Shah Government Research Articles

Archaism and Nationalism of the Principles of Political Identity of Pahlavi I

<p>Nationalism was the main axes of the first Pahlavi era that was followed by using the Persian language and ethnicity, paying attention to the historical past and relying on the antiquity were of its manifestations the result of which was crystallized in the homeland patriotism. In this age of homeland, close bond component was king worship and archaism. Reza Shah's government, by leading the intellectuals sought to replace Imperial ideology of nationalism with the Iranian and Islamic culture and rests the legitimacy of his regime on it. One of the features and characteristics of the Pahlavi regime was the emphasis on the idea of nationalist glory and honor of the Zoroastrian religion of pre-Islamic Iran and the Persian language worshiped by that time.This article aims at the crystallization phenomenon of nationalism and ancient Persian language and ethnicity importance of convergence in the approach of the Iranian (Aryan era) in the first Pahlavi era and investigated the implications and intentions of the founders approach.</p>

Paul Chu, Anthony Leggett and Warren Pickett in Iran

In 2013, the Islamic Republic of Iran, for the first time since its government replaced the Shah's government after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, came to the forefront of the international community to negotiate a deal- a deal that would limit its nuclear weapon stockpiles which it has kept hidden from the world even in the face of political isolation.

Showdown at Doha: The Secret Oil Deal That Helped Sink the Shah of Iran

What led to the calamitous drop in Iran's oil revenues in January 1977? Politics, religion, culture, and economics have been identified as factors contributing to the collapse of Iran's monarchy in 1979. But until now scholars have been unable to access documents could shed light on the inner workings of the relationship between senior US officials and the Shah of Iran, whom Henry Kissinger lauded as that rarest of leaders, an unconditional ally, and one whose understanding of the world enhanced our own.1 The declassification of the papers of Brent Scowcroft, who worked in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, marks a significant milestone in our understanding of the origins of the Iranian Revolution. They reveal in 1976 the US and Saudi Arabia colluded to force down oil prices, inadvertently triggering a financial crisis destabilized Iran's economy and weakened the Shah's hold on power. In the first nine days of January 1977, Iran's economy was battered by unusual turbulence in international oil markets. Hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipated revenue were erased by a sudden and precipitous drop in daily oil exports, while total oil production plunged 38% over the previous month.2 Financial hemorrhaging forced the Shah's government to rewrite its budget, cancel new spending projects, freeze foreign aid programs, and take out a $500 million emergency loan from US and European banks.3 The immediate cause of Iran's fiscal crisis was Saudi Arabia's bold decision to challenge an increase in oil prices agreed to by the rest of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at a December 1976 meeting in Doha, Qatar. The Saudi Oil Minister, Shaykh Ahmad Zaki Yamani, had announced his government would offset the impact of the price hike by selling more of its own petroleum at a reduced price.4 Yamani's threat to flood the market with cheap oil never came about, but OPEC's two-tiered pricing system remained in effect for six months and dealt Iranian finances a grievous blow. The Shah's chief economists later confirmed the government had never considered the possibility of a steep drop in oil prices and production.5 It had overestimated oil revenues never materialized and spent money it would now never see. But worse was to come. The government's attempt to restore fiscal order only compounded the crisis. Its harsh deflationary budget led to high unemployment and social unrest helped create a classic prerevolutionary situation.6 The Shah's personal reaction to the Saudi action was telling. Muhammad Reza Pahlavi had been counting on higher oil prices to buttress Iran's anemic economy - and strengthen his hand - while he embarked on a highly risky course of political liberalization at home. We're broke, he despaired on January 2, 1977. Everything seems doomed to grind to a standstill, and meanwhile many of the programs we had planned must be postponed ... It's going to be very tough.7 This year, 2008, marks the 30th anniversary of the outbreak of unrest in Iran flared into revolution and ultimately led to the collapse of the ancien regime, the royal family's flight into exile, and the United States' loss of Iran as a strategic partner in West Asia and the Persian Gulf. While much scholarly focus has been on the internal political, cultural, economic, and social origins of the revolution, the role of state finances - and oil revenues in particular - in precipitating the catastrophe has received far less attention. The Iranian Revolution shares similarities with two other great revolutions: France in 1789 and Russia in 1917. All three upheavals were preceded by fiscal crises.8 In Iran's case the dramatic revenue fluctuations of 1977 were acknowledged and duly noted at the time by Tehran-based foreign correspondents.9 But the underlying rationale for Saudi Arabia's decision to torpedo the December 1976 OPEC oil price increase, and particularly the Ford Administration's role in fateful decision, has not been explained until now. …

Great Britain & Reza Shah: the plunder of Iran, 1921-1941

Great Britain & Reza Shah: The Plunder of Iran, 1921-1941, by Mohammad Gholi Majd. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2001. xiii + 386 pages. Notes to p. 412. Sel. bibl. to p. 414. Index to p. 429. About the author. $59.95. Reviewed by Michael P. Zirinsky The title of Mohammad Gholi Majd's book, Great Britain & Reza Shah: The Plunder of Iran, 1921-1941, encapsulates his thesis: Britain invaded Iran in 1918 for its own nefarious purposes, placed Reza Pahlavi in power, and encouraged him to loot the country; in 1941, deciding that Reza Shah was too transparently their agent, Britain again invaded and replaced Reza Shah with his son. Majd's book is largely based on US diplomatic records, preserved at the National Archives. Its greatest strength lies in extensive quotations from these records. Unfortunately, Majd has not compared American diplomatic accounts with other primary sources, including Iranian ones. Unfortunately as well, Majd fails to provide context for British actions in Iran. By European standards, Iran before 1914 was chaotic: government was weak; tribes and notables worked with foreigners as easily as with the ruling Qajars; cities were small and isolated, but often experienced riots, frequently caused by food shortages; unrest was channeled by authorities into violence against religious minorities, in the manner of Russian pogroms or American race riots. Iran's ability to remain nominally independent in the face of these pressures owes a good deal to its physical isolation, as well as to Tehran's skill in playing powers against each other. Nevertheless, foreign influence grew. This disordered situation became much worse during World War I. Iran could not defend itself against invasions by Ottoman, Russian, British, German, and French forces. Foreign governments worked with whomever they could, encouraging civil war. Movement of armies and peoples disrupted agriculture, and famine and epidemic disease killed a quarter of the Iranian people before order was restored. After the war, Iran was transformed. Reza Pahlavi seized power with British help in 1921; he crowned himself king in 1926 with the approval of foreign powers, most of the 'ulama', and most Iranian progressives; and he abdicated in 1941 under pressure from both Russia and Britain. During Reza's rule internal security improved. Iran's population grew, and cities were rebuilt in the Western style. Centrally controlled military forces and bureaucracy transferred power to Tehran, which thus was able to collect taxes. A national system of public education was established, including schools for boys and girls and the University of Tehran. Contacts between Iran and the outside world became more frequent. Despite this transformation, Iran again fell to foreign occupation during World War II. Rather than maintaining strict neutrality in 1939-1940, as did Turkey, Reza Shah's government became increasingly pro-German. In June 1941, Germany attacked its Soviet ally, and in August of that year Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran in turn. Reza's vaunted army, on which half the government budget had been spent since 1921, evaporated, and the country celebrated his removal from the throne. …

Les bolcheviks au Guilan [La chute du gouvernement de Koutchek Khan

Vladimir L. Genis. The Bolsheviks in Gilan: the overthrow of Kuchek Khan' s government. The Bolsheviks' arrival in northern Persia and the overthrow of Kuchek Khan's government in June and July 1920 are among the most dramatic episodes of the Gilan revolution of 1920-1921. First, the stationing of a red squadron in the Caspian sea port of Anzali together with the evacuation of the British garrison from Rasht, the capital of the Gilan province, had led to the proclamation on June 14, 1920 of the "Soviet Republic of Persia," whose head was Mirza Kuchek Khan, the leader of the Jangali nationalist partisans group. Moscow's intention was to set up a "Soviet-type" government without imposing a social revolution because it wanted to avoid the Jangalis' withdrawal from the struggle for national liberation. Thus, by supporting this revolution, the government of the RSFSR was seeking less a sovietization of the shah's empire than a way of pressuring the British government with the threat of a "red expansion" in Asia in order to bring Moscow and London to the negotiating table. At stake was the raising of the British embargo on the RSFSR in exchange for the cessation of the Russian offensive in the East. However, local communists opposed this "façade Sovietization" and fomented a plot against the "bourgeois democrat" Kuchek Khan. They successfully overthrew his government and replaced it with a puppet Re v kom which attempted to set up a land expropriation policy. This Revkom was able temporarily to remain in power thanks only to reinforcements in Russian and Azerbaijanian troops. The de facto occupation of Gilan, the population's hostility as well as a series of defeats on the front obliged Moscow to start negotiations with the shah's government. These negotiations led to the Soviet-Persian agreement of February 26, 1921, the evacuation of Russian troops, and the end of the Gilan Republic.

Islamic Rights or Human Rights: An Iranian Dilemma

Human rights issues loom large in the contemporary history of Iran. Under the reign of the late shah, Iranians were deprived of basic rights and freedoms and suffered from pervasive violations of human rights, many at the hands of the regime's notorious security forces. Ironically, in official representations to the international community, the shah's government posed as a champion of human rights. In the 1960s and 1970s Iranians took a leadership role at the United Nations in promoting international human rights law, and Tehran was selected as the venue for the important 1968 UN International Conference on Human Rights. Under the shah Iran ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the United States failed to ratify until 1992 (and then only conditionally). Individual Iranians also contributed to the development of human rights principles.

Correspondence

CORRESPONDENCE Margaret E. Clark and David Ray, editors Human Rights Policy as Principle To the Editor: Stephen Wrage's "Another Look at Human Rights" (sais review 3, WinterSpring 1983), offers yet another critique of the Carter human rights policy. Without abandoning the principle, Wrage argues that with some major adjustments, the policies could be made to work effectively. In his view, Carter frittered away his advantage by setting his sights too high, succumbing to flamboyant crusading rhetoric, and stubbornly trying to "raise global consciousness " on human rights. Mr. Wrage eschews Carter's ambitious design and opts for a more modest approach. The approach for success would include (1) a specific objective; (2) an array of pressures concentrated into a comprehensive program ; and (3) a notion by the accused that some benefit will accrue through compliance with the demands. Only the combination of these ingredients guarantees success . Three salient examples from the Carter years were highlighted as proof that when all the conditions are met, success is inevitable. Apart from these exceptions, according to Mr. Wrage, the Carter record was a dismal failure. In Mr. Wrage's haste to prove his thesis, he misreads a number of factors, misinterprets the consequences of the Carter campaign , and ultimately gives us a prescription more oriented toward accomplishing specific casework than setting out the broad principles that should help guide U.S. foreign policy. The criticism most often leveled at the Carter policy was that it was unevenly applied . While he castigated the Argentine government for killing and making thousands of its own citizens disappear, he toasted the shah's government at a New Year's Eve celebration in Tehran. Where the Carter policy was applied most vigorously—in Latin America—the results have been notable. In addition to saving many lives, the United States began to recover a measure of goodwill among the Latin American peoples. In the developing world, the United States is regrettably not viewed very sympathetically. Strident anticommunism combined with material abundance do not provide an adequate basis upon which to build a national image. The United States needs to be able to clearly articulate before a global audience the human rights values that are embedded deep within the spiritual fabric of this society. I therefore take sharp exception to Mr. Wrage's obvious displeasure over the cosmic vision of the Carter advocates . Whereas I would not quarrel with Mr. Wrage's recipe for effective human rights work, I would hasten to point out a couple of pitfalls if immediate success is the only criterion. First, human rights practices are seldom reversed overnight but require a long incubation. Therefore, steady, longterm pressure may ultimately be the best 239 240 SAIS REVIEW antidote to entrenched, repressive regimes. Second, if an administration is required to forgo action until all the components in Mr. Wrage's formula are present, precious few human rights actions would ever be taken. The U.S. government should not be reduced to doing only casework. However, when opportunities for immediate and forceful action arise, certainly there should be no hesitation. As Mr. Wrage points out, private groups specialize in the effective deployment of the tactics he prescribes for the U.S. government. While applauding the work of these private and intergovernmental groups (Amnesty International, the OAS's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, etc.), he neglects to mention that the work of these groups was enormously strengthened by President Carter's "noisy" human rights diplomacy. Finally, I must take issue with Mr. Wrage's interpretation of the facts. At one point he said that when the Carter administration threatened to cut arms to Argentina and Uruguay (actually the State Department was only attempting to faithfully comply with the human rights legislation), other countries including Guatemala, Brazil , and El Salvador repudiated military aid. Mr. Wrage maintains that "nothing was gained and leverage was lost." It would be more accurate to say that these strange human rights notions emanating from Washington both irritated and jarred a number of Latin America militaries. Human rights leverage was increased and improvements did occur over time in some of the countries that suffered this reproach. Mr. Wrage despairs of the Carter idealism . In foreign...