the crisis over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile development and its push for Middle East dominance underscore the revolution’s enduring impact and Iran’s geostrategic importance.
For Iranians, however, that is nothing new. Since ancient times, Iran—a geographic and cultural bridge between the Middle East and India—has been central to the military, religious and cultural history of the region. Many scholars say modern Iran’s deep suspicion of outsiders is the legacy of centuries of repeated foreign invasions and meddling in its internal affairs.
That history began in the fourth century B.C. when the Persian Empire, Iran’s predecessor, stretched from modern day Bulgaria in the west to northern India in the east and Egypt in the south. Alexander the Great conquered Persia as he drove his armies east to India. In the seventh century A.D., the Arab conquest of Persia opened the way for the spread of Islam to Central and East Asia.26 The Turks overran Persia in the 11th century, followed by Genghis Khan’s Mongol army in the 13th century and Tamerlane in the 14th century.
In the 16th century, Persia’s Safavid monarch, Ismail, claimed to be a direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, Ali, and declared Shiism the country’s official religion. It was a transformative move that gave Persians a separate religious identity from their mostly Sunni Arab neighbors.27
Since then, Persians established close clerical bonds with Shiite communities in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq—a relationship that has helped the modern Islamic Republic enlist them as proxies in its struggle against rival powers.
Modern Meddling
In the early 20th century, the British and Russian empires targeted Persia in their “Great Game” competition for dominance over Central Asia, forcing the Persians in 1905 to cede a sphere of influence in northern Iran to Russian control and the oil-rich south to the British. But by the end of World War I, Britain emerged as the sole colonial power in Persia.28
To secure its control over the oil fields, London offered to make Persia a British protectorate, but the Persian parliament rejected the plan. Britain withdrew its personnel from the country in 1921, after supporting a coup by Col. Reza Khan, commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade and an ardent nationalist.29
In 1925, Reza Khan became shah, or monarch, and his eldest son, Mohammad Reza, heir to the throne. Shah Reza took the surname Pahlavi, establishing his new dynasty. In 1935, at the shah’s behest, the parliament changed the country’s name from Persia to Iran.30
Shah Reza pursued a vigorous modernization campaign and sought closer relations with Nazi Germany, which, unlike Britain and Russia, had not meddled in Iranian affairs or occupied its territory. When World War II began, Reza declared neutrality.31 But British and Soviet forces occupied Iran in 1941 to secure the Trans-Iranian Railroad for carrying critical British and U.S. military aid from India to the Soviet Union. The British remained suspicious of Shah Reza’s pro-German sympathies and forced him to abdicate, putting his pro-British son on the throne.
Middle East scholars say the young shah’s willingness to assist the Allied war effort laid the foundation for Iran’s close ties with the West, particularly the United States.
Roots of Revolution
The first major crisis in Iran’s relations with the West began in 1951, when the lawyer Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected prime minister. Soon after taking office, he introduced a wide array of political and economic reforms and nationalized Iran’s British-controlled oil industry. After diplomacy failed to obtain a compromise, the CIA, convinced by the British that Mosaddegh was a communist sympathizer, helped to overthrow him in a coup that became a turning point in Iran’s modern history.32
Although the shah introduced many reforms, some of which lifted restrictions on women, he also created the notorious SAVAK secret police force, trained by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, to quash challenges to his rule. It soon became Iran’s most hated and feared institution, responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of the dissidents.33 (See Short Feature.)
During the administration of Republican President Richard M. Nixon, the shah bought huge quantities of sophisticated U.S.-made weapons, establishing Iran as Washington’s Persian Gulf policeman.34 The administration of Democratic President Jimmy Carter discouraged any questioning of the arrangement, and U.S. officials overlooked the anti-shah anger and resentment that was building in the country’s mosques.35
Leading the opposition was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an outspoken senior Shiite cleric whose arrest in 1963 for an anti-shah speech sparked riots in which government troops killed up to 400 of his followers.36 Exiled the following year, Khomeini eventually moved to Paris. As protests in Tehran intensified, the shah declared martial law and banned all demonstrations.
On Sept. 8, 1978, government troops opened fire on a large crowd of protesters in Tehran, killing nearly 100 people. The deaths stunned the nation, destroying any possibility of reconciliation. Strikes and massive anti-shah protests spread. “That’s the point when it turned into a revolution,” said Gary Sick, an Iran expert who served on the White House’s National Security Council during the administrations of Gerald Ford and Carter and is now a professor at Columbia University in New York.37
Carter’s advisers were split over the worsening situation in Iran, Sick recalled. One camp favored the shah’s abdication and formation of a new pro-Western government of senior military officers and moderate clerics, with Khomeini as its figurehead. The other side advocated a military crackdown by the shah’s forces.
While Washington debated its options, the shah convinced opposition politician Shapour Bakhtiar to serve as prime minister while the shah went abroad “on vacation.” On Jan. 16, 1979, Bakhtiar assumed leadership, and the shah and his family flew to exile in Egypt, ending 2,500 years of monarchist rule in Iran.38
On Feb. 1, 2019, Khomeini flew to Tehran, where he was met by up to 3 million Iranians celebrating in the streets. He denounced the Bakhtiar government as illegitimate. “I shall kick their teeth in,” the cleric proclaimed. “I appoint the government.”39
A few days later, Khomeini named a provisional revolutionary government. His supporters took control of government buildings, TV and radio, and Bakhtiar fled to Paris. Iranians overwhelmingly voted for the establishment of an Islamic theocracy.40
Chronology
530 B.C.-A.D. 1501 Persian Empire falls to a succession of foreign invaders; Iran adopts Shiite Islam.
332 B.C. Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire, which stretched from modern-day Bulgaria in the west to northern India in the east and Egypt in the south. A succession of rulers will try to restore the Persian Empire to its original boundaries, but it never regains its immense size.
636 Islamic rule begins after Arabs conquer Persia, which stretches from modern Georgia in the west to western Afghanistan in the east.
1501 Persia’s Safavid dynasty declares Shiism the state religion.
1900s-1948 Persia becomes constitutional monarchy; after discovery of oil, Britain and Russia occupy the country during world wars.
1907 Democratic reforms establish a constitutional monarchy, under which the shah, or king, shares power with an elected government headed by a prime minister.
1908 British discover oil in southern Persia and form the Anglo-Persian Oil Co.
1914-18 Persia declares neutrality in World War I, but is occupied by Russian and British troops to prevent Germany from capturing its oil fields.
1921 Military commander Reza Khan seizes power in British-backed coup.
1925