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Iran

Iran. Persians The ones who smacked around the Greeks Speak Farsi Say it with me: Shi’ite Split over a succession dispute; minority position; certain degree of millennialism (Lost Imam/Mahdi); All you need to know—OBL wants to kill them all

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Iran

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  1. Iran

  2. Persians • The ones who smacked around the Greeks • Speak Farsi • Say it with me: Shi’ite • Split over a succession dispute; minority position; certain degree of millennialism (Lost Imam/Mahdi); All you need to know—OBL wants to kill them all • Pretty good reasons to fear the US; youth big segment population (Iran-Iraq war) love US fear our gov’t (like most people)

  3. Revolution: monarchy Islamic republic; secular state with a quasi-theocracy • New elites to power • Foreign relations changed • transfer of substantial wealth from private ownership to state control. • Continuities: bureaucratic structure and behavior, attitudes toward authority and individual rights, and the arbitrary use of power remained much the same.

  4. The Shah: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi • Mossadeq: 1951 Iran nationalizes oil (B) growing popularity + intransigence US Operation Ajax • Baghdad Pact, pro-Israel, phony political parties, SAVAK (beating, political prisoners, torture); economic failure • White Revolution (1963): 19 elements—land reform, women’s suffrage, education reform, infrastructure, social security, privatization + profit sharing (20% to industrial workers) • Partial successes undermined by: 1) corruption, 2) antagonized clergy, 3) failed to democratize • Increasingly autocratic

  5. The Revolution • Khomeini exiled in Iraq (Status of Forces Act ’64); Radical youth movements: Fadayan (Marxists) and Mojahedin (Islamists) attack police, bomb foreign interests, assassinations • 1975: One-party state (Resurrection Party); Westerners (60,000 foreign workers by 1978) + Westernization Islamic + nationalist anger • 1976-77: overextended oil revenue discontent and populism; human rights issues (Carter) • Jan. 1978: gov’t paper questions K’s piety + British agent street protests (religious, bazaars, urban workers) attacks on symbols of West + economic and political oppression • August: Rex Cinema in Abadan 400 die, SAVAK blamed effort conciliation failed • Probably religious students • End of Ramadan public prayer mass demonstrations Jaleh Square shooting (Black Friday) • Khomeini expelled from Iraq France: national media attention + telephone contact w/Iran

  6. Strikes arrest former gov’t officials (SAVAK), release pol’l prisoners; puts military officers in charge of gov’t abatement (fear) • K calls for continuation, gov’t doesn’t crack down strikes shut down gov’t • 9+10 Dec 1978: 100,000s march in protest Tehran Shah talks moderate opp. • Jan. 16, 1979: Shah leaves country on vacation Bakhtiar gov’t lifts restrictions, tries to negotiate • K calls for “street referendum” on monarchy • K returns 1 Feb 1979 greeted by millions forms provisional gov’t (Mehdi Bazargan); komitehs (revolutionary committees) take over municipal gov’t functions; contact w/army (encouraged by US) desertions, mutinies Feb. 11: commanders announce army’s “neutrality”: death sentence Pahlavi monarchy

  7. Chaos • K unrestrained by Bazargan gov’t; Revolutionary Council (clerics: more radical); local revolutionary committees; conflicting political parties (including multiple Islamist) • Revolutionary courts established executions; April 5: put under control K + RC [(550 executed by Nov); expanded beyond Shah officials (ethnic minorities)] + inability control rev’y committees + hezbollahs (partisans of the party of God) B resigns • K creates: Revolutionary Guards, Crusade for Reconstruction, Foundation for the Disinherited • Nationalization • Ethnic uprisings: Turkomen + Kurds

  8. Referendum + Constitution • Public, non-secret vote on form of gov’t • Only 1 choice: Islamic Republic •  98% approval • 1 April 1979: Islamic Republic of Iran • Constitution based on 1906 Iranian Const. + De Gaulle French Const: essentially keeps Shah’s system (just replaces king w/ president) • Redrafted by Assembly of Experts

  9. Consolidation through Terror • Still local power centers (students who seize US Embassy); divisions w/in ruling elite •  Revolutionary Courts restart (50+ executions/day common) 1983 opposition largely quieted • Sept. 1980: Iran-Iraq War • US playing both sides • 1989: K dies; constitution rewritten (reduce title req) Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i • Jurist guardianship: no decision legal (not even election) until approved by Supreme Leader

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