of rule or supervision by the leading Islamic jurist or jurists. As Shah aimed to marginalize the Shia clergy and eliminate their influence by its modernization policies, clerics in Qom and their followers developed a populist, anti-Imperialist interpretation of Shia theology to delegitimize Shah for his injustice and his reliance on the anti-Islamic foreign imperialists. Witnesses claimed that the British shot merely bounced off the Constitutions sides, as if the ship were made of iron rather than read more, In the USSR, captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for his confessed espionage. (John Moore/Getty Images) "El pasaporte," demanded a very large Iranian, wearing a white turban like every other teacher in the Al-Mustafa University of Qom, in the heart of theocratic Iran. The major oil companies had for years dictated Iranian oil commerce, but the Shah explained: In 1973 we succeeded in putting a stop, irrevocably, to sixty years of foreign exploitation of Iranian oil-resources. Russia-Ukraine war: The top official of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), on Sunday, expressed grave concern over the increasing proximity between Russia and Iran. The Western media cooperated. This is explained by the potential role of the Shia beliefs and clerical organization in the Iranian society. Iraq's ruler, Saddam Hussein, forced Khomeini to leave Iraq on October 6, 1978.Khomeini then settled in Neauphle-le-Chteau, a suburb of Paris.From there his supporters relayed his tape-recorded messages to an increasingly aroused Iranian populace, and . On October 26, 1978, he freed 1,500 prisoners, but increased rioting followed. Theda Skocpol, an American sociologist specializing in the study of social revolutions, proposed an unprecedented cultural theory to account for the unique aspects of the Iranian Revolution, which she admitted falsified her past history-based theories on causes of social revolutions. His government grew increasingly pro-Western as it sought to . The Shah quickly returned to take power and, as thanks for the American help, signed over 40 percent of Irans oil fields to U.S. companies. These qualities are anathema to those seeking global governance, for strong nations resist membership in world bodies, and war has long been a destabilizing catalyst essential to what globalists call the new world order.. The Hollywood power couple reportedly became involved on the set of the romantic comedy The Marrying Man (1991), in which they played lovers. The personalised nature of the Shah's government, where prevention of any possible competitor to the monarch trumped efficient and effective government and led to the crown's cultivation of divisions within the army and the political elite, The Ayatollah Khomeini's self-confidence, charisma, and most importantly his ability to grip the imagination of the masses by casting himself as following in the footsteps of the beloved Shi'a Imam. Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. How could I stay when the Americans had sent a general, Huyser, to force me out? Therefore in 1961, the Shah, with some pressure from the Kennedy administration, opted for Ali Amini group, which had no popular base, but full US support and a clear reform program. On August 19, 1919, in a break with conventional practice, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson appears personally before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to argue in favor of its ratification of the Versailles Treaty, the peace settlement that ended the First World War. Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Teheran were ordered to disperse by an army unit. A read more, On August 19, 1909, the first race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now the home of the worlds most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500. why did some iranians support the shah? This rote answer had been given me since early September [1978] and I would continue to hear it until the day I left the country. On August 19, 1791, the accomplished American mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker pens a letter to then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. The feast passed without repression, although 5,000 students staged a sit-in, 700 oil workers went on strike, and countless more Iranians protested in the street. Mossadegh was deposed in a military coup d'tat organized by an American CIA operative and aided by the British MI6. The White Revolution was launched which was an aggressive modernization program that upended the wealth and influence of landowners and clerics, disrupted rural economies, led to rapid urbanization and Westernization. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Persian: , pronounced [mohmmd rez phlvi]; 26 October 1919 - 27 July 1980), also known as Mohammad Reza Shah ( ), was the last Shah of the Imperial State of Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow in the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979. . On November 16, the Shah and Empress were due to visit Carter. The revolution does seem to have been solely caused by excessively rapid modernization by the state that led to social disruption. A subsequent memorial service for Mostafa in Tehran put Khomeini back in the spotlight and began the process of building Khomeini into the leading opponent of the Shah. "Few expected the regime of the Shah, which had international support and a modern army of 400,000, to crumble in the face of unarmed demonstrators within a matter of months. As Western media spurred revolutionaries, riots and strikes paralyzed Iran. Why Iranians are lapping up Shah memorabilia In Tehran, memories of the Shah's brutality are fading and selling imperial wares is becoming less dangerous. On the afternoon of August 19, 1978, a deliberate fire gutted the Rex Cinema in Abadan, killing 477 people, including many children with their mothers. students have asked professors to support them, and some university professors and lecturers have . Until now, the sight of his elite troops had quieted mobs. [49], Some of the customary causes of revolution that were lacking include, The regime it overthrew was perceived to be heavily protected by a lavishly financed army and security services. Although the Shah maintained a neutral stance toward Israel, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he allowed critical supplies to reach Egypt, enabling it to achieve a balance of success, and earning Sadats undying gratitude, but wrath from influential Zionists. Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution,[11] first came to political prominence in 1963 when he led opposition to the Shah and his program of reforms known as the "White Revolution", which aimed to break up landholdings owned by some Shia clergy, allow women to vote and religious minorities to hold office, and finally grant women legal equality in marital issues. not a word of protest from American human rights advocates who had been so vocal in denouncing my tyrannical regime! It became not only the only party Iranians were permitted to belong to, but one the "whole adult population" was required to belong and pay dues to. The following year, Muslim extremists assassinated him under circumstances remaining controversial. In December Mr. George Ball, an instant authority on Iran, was sent as a follow-up with the same message. Those educated in France and America return indoctrinated by leftist professors and eager to serve as links between comrades abroad and the Communist Party at home. Indeed, the Shah dismissed Mossadeq in mid-1952, but massive public riots condemning the action forced the Shah to reinstate Mossadeq a short time later. He constructed dams to irrigate Irans arid land, making the country 90-percent self-sufficient in food production. The next question is how as part of a unique historical precedence, millions of Iranians were willing to face death in the mass demonstrations against brutal suppression by the army and how the clerics could rise as the leaders of the revolution. His debriefings exposed so many communist agents that he was honored by a resolution of the U.S. House of Representatives. The US could also reduce the influence of communism in Iran via more overt presence in Iran. specifically in Qum, Tabriz, Yazd, Tehran, Ifsahan, Religious leaders Ayatollah Khomeini, Shariatmadari and other clerics; Dr. Karim Sanjabi, Foruhar and Bakhtiyar of the National Front party, The Writers Association; the National Organization of University Teachers; Liberation Movement (a political party under the umbrella of National Front; believed in a dynamic Shiism that could mobilize masses rather than be directed by the ulama); the Tudeh Party (a political party, severely weakened after an earlier Iranian coup and driven underground by the Iranian government; ideologically aligned with the National Front though far less powerful); Apolitical ulama (even though many of the clerics wished to stay out of politics, they were dragged in by the Shah himself when authorities began to strip the religious establishment of its authority and when the government refused to fight moral laxity); Moderate ulama (led by Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari (senior theologian in Qum), kept open communication with government and desired only that the government abide by its 1906 Constitution, forced to radicalize when the Shah shut down the religious establishment); Militant ulama (led by Ayatollah Khomeini, advocated creation of a clerical Islamic government and wanted ulama to seize political control of Iran); An array of small Marxist and Islamic militant guerilla groups, International humanitarian organizations condemned the Shahs regime and the brutal methods of SAVAK. Only foreign dignitaries were invited to the three-day party, whose extravagances recalled those of Persian King Ahasverus roughly 2,500 years previously. However, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president and the Shahs friend, discerned the scheme, and sent a jet to Panama, which escorted the Shah and Empress safely to Egypt. Leading up to the beginning of the Iranian Revolution, Iranians had grown increasingly disillusioned with the Shah. [19] Establishing and obeying this Islamic government was "actually an expression of obedience to God", ultimately "more necessary even than prayer and fasting" in Islam,[20] and a commandment for all the world, not one confined to Iran.[21]. Alexis de Tocqueville's idea that "steadily increasing prosperity, far from tranquilizing the population, everywhere promoted a spirit of unrest", has been offered by several observers as an explanation for the 197879 revolt. In 1962, Amini resigned and Asadollah Alam, a faithful friend of the shah who had no intention of reform but to consolidate the power of the monarchy, became the new prime minister and laid the ground for the Shah to reestablish his dictatorship in early 1963.[113]. Nevertheless, the Western press claimed the Shah had massacred his own people. He built rural roads, postal services, libraries, and electrical installations. Nevertheless, a massive campaign was deployed against him. Two French police squads, along with Algerians and Palestinians, protected him. This tandem was odd because communism is committed to destroying all religion, which Marx called the opiate of the masses. The Shah understood that Islamic Marxism was an oxymoron, commenting: Of course the two concepts are irreconcilable unless those who profess Islam do not understand their own religion or pervert it for their own political ends.. Gunmen many on rooftops fired on the soldiers. The Shah was perceived by many Iranians as beholden to - if not a puppet of - a non-Muslim Western power (the United States) whose culture was contaminating that of Iran. While I worked at the Pentagon two decades ago, I interacted with Iranian-Americans holding top security clearances who worked for the . While touring Williamsburg, Virginia, about 500 Iranian students showed up, enthusiastically applauding. On May 10 1978, police violently repressed demonstrations in 24 towns, with violence escalating noticeably in Tehran and Qum, where troops broke into the homes of religious leaders and killed theology students taking sanctuary there. Although the media depicted demonstrations as spontaneous uprisings, professional revolutionaries organized them. Revolutionaries would use the social authority of the clergy by yelling quotes from supportive ulama at government soldiers in order to dissuade them from firing on protestors. In three years he went from vibrant monarch to exile (on January 16, 1979), and ultimately death, while Iran fell to Ayatollah Khomeinis terror. Iranian-Americans serve honorably across the US government. [35] The party attempted to take a populist stand fining and jailing merchants in its "anti-profiteering" campaigns, but this proved not only economically harmful but also politically counterproductive. On 9 November 1978, in a now-famous cable, "Thinking the Unthinkable," the US ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, warned that the Shah was doomed. Although it was very undesirable for the Shah to introduce another round of liberalization policies, the first round being in the early 1960s, he had no other choice but to do so. Many Iranians remember the Shah's secret police, Savak, and . UN Pushing New Age Spirituality on Schoolchildren, A World Without the West | Beyond the Cover, Arizona Poised to Make Pledge of Allegiance Mandatory in Schools. 1985. p. 57. in reference to Ayatollah Khomeini, who was 76 at the time of his return to Iran. Iran from Royal Dictatorship to Theocracy. So our goal was to support the Shah and to try to contain Mossadegh, who had certain crazy qualities, or what some people would call crazy qualities. Shi'a Islam embodies substantial symbolic content to inspire resistance against unjust rule and to justify religious leaders as alternative to secular authority. Energy is critical to world domination, and major oil companies, such as Exxon and British Petroleum, have long exerted behind-the-scenes influence on national policies. When banned from holding demonstrations, University of Tehran activists stood in silence in front of their library, quietly agitating for freedom of speech. Throughout the campaign, some participants strove to encourage a more Muslim way of life (tabriz) and respect the religious clerics (ulama). Although counter-demonstrations, some numbering up to 300,000 people, erupted in Iran, the Western press barely mentioned them. The read more, John Wesley Hardin, one of the bloodiest killers of the Old West, is murdered by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas. We both support a republic in Iran, while understanding the utility in present conditions, of restoring the constitutional regime that ended with the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the monarchy and installed a theocratic regime. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Strikers brought bazaars, schools, government ministries, and the oil industry virtually to a standstill. Therefore, Panama was selected as intermediary. When Carter visited Iran at the end of 1977, the press reported that his departure to Teheran International Airport had been through empty streets, because the city was all locked up and emptied of people, by order of the SAVAK. What the media didnt mention: Carter chose to depart at 6 a.m., when the streets were naturally empty. Some Iranian students were caught up in it. A powerful and efficient network of opposition began to develop inside Iran,[25] employing mosque sermons and smuggled cassette speeches by Khomeini, amongst other means. Khomeinis followers envisioned parading him in the streets before final torture and bloody execution. Kurzman points out that one explanation for the Shah's overthrow the 40-day (Arba'een) cycle of commemorating deaths of protesters "came to a halt" on June 17, 1978, a half year before the revolution's culmination. These unlikely Iranians were masked, unable to speak Persian, and some were blonde. The shah became a stalwart admirer of Hitler, Nazism and the concept of the Aryan master race. The rooftop snipers then sprayed the crowd. Why, for example, did the West seek inroads to the Islamists instead of supporting the legal alternative to the shah: the reign of the empress together with the regency council until the U.S.-educated crown prince reached the legal age to become the new shah. This tandem was "odd" because. This proved to be the tipping point for the Shah, whose countrys economy was supported almost entirely by oil. What is the solution to modern Iran? Houchang Nahavandi, one of the Shahs ministers and closest advisers, reveals in his book The Last Shah of Iran: We now know that the idea of deposing the Shah was broached continually, from the mid-seventies on, in the National Security Council in Washington, by Henry Kissinger, whom the Shah thought of as a firm friend.. Without these autonomous sources of support and sustenance, successful resistance against the modern political and economic power holders wouldve been impossible. "Iran jumped overnight from the Muslim year 1355 to the royalist year 2535. I am quite convinced that it was from this moment that some very powerful, international interests identified, within Iran, the collusive elements, which they could use to encompass my downfall. Khomeini, who was in exile in Iraq, worked to unite clerical and secular, liberal and radical opposition under his leadership[28] by avoiding specifics at least in public that might divide the factions.[29]. Britain dropped its support for the Shah before the 1979 revolution, seeking to ingratiate itself with Iranian opposition . Finally, the Shah was a nationalist who brought his country to the brink of greatness and encouraged Middle East peace. Two major events propelled the revolution in Iran. (Persian: ). In October 1979, he was received at the Rockefeller-founded Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital for cancer treatment. Strikers expanded their articulated goals to encompass political turnover, the abolition of SAVAK, the return of Khomeini, and the end of martial law. Despite the opposition leaders efforts to dampen the militancy of the demonstrations, the protestors increased their level of enthusiasm and radicalism over the next few days. The Iranian military, with the support and financial assistance of the United States government, overthrows the government of Premier Mohammad Mosaddeq and reinstates the Shah of Iran.. Constitutionalist, Marxist, and Islamist groups opposed the Shah: The very first signs of opposition in 1977 came from Iranian constitutionalist liberals. However, about 50 protestors waved hammer-and-sickle red flags. Iran from Royal Dictatorship to Theocracy. Allowing for the quirks of translation, he seemed to assert that homosexuality is a uniquely Western problem - a side effect of a toxic cocktail of hedonism and . A period of "disaffected calm" followed.

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