Iran is one of the greatest countries in the history of mankind. Very few countries have been so influential in the history of mankind as Iran. Iran has got a very rich history of civilizational accomplishments, a very diverse heritage and diverse population than any one can think of. Yet for so many times the history of Iran reflects a struggle, a great struggle between competing ideas and personalities where ultimately no one has the last laugh.
One such example of above mentioned struggle took place in 1979. This is the year when the Iranian nation for the first time in three millenniums decided to end the monarchical rule and govern them as a republic. The pahlavi dynasty, which ruled Iran from 1925-1979, was the one, which started first using the name “Iran” in foreign relations instead of the traditional name “Persia”. This dynasty also bought with it a great struggle, the struggle between the will of the people and the will of the monarch.
The last pahlavi ruler Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi wasan autocrat in nature, he came to the throne first in the year of 1941, when the Anglo-American invasion of Iran in 1941, deposed his father Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, the founder of the pahlavi dynasty. The British and the Americans, who were fearful of Reza Shah’s likeness for Nazi Germany, feared that Iran would be an ally of the third Reich, which would have made life very difficult for British India during the Second World War. So after coming to power on British and American efforts, Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi was from the beginning under complete influence of his British and American mentors.
Although he was under the protection of the British and the Americans, Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi’s rule was never unchallenged. The biggest challenge to his rule came in 1953. Mohammad Mosaddeq, who was Iran’s prime minister from 1951 to 1953, decided to nationalize Iran’s biggest source of economy, it’s massive oil industry.
At that time, Iran’s oil industry was under the command of Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (which was Britain’s greatest foreign investment venture at the time, which in the later years went on to become the famous brand“BP” or “British Petroleum”), which used to receive the lion’s share of the profits, thereby discriminating against Iranian interests. British were angry on Mossaddeq on this issue and they decided to depose him in a military coup. The British enlisted the help of the Americans in this regard.At first, President Harry. S. Truman was opposed to be involved in a foreign coup but the next president Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower gave the green signal to the operation. This was going to be the first involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a foreign “regime change”. The whole operation was codenamed “Operation Ajax”. This operation deposed Mosaddeq and condemned him to a lifelong house arrest and installing Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi as the ultimate authority or absolute monarchical ruler of Iran. Kermit Roosevelt,theCIA officer in charge of the coup wrote in his account of the affair that the Shah has said the following in private "'I owe my throne to God, my people, my army and to you!' By 'you' he [the shah] meant Roosevelt and the two countries—Great Britain and the United States—he was representing. The 1953 coup destroyed any chance of creating a secular, representative democracy in Iran. This also led to creating the general suspicion, anger and hatred among Iranians towards Western policies in Iran as such. In this regard 1953 coup and the involvement of Western powers in it, significantly contributed to the ultimate Islamic revolution in 1979. As per as Iranian oil industry was concerned, an agreement between the Shah and the Western powers in 1954, resulted in US and British companies taking 80% of the profit from Iran’s oil industry and the rest going to the French and Dutch companies. Ironically this agreement was more unfavorable to Iran than the earlier agreement between Iran and the Western powers in the 1930-s.
After 1953, the Shah went on to create a strong totalitarian state, ruled with an iron fist. His secret police the SAVAC tortured, harassed, and eliminated anyone who was thought to be in opposition to Shah’s absolute rule. Shah also made many reforms in what he called “White Revolution” towards modernizing Iran including empowerment of Women, a program of reforms to break up landholdings, allowing the religious minorities to hold public offices. He was the first of any Muslim rulers to recognize Israel. Israel and Iran had a very cordial relationship in this time period. Throughout his rule he received support from the Western powers, United States, in particular. The Shah was considered to be the most valuable ally of the West in the Middle East and a bulwark against the spreading of the atheist Soviet Communism in the region. Not surprisingly, the western countries, United States in particular, overlooked the massive human rights violations, caused by the Shah regime.
Causes behind the revolution
There were many causes behind the revolution; all of the causes can be considered important reasons behind the revolution. Here we will broadly emphasize some of them.
The first cause, which should be considered the primarily important reason, was, a resurgent Islamic movement, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. For centuries, the imams or religious jurists have dominated the socio-political life in Iran. They used to formulate the worldview as well define the lifestyle of the common Iranians. Iranians particularly the rural population tends to be religious, simple and devout in nature. The shah rule, which wanted modernization of Iranian society through westernization, was deeply resented and hated by the pious clergy as well as the common believers. The shah regime gave more importance to Iranian pre-Islamic past, like implementing policies such as changing the first year of the Iranian solar calendar from the Islamic hijri to the ascension to the throne by Cyrus the great. With this "Iran jumped overnight from the Muslim year 1355 to the royalist year 2535." In 1971 when the shah celebrated the 2500-th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire, the pomp and extravagance of the ceremonies organized by the regime, was deeply criticized by some of the Iranian religious establishment. One Iranian leader made the following comment, "As the foreigners reveled on drink forbidden by Islam, Iranians were not only excluded from the festivities, some were starving."
It is interesting to note that not all the religious leadership supported Imam Khomeini, in fact there were divisions between the clergy, quite a few of them actually did not support the concept of religious jurists involving themselves in a political situation, some of the religious figures even wanted a gradual reform and democratic change within the Shah’s regime and not it’s overthrowal. Imam Khomeini and some of his followers supported a different viewpoint. They believed that the Western civilization had wanted to dominate, colonize and subjugate the Islamic world by imposing concepts like secularization, atheism, democracy and decadence upon the Muslims through proxies such as the shah regime. So, Imam Khomeini wanted to replace the shah regime with a republic, supervised by a group of Islamic jurists. He believed that this government would stop all incorrect and corrupt interpretations of Islam and bring about a nation without any injustice, poverty or oppression like the one created by Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) at Medina in the seventh century. He called this form of government as “velayat-e-faqih” (guardianship of the jurist).
Imam Khomeini represented the Islamic face of the opposition, but there were strong secular and communist elements involved in the overall opposition movement against the Shah. These elements included the parties like “Freedom movement of Iran” led by people like Mehdi Bazargan who believed a more moderate and reformist government as well as more secular and nationalist parties like “National Front”. These parties were formed mostly from the rich urban population. These parties wanted a constitutional government based on Iran’s 1906 constitution and they did not necessarily believe in the concept of the “velayat-e-faqih”.
The communist element of the Iranian opposition included the groups like “Tudeh Party of Iran”. These parties wanted a communist style government in Iran. They opposed the brutal, corrupt and tyranny of the Shah regime and wanted to overthrow it in a violent revolution. The Shah regime feared this particular element of opposition most. The communists in Iran faced tremendous persecution in the hands of SAVAC. These communist elements during the time of revolution went on to form the group “People’s Mujahidin”(Mujahidin – e- Khalq) which would go on to play an important role both during the revolution against the Shah regime as well as the main opposition against the Islamic republic, created after the fall of Shah.
Although the shah regime had implemented a lot of reforms but the middle and lower classes of Iranians did not have any drastic change in their life standards. Only a very narrow percentage of people who were very close to the shah, benefited from these reforms. The oil boom in the 1970-s did not help the matter; the gap between the rich and poor grew alarmingly as the shah regime did not distribute the wealth among the poor.
Instead the shah regime wasted the oil wealth in meaningless celebrations like the celebration of 2500 years of continuous monarchy in Persia. This helped to create a lot of resentment against the shah regime among most segments of Iranian society. So when the protests that overthrew shah broke out there were just too many people in the streets for shah’s imperial army and SAVAC to control or stop them.
Aftermath of the revolution: Iran’s war with Saddam
Immediately after the Islamic revolution, the new Iranian state, Islamic republic of Iran, which came into being after the fall of the shah regime, soon find it’s detractors and enemies, trying to destroy it with all the resources at their disposal.
The biggest of the enemies of the nascent revolution was the western backed dictator of the neighboring Iraq, Saddam Hussain. Saddam wished to become the most powerful man in the entire Middle East and he considered the rising Islamic ideology from Iran as the biggest threat to his rule. Moreover, majority of the Iraq’s Muslims were Shiites and Imam Khomeini started to call the Shiites in Iran to rise up and overthrow Saddam’s regime. Iraq also had a long-term border dispute with Iran over the waters of Shatt-el-Arab and the oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan.Although the Iranian military was far stronger to that of Iraq but the new Iranian government had purged a lot of top pro-shah Iranian military officers, moreover, Iran’s old military alliances with USA and Israel were broken by the new government, so Iranian military was considerably weaker than Saddam’s army both in terms of professional officers as well as spare parts.Saddam wanted to take advantage of this situation as he wanted to quickly defeat Iran and become the strongest ruler in the middle east.
Iraq declared war on Iran with a massive air and ground invasion of Iranian territory in the September 1980. Iraq was backed by all the western countries and US in particular as well as all the major Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Iran got support from counties like North Korea, Libya and Syria.
The war between Iraq and Iran went on for between 1980 and 1988. This war was the biggest conventional war since the Second World War. The combined loss of life for both the countries crosses more than 1 million, which includes both the military as well as civilian deaths. The combined loss in wealth for both the countries crosses well over 1 trillion U.S. Dollars.
During the war all the odds were against the new Iranian Islamic republic, Iraq was increasingly getting military support from western nations and U.S. as well it was getting billions in petro-dollars from the rich gulf Arab states. Moreover, Saddam has had no moral or ethical problems against using biological and chemical weapons against Iranians whom he considered sub-humans.
On the other hand the Islamic republic has broken the old military alliances with USA and Israel and it was in serious need of military spare parts.
But against all odds the Islamic republic not only survived but at one time it was almost near total victory. The main reason behind that is the Islamic revolution had created deep impression upon the mind of Iranian youth and they went to the battlefields in millions thinking that if they died in the battlefields they will go to paradise as martyrs.
This war was not only between two nations but also between two competing ideologies; the Islamic revolutionary ideology represented by Imam Khomeini’s Iran and the pan-Arab nationalism led by Saddam’s Iraq. Both the leaders were also very different in their approach in leading their respective peoples in this war. Imam Khomeini was very inspiring, courageous and always encouraging his followers to continue fighting despite all odds against them. He did not think that this war was a war between Iraq and Iran but an war between true Islam and heresy.In his own words“"It is our belief that Saddam wishes to return Islam to blasphemy and polytheism. ... If America becomes victorious ... and grants victory to Saddam, Islam will receive such a blow that it will not be able to raise its head for a long time ... The issue is one of Islam versus blasphemy, and not of Iran versus Iraq."
On the other hand Saddam was playing the role of a powerful, arrogant Arab tribal chief who were sending his young men into war for his own supreme personal glory. His own anti-Persian bias also came into play s he saw himself as the vanguard of the Arabs fighting to save Arab pride against Persians. In a visit by Saddam to al-MustansiriyyahUniversity in Baghdad, drawing parallels with the 7th century defeat of Persia in the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, he announced:
In your name, brothers, and on behalf of the Iraqis and Arabs everywhere we tell those Persian cowards and dwarfs who try to avenge Al-Qadisiyah that the spirit of Al-Qadisiyah as well as the blood and honor of the people of Al-Qadisiyah who carried the message on their spearheads are greater than their attempts."
In the end, it was the spirit of Islamic revolution that triumphed over despotism. Iranians were greatly encouraged to fight since they believed that they were fighting for a higher cause whereas the Iraqis went to the battlefields thinking that if they did not fight they and their families will be inside Saddam’s torture chambers. History teaches us that in any war the side that can encourage it’s own society as a whole to take part in the war as part of a higher cause, normally wins. This was exactly the outcome in the Iran-Iraq war.
Islamic Republic (after Khomeini)
The Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988, after both sides agreed to a U.N. proposed ceasefire in 1988.Imam Khomeini did not want to agree to a ceasefire before a total victory in the war and a regime change in Iraq but in the end he simply had to agree to a ceasefire as both the nations were completely exhausted after this brutal war. As a person he was nearing the end of his life. He was coming at the end of a long journey, which took him from the life of a simple village cleric to one of the most influential leaders in the 20-th century. Eventually he died in 1989.
With the death of Imam Khomeini, the Islamic revolution lost it’s greatest mentor. But soon the leaders of the Islamic republic made a decision. With the death of the Imam Khomeini, the revolution’s expansionary attitudes had to be curtailed, the Islamic republic had to be strengthened. The republic and it’s nascent institutions were given more priority rather than expanding the revolution.
Islamic republic has made a lot of good progress in terms of female education, health care as well as distribution of wealth among it’s population unlike some of it’s Arab neighbors. Although because of Islamic republic’s ideological opposition towards the western policies in the Middle East has meant that there will always be antagonism between the west and Islamic republic. Although it did not directly participated in the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the post-9/11 world, Islamic republic has won a lot of benefits in the aftermath of both the wars.
It will be completely unwise to ignore the excesses of the Islamic republic. A lot of people have been put under arrest and unfair jail terms. Some of the basic freedoms like the freedom of expression have been curtailed in last few years. The Islamic republic seems to trying to prevent free flow of information by blocking Internet access, to the Iranian people. Another discouraging fact about Islamic republic is that after the 2009 presidential elections, Islamic republic’s policies towards the opposition have been very harsh and heavy handed. It seems to us that at least one innocent person, a beautiful 26-year old young woman; Neda Agha-Soltani was reportedly shot dead by a government militiaman. This particular incident has created a lot of negative impression about the Islamic republic, in the outside world.
Fundamental Characteristics of Islamic revolution
If we talk about the main ideological characteristics behind Islamic revolution the most important point is that the Islamic revolution was and has been the only popular movement in the Middle East, which tried and succeeded to bring down a tyrannical despotic regime and install a new form of government.
Islamic revolution is unique than many other revolutions that in previous revolutions like the Russian, Chinese or French revolutions is that all these revolutions talked about complete removal of human faith from the day to day running of the state whereas Islamic revolution talked about running the state according to the faith of the Iranian people. In this regard Islamic revolution can be considered as a unique example in the history of similar political movements.
Iranian revolution was the first one in the Middle East, which started to talk about the problems facing the people in the region as well as offered a solution to those problems according to an Islamic worldview. Muslims in the region were used to seeing western powers like UK and France from 1920-s up to the Second World War, then USA and the Soviet Union from the 1950-s, imposing their standards as well as their ideas upon the people in the region. Iran in particular had faced intervention from the USA and UK like the 1953 coup against the nationalist Mohammad Mossadeq government. Almost all the governments of the region had become involved in the cold war chess game. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Gulf States were in side of the Americans whereas the Syrians and the Egyptians (until the death of Gamal Abdul Nasser) were in the Soviet side. For the common Muslims there was simply no voice whatsoever to speak for. Islamic revolution changed all of that.
For the first time for some of the downtrodden Muslims in the Middle East like the Palestinians or the Shiites in Lebanon there was a voice to speak for them as well as an ally they can get help from. Islamic republic gave a helping hand to the Lebanese Shiites who were downtrodden in their own country since the ottomans. The Islamic republic was a very needy ally for the Palestinians also. The Islamic republic broke very useful military alliances with both the US as well as Israel and gave a helping hand to the Palestinians. It is interesting to note that Iranian President Mehmud Ahmedinajad because of his speaking for the right of the oppressed Arabs has become one of the most famous Persian speaking leaders in the modern history of Middle East..
Moreover, Islamic republic was a welcome break for the region’s Muslims in other ways also. For decades the leaders in the Middle East were viewed by their own countryman as well as the outside world as corrupt, brutal, tinpot dictators who were completely dependent upon their cold war foreign allies (depending upon the side in the cold war that those leaders were part of) or their coercive state infrastructures for their existences. The impression about these leaders was that they only thought about themselves or their clans, at the best. For the first time, Islamic republic presented something more than just another regime or another government to the people in the Middle East as well as to the developing world in general. It presented some new ideas, some new thoughts, which Middle Eastern people have not heard for a long time. For a long time Middle East could see a bunch of honest, ideologically committed people as leaders during the Islamic republic. These leaders of Islamic revolution, unlike some of their gulf Arab counterparts, did not lead their lives in the ivory tower, away from the views of the common citizen. The Middle Eastern people could easily identify themselves with these people.
In the end one has to say that Islamic republic is an experiment, which tries to establish the fundamentals of a modern republic without compromising on the basic tenets of Islam. It is also an attempt to employ Islamic thought as well Islamic ideas into building a modern nation state. This idea behind Islamic revolution is very ambitious and like many other revolutions before it, this revolution also faces plenty of challenges. In the end, any student of history will have to say that revolutions do not fail because of external enmity but they fail when their ideas are no longer able to attract interest among the common people. It will be interesting to see in the coming years and decades what fate awaits Islamic revolution but it can certainly be said that Islamic republic is certainly going to keep a very long and lingering legacy among the people in the world who does not believe that human faith and politics should not influence each other.
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