King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution Explained

The Iranian Revolution was a big surprise to many including Jimmy Carter and the Shah Reza Pahlavi.  There were clues, but they were largely ignored until it was too late.  Scott Anderson decided it was time to research the records and try to better understand it.  His research was impressively extensive.

One perspective presented Iran with a positive rising income (but unequal), good life expectancy, fair treatment for minorities including Jews, Armenians and Assyrians.  Over half a million citizens with college degrees from abroad.  Traded with Israel.  Relative freedom for Muslim women, even planning to give them the vote.

On the other hand you had a religious fundamentalist, who thought women had way too much freedom.  Khomeini also hated Jews and Bahais as well as the American government. 

How did it happen?  More than 40 years after the Iranian Revolution Scott Anderson was able to talk with many eye witnesses and uncover detailed written information.  He does a great job providing a better understanding of this globally important event with serious consequences today.

Shah Reza Pahlavi was not universally popular.  Corruption was evident and inequality was prominent.  His freedom for women and toleration of  Jews and Bahai offended many.  His secret police, SAVAK was assumed to be much more intrusive than Scott was able to prove, but nonetheless clamped down on political dissent.  The Shah was very secretive.  He would talk to generals, chosen for loyalty one on one and never as a group.  He kept knowledge of a fatal medical condition from American intelligence.   An interesting skill was he could pilot jet planes and did so.

Ancient Persians did not enslave the people they conquered and allowed them to keep their religion.  They required only a pledge of loyalty to the Kingdom.

The Brits wanted to get rid of Mohammad Mossedegh, an elected leader who wanted to nationalize their oil resources.  They negotiated with President Truman who turned down request for a coup, but Eisenhower agreed.  Shah had been requested to sign an agreement to this end, but at first refused until Kermit Roosevelt strong armed him to do so.  The U.S. government had helped engineer the coup that in 1953 forced Mossedegh out and replaced him by a more powerful Shah. 

Fundamentalists immediately developed a greater grudge against Americans.  They already felt that Americans tempted Iranians to sin and encouraged female freedom.  Khomeini was one of the more vocal critics urging death to the Satanists. 

Jimmy Carter actually wanted to develop a stronger relation with Iran recognizing they were stable in an unstable part of the world, supplied a significant amount of oil, bought a lot of American weapons and provided a better location to monitor the Soviet Union.  He successfully encouraged the Shah to modify his human rights abuses.  He felt obligated to the Shah, but paid little attention to the real situation and his staff mostly ignored Iran, until they couldn't.

Ebrahim Yazdi, was a key operative.  Born in Iran he was an Islamist with a social conscience and became very upset about the Mossadegh ouster and hated the Shah.  Although aware of the American connection he ended up upgrading his education and becoming a pharmacologist in the U.S.  Active among anti Shah groups while in America at first sought political action, but decided a fundamentalist would work better.  When Khomeini needed to find a new exile location Yazdi steered him to France where he would have a better platform allowing his bombastic sermons to have a wilder distribution. Yazdi provided translations for media while toning down Khomeini's hatred.  Noted U.S. most concerned with all the riots in Iran that Communists would take over, but they were assured not a problem.  He planned strategies to steer the military leaders to Khomeini.  He was a moderate to the end (2017) confessing he regretted his (critical) involvement with Khomeini.

Riots escalated and it was decided the Shah should leave.  Khomeini was ready to move in, but other political forces tried to form a government encouraged by the United States.

Eventually in 1989 Khomeini came to Tehran and gave his blessing to some politicians he approved of, but was in reality the final decider.  The Americans wanted the politicians in charge, but found even they bowed to Khomeini. 

When Iraq invaded Iran to take advantage of its supposed vulnerability the Iranian leadership realized they had used up much of their weaponry and needed the U.S. to re-supply them and negotiations seemed to be progressing, but suddenly collapsed.  There was speculation that Ronald Reagan's campaign team may have encouraged the delay for the hostage release.  It is known they had contact with Khomeini staff.  Scott Anderson, the author in 2023 learned of comments by prominent Republicans that indicated they had inside information the hostages would not be released until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.  Carter's humiliation at the hands of the Iranian went right to the inauguration. 

One interesting source for this book was Michael Metrinko who had learned Farsi when working with the Peace Corps.  He learned what street Iranians thought and tried to pass it on to little avail.  Working with the U.S. Embassy he was captured with the other American workers and for awhile his Farsi abilities were hidden, but when discovered he was tortured as he was falsely thought to be with the C.I.A.  He was eventually released and when the author discovered him he was sharing his house with a few Afghan students who had escaped that conflict.

Details do matter and Scott has been a hard worker uncovering the key players and the key moves.  A blog cannot do justice to his book, but it is my hope you will check out the book itself.

Trump has found Iran to be a good enemy to use for his political goals.  An earlier view of Iran from 2022:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2022/10/the-iranian-dilemma.html  That was for his first term.  In his second term he has taken a more aggressive stance in line with Netanyahu's perspective.

Jimmy Carter made critical mistakes with Iran, but overall was a very decent man who did much good, but admits his biggest regret was with Iran.   http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2021/10/the-outlier-unfinished-presidency-of.html

An earlier book, "Lawrence in Arabia" illustrates Scott's understanding of important historical events. http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2013/12/lawrence-in-arabia.html

The Iranian Dilemma

 Most of the western world is supportive of the Iranian women protesting restrictions on their lives.  Underneath there is a lot of resentment of being ruled by an autocratic theocracy.  The women hold the leverage of righteous indignation.  As in history men have tried to control women and looking back we have paid a price.  This time the women have garnered greater support from men. What are the dangers of pushing too hard?  

As one commentator pointed out how we got to this point is that we, especially Americans have usually taken the side of dictators and corporate interests against the will of the people.  This doesn't always work out the way it is anticipated.

In 1953 the Iranians had a democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosaddeq who was trying to follow the example of an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Americans to share oil revenue.  The British resisted and requested help from the U.S.  After a successful coup, Mohammed was replaced by the Shah.  To consolidate his power he sought help from the C.I.A. to set up SAVAK, a secret police service.  One of the trainers was Norman Schwarzkopf, later famous for the Iraq invasion.  They also involved the Israeli MOSSAD.  The purpose was to track and control enemies of the Pahlavi family.  The Americans left and SAVAK took a turn for more brutality including torture, executions, censorship.  The first director was repelled, eventually becoming a dissident and was assassinated in such a way to appear an accident.  Agents spied on Iranian citizens to uncover dissidents and as a by product promote distrust among neighbors.

With the election of Jimmy Carter the Iranians were encouraged into alleviating torture and other abuses of power.  As the Catholic church in Poland was responsible for forcing the Communist government to eventually capitulate. a fundamentalist Shiite clergy forced out the Shah.  Ironically when the Iranian Revolution occurred in 1979, Carter also felt an obligation to support the Shah under siege.  This stirred resentment in Iran and led to the hostage crisis that helped undo Carter's re-election.  

The Iranian Revolution was sparked by civilian discontent.  As is often the case the people rallied behind fundamentalist clergy who in the end took control.  Similarly the Poles rebelled against the Soviets using the Catholic Church as a tool.  In another blog about corruption it was pointed out that when citizens have little room to protest they support fundamentalists.  see http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2015/07/thieves-of-state.html 

A few other ironies--during an oil boycott it was Carter who adopted a conservation strategy to make Americans less dependent on Mid-East oil.  This was ridiculed by Republicans who went on to ridicule climate change.  Another irony provided by the Republicans is that they spun an arms deal with the supposed enemy Iranians to finance an insurrection in Nicaragua.

After the Iranian Revolution Iraq thought it would take advantage of confusion in Iran to invade it starting in 1980.  Americans, concerned about the prospect of a prolonged war supported Saddam Hussein including providing expertise on chemical weapons that not only killed an estimated 100,000 Iranians but were also used on Kurdish civilians.  Iran was able to quickly repel the invaders, but the conflict dragged on until the United Nations brokered a ceasefire accepted by Iran in 1988.

In 1988 an Iranian passenger airline was shot done in Iranian territory by an American missile.  Americans claimed they mistook it for a military fighter.  All 290 people on board died.  Ronald Reagan expressed regret in a diplomatic note.  United States did not admit legal liability or offer a formal apology but did agree to a financial settlement of $61.8 million.

After 9/11 the Bush administration labeled Iran as part of an "axis of evil," although they had provided some intelligence for the crisis.  I have to admit that phrase came from David Frum, a Canadian conservative writer who I have come to like a bit.   

Trump not only broke the multi national Iran Agreement, he imposed sanctions not only for Americans, but also for their allies.  On top of that he approved assassination of Qaasem Soleimani, a prominent Iranian general.   http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2019/05/alarm-bells-on-iran.html

Iranians are accused of terrorism, but they see themselves as defending the interests of Shiite followers in Lebanon, Yemen, Oman and Israel.. 

The current energy crisis greatly aggravated by Putin and OPEC is forcing difficult decisions.  At some point some vested interests will point out that we in the west are suffering for our support of Ukraine and might face a nuclear Armageddon.  Is it worth it?  For the sake of world peace and to solve other global problems like climate change and pandemics it is, but difficult decisions will have to be made.  Winter will soon be here.

How do we deal with Iran?  The government is resentful of our reactions (including in Canada and the U.S.) to the riots.  Canadians are proud that Ken Taylor, our ambassador to Iran helped Americans escape from the hostage situation at the American embassy.  Going back further they are upset about sanctions against them and American actions going back to at least the 1950's.  It is time to acknowledge American mistakes.

There is no easy way to deal with the oil shortage over the winter months.  Sacrifices are necessary in our support of Ukraine.  Long term we need to boost renewables.  Iran could be helpful and to a lesser extent so could Venezuela.

We are not likely to persuade old theocrats that they need to give more power to women.  We  can give the women some support, but really their willingness to risk dying is more critical.  The hijab symbolizes power.  Although many women prefer not to be objectified, others feel that should be their choice.  Beyond the symbolism women want property rights, access to jobs and education, the ability to divorce, freedom to express oneself as men do.  Women rights are human rights.

The Puritans won the English Civil War and imposed their morals on their subjects.  This included a ban  on playing cards, dancing, women on stage, etc.  These irked citizens no end and led eventually to the English Restoration.

Dealing with the heads of state is practical for the short run.  Autocrats tend to stick together as do democracies.  Human rights really are a global issue and if we are not to be hypocrites we need to do more to promote human rights.  We will all be better off if we can make the right moves to furthering human rights.