Iranian Revolution Most Americans Born

Iranian Revolution

Most Americans born in the 1960s or very early 1970s know the name, Ayatollah Khomeini, among the men most hated by Americas in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Khomeini was the Iranian religious and political leader that returned from exile to help the overthrow of the Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) in 1979. Americans despised Khomeini because he supported the taking of hostages in the American Embassy in Tehran. This paper uses the scholarly narrative from James DeFronzo as the principal basis for an essay on the Iranian Revolution.

The Iranian Revolution and Islamic Fundamentalism -- Background

DeFronzo reports that Iran's economy was booming in the mid-1970s due to the enormous wealth that the nation's oil resources provided. Unfortunately for the majority of Iranian people, the wealth was disproportionately skimmed off and given to a minority of the citizens and the poor and politically isolated did not benefit from these riches. The Shah of Iran (who will be referred to in this paper as "the Shah") channeled a great percentage of the oil-related revenue into what DeFronzo calls "grandiose military and economic development projects," which helped to intensify the public's dislike (even hatred) of the monarch (DeFronzo, 291).

But before the events that led to the Shah having power, and his ultimate demise, the background into the Iranian Revolution has provide a good understanding of Islam, DeFronzo explains. Islam came into being based on the previous preaching and writing of the Prophet Muhammad, who was born in 571 CE in Mecca. At the age of 40, he told citizens that he had received "messages from God through the Archangel Gabriel"; those messages became what is known as the Koran, and a religion was launched based on those messages and Muhammad's teachings. After he died, according to DeFronzo, Islamic leaders elected a successor, known as a "caliph," and subsequent generations have had caliphs as spiritual and political leaders in various Muslim states. Two Islamic sects emerged from various beliefs as to who was the authority vis-a-vis the teachings of the Koran; the two sects were the Shia and Sunnis, both believers in the basic tenets of the Koran, but before the 16th century most Iranians were Sunni believers.

Iran was politically dominated by the British and the Russians in the 20th century; during World War I England's navy needed the fuel resources of Iran, and so the British-owned Anglo Persian Oil Company provided those resources at "secretly lowered prices," DeFronzo continued (294). After Russian officers (who had provided military assistance to Iran) left Iran following the Bolshevik Revolution that had succeeded in their homeland, a the new government (the Soviet Union) was formed. Soon the Soviets signed a treaty with Iran that supposedly prevented both countries from allowing their respective territories to be launching pads for aggression against the other, but that greatly concerned the British, DeFronzo continues, because England feared Bolshevism might find its way to Iran and to India.

Hence, the British began to develop a strategy that would put a leader in place who could put a strong military in place and who would be friendly to British interests. This is the point in history when the Shah was put into power in Iran.

II. How did the Shah[s] Come into Power in Iran?

As to how the Shah came to power, this is an important part of DeFronzo's narrative. It is clear that the history of what was known (until 1934) as Persia -- and is now Iran -- plays an important role in understanding the political and socioeconomic dynamics of not just the Middle East but Europe and the United States as well. DeFronzo writes (295) that in 1921, Colonel Reza Khan, a member of the British-influenced "Cossack Brigade," led 3,000 soldiers to the capital and that act forced the existing Qajar government's prime minister, to quit his post. By putting down various tribal rebellions and by "unifying the nation," Khan, now minister of war, gained credibility in Iran and in 1925 (October 25) the existing Iranian parliament basically shut down the "Qajar dynasty," making Khan the king. Khan changed his name to a more suitable Islamic name, Pahlavi, and became the Shah of Iran, specifically, Reza Shah Pahlavi (DeFronzo, 295).

Over the next many years the Shah liberalized many Islamic rules (including taking away power from the clergy), built roads and a railroad, put up factories (230, according to DeFronzo on page 297), but in WWII, due to political crises caused by Hitler, the Shah "abdicated in favor of his twenty-year-old son, Muhammad Reza, a course of action acceptable to the British" who worried about Soviet influence and needed a strong ally in charge of Iran (DeFronzo, 297). In time, in 1951, the National Front movement in Iran dumped the Shah and installed Muhammad Mossadeq as premier. Mossadeq seized the oil wells from England and while he did allow the poor people of Iran to benefit in ways they hadn't under the Shahs, England was very unhappy and as a result the British coaxed U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to use the CIA to create a coup. That purge of Mossadeq occurred in 1953, and yet another Shah of Iran became a dictator and a good friend to the West (DeFronzo, 300).

It can be said that the Shah's "White Revolution" actually was a sincere attempt to make things better for Iranians. Women got the right to vote; land was distributed among "former sharecroppers"; a "literacy corps" was established and other reforms were instituted, DeFronzo writes on page 301. However, Khomeini attacked the Shah's policies for a number of reasons, including ignoring "parliament and the religious leadership" in Iran; the Shah was intolerant of that kind of protest and had Khomeini arrested in June, 1963. Protests broke out and eventually Khomeini was set free but in time was arrested again. By 1965, Khomeini, who had become the most popular religious leader in Iran, was in exile in the Shia holy city of Najaf in Iraq.

III. The Shah's Rein and the Return of Khomeini

DeFronzo's chapter takes the reader through the 1963-1977 era -- the Shah period of power -- during which the dictator ordered his secret police (SAVAK) -- which included "thousands of full-time agents" and "tens of thousands of part-time informants" -- to crush and/or kill protestors and those simply speaking out against the Shah's autocratic regime. Meantime President Jimmy Carter of the U.S. agreed to sell weapons to Iran providing the Shah would back away from his human rights repression. So, in February 1977, 357 Iranian political prisoners were released and while "mass discontent" was spreading through the country, there was the sense that something revolutionary was emerging in the mass society, DeFronzo writes (312).

In 1978, Khomeini began making anti-Shah declarations from exile in Iraq, and those pronouncements had a powerful influence on the people of Iran, who demonstrated in mass protests. Some protestors were shot and killed by the Shah's men, and this stirred even more rage in the population. Khomeini encouraged even more demonstrations in response to the crackdown on protestors, and on September 7, 1978, over seven and a half million people marched in Tehran chanting, "Death to the shah" and "Khomeini is our leader" (DeFronzo, 314).

The next day 15,000 people demonstrated in Jaleh Square in Tehran, but they were not aware that the night before protests had been banned, and after troops surrounded the square and began firing, an estimated 3,000 people were brutally slaughtered. This massacre brought even more passion from the people and from Khomeini, who flew to France in October 1978 and with the international media broadcasting his every word, and it gave Khomeini the power to directly influence the people in Iran that wanted the Shah out. Late in October, DeFronzo explains (315), Khomeini urged oil workers to strike, and they did; soldiers once loyal to the Shah began to desert the dictator. Under huge amounts of political pressure, and suffering from cancer, the Shah left Iran on January 16, 1979, and on February 1 Khomeini arrived at the airport in Tehran where an estimated "three million people lined the streets" to welcome the religious leader, DeFronzo continued. Shortly, the Iranian military pledged loyalty to Khomeini