The Genesis of the Iranian revolution

Abstract

The crisis in Iran that unfolded through late 1977 and 1978 is one of the most momentous events of the postwar world. It is momentous in its implications for the 36 million people of Iran. They have, by dint of sustained popular protest, and some of the largest demonstrations in history, forced the Shah to abandon his autocratic system of government and to flee into exile. Many of the problems that Iran faces, and which in part underlay the collapse of the Pahlavi regime, still persist, and some have been aggravated by the protracted turmoil necessary to unseat the stubborn king. But a hated system of political dictatorship has been ousted in a spectacular victory. The way is now open for a democratic government to set about using Iran's temporary oil wealth for the permanent and equitably distributed benefit of the country, free from the corruption, the wastage, and the bombastic and vacuous schemes on which the Shah and his associates spent their time. The fall of the Shah's regime is also of momentous importance for the whole population of the Middle East: especially so for those smaller countries that had, in recent years, fallen under the domination of Iran's Nixon-incited 'protection' and who, as in Oman and in the Baluchi areas of Pakistan, had been the victim of the Shah's expeditionary corps. All the petty tyrants of the Gulf who had looked to Tehran for long-run protection, and even the far from petty ruling family of Saudi Arabia, must now be stricken with alarm; and further afield, President Sadat, recipient of the Shah's political and financial support, is visibly shaken by the waves of protest from Iran. For the western economies the loss of 18 per cent OPEC output is something that can probably be recouped over time and a new republican regime in Iran will certainly have to sell some oil to the West once the present uncertainties cease. But what the western nations will not be able to recover is the position of strategic dominance in and through Iran which the Shah's militaristic and chauvinistic policies guaranteed. The CIA has lost its 11 electronic espionage ground stations along the 1,000 mile Iranian-Soviet border. The thousands of US military personnel, seconded and contracted by the Department of Defense, have left. The arms sales have slumped, and the new government, and even Carter himself, have now agreed that Iran will no longer be able to police the Gulf. The conservative rulers of the