The Shah leaves Iran – for ever

On 16 January 1979 the Shah leaves Iran with Empress Farah, never to return. Huge demonstrations have been ongoing since 1978. The couple moves on to several countries before entering the US on 22 October where he will get medical treatment. By then the revolution has swept a new regime into power in Iran. His dreaded secret police, SAVAK, is out of office and a new suppressing police takes over the same prisons and torture-chambers. The new government of Ayatollah Khomeini demands the Shah extradited. The US refuses and Iranian students occupy the US embassy in Tehran. Under pressure, the Shah leaves for Egypt where he dis in 1980, Farah lives on in Paris and the US. 

The US and Iran goes from being close, important allies, to become distant, bitter enemies. That tectonic shift has severe implications for governments and millions of people in the Middle East. Today, three decades later, Iran and the US are talking together and coming closer. Iran’s opponents, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries are worried about their own safety, and do their best to reposition themselves. The future is uncertain, and to better understand what is at stake, it may be helpful to look a bit into what happened during the last Shah.

The Shah and Empress Farah leave Tehran Airport 16 January 1979

Background

In the beginning of the 20^th century Persia was ruled by a Shah of the Qajar dynasty. Oil was found in 1908 and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company got a monopoly and built the world’s largest oil refinery in Abadan. Russia and the United Kingdom had exercised great economic and strategic influence in the country, although it was reduced after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. In the 1920s Iran was weak and led by the young Ahmad Shah and a corrupt government. Reza Khan was an Iranian army officer, physically tall and powerful, intelligent and an ambitious leader. He led a coup, and became Prime minister under Ahmad Shah. The army he built up was loyal to him. His admired the nationalist and secular Turkish president Kemal Atatürk. In 1925 deposed Ahmad Shah and crowned himself as Reza Shah Pahlavi. He modernized Persia by introducing educational and judicial reforms with less religious influence. The Shia clergy was opposed to this. Women’s status was improved, the veil banned, and the minimum marriage age raised. More schools with secular education for boys and girls were opened, and the University of Tehran established in 1934. But he restricted political freedom by banning unions and political parties and suppressing the media. He renamed the country to Iran in 1935.Resa Shah renegotiated oil concessions. He was also afraid of the Soviets and the UK. He sought closer connections with Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Anglo-Soviet invasion and a new Shah

The Soviet Union and the UK agreed to stop this and invaded Iran in 1941 to secure the safe flow of the US war material to the Soviet Union through Iran. Reza Shah abdicated in favor of his son Mohammed Reza Shah and went into exile. The war gave more economic activity and political freedom, and political parties were formed including the pro-British National Will, and the pro-Soviet Tudeh or communist party. The Shia clerics also got more freedom to work. The Shah was young unexperienced and not as authoritarian as his father. A coalition of parties, the National Front, gathered around the nationalist former politician and lawyer Mohammed Mosaddegh. He won the elections and became a popular Prime minister. He nationalized the oil industry in 1951, a legal move, with great support of the Iranian people. The UK imposed an economic embargo on Iran. Mosaddegh also reduced the power of the Shah, and he fled the country. The UK under Churchill and Eden planned to make a coup and re-establish the Shah on the throne, Operation Ajax. President Truman in the US was not interested.

The US-British coup and modernization

But when Eisenhower won the US elections he supported the coup-plans, partly believing in the British claim that Mosaddegh’s rule posed a Communist threat. Operation Ajax in 1953 succeeded on the second attempt and the Shah returned believing the Iranian people loved him. But he wanted to be visionary and strong ruler himself, not just be a symbol of a modern constitutional monarchy. So he accepted the US and Israeli offer to establish SAVAK, the secret police controlling the opposition. In a traditional dynasty the King needs a son to carry on the line of rulers. The Shah’s first two marriages didn’t result in a son. He remarried to Farah in 1959 and she bore a son in 1960, Crown prince Reza.

More confident and trying to live up to his father’s ambitions the Shah launched the White Revolution in the 1960s to modernize Iran. Industry was expanded, and started a land reform resulting in redistribution of land to 2,5 million families. But political parties were silenced and the parliament Majles dissolved in 1962. Literacy and health care was promoted in rural areas and social and legal reforms to improve women’s situation were made. The country developed clearly economically. In 1967 the Shah felt safe enough to crown himself Emperor, and Farah Empress. A few years later the 2500 celebration of Persia was celebrated in Persepolis, the ancient capital. Fifty heads of state participated, and the Shah seemed outwardly to be safe and was internationally respected. 

The family after the Coronation in 1967 - Happier days.  

The Shia clerics

The Shia clerics lost power by the reforms, and criticized the White revolution. The were especially concerned about the liberalization of women saying it was against Islamic values. Some of the land distributed to farmers had also been held by the Vaqf, a charitable trust under clerical control. They lost income. Ruhollah Khomeini was in 1963 a professor of Philosophy at a Madrasah (religious school) in the city Qom. He spoke clearly out against the reforms.  The authorities arrested him and later exiled him. He went to Turkey and stayed in the holy city of Najaf. He stayed in close contact with the clerics in Iran and developed his religio-political doctrine for a Shia Islamic state run by clerics. He continued to criticize the Shah. In October 1978, under pressure from the Shah, Saddam Hussein expelled Khomeini. He settled in a suburb of Paris, staying in close contact with his increasing number of followers in Iran.

Demonstrators outside the Pahlavi Hospital in Tehran to protest the killing of a professor 27 Dec. 1978.

Growing discontent

Oil agreements were renegotiated to Iran’s favor, and the increase in oil prices in the 1970s gave a solid boost to the economy. Government spending increased, but income was distributed very unequally, inflation grew, agriculture declined in productivity and living standards stagnated. The land reform distributed land, but it was not so easy to make the new farms and agricultural system to work properly and many farmers migrated to the cities in search of jobs. Living conditions there were difficult. Discontent grew but political participation was not allowed. The only political channel was the Majles, where two pro-Shah parties dominated. The other political parties were marginalized and the Tudeh (communist) banned. The SAVAK arrested opponents and torture was common. Western organizations and media started to give details about the human rights situation. Corruption and mismanagement was common, but the Shah was distant from the people he said he loved. He still thought of himself as a wise ruler and thought the people loved him. US President Jimmy Carter paid him a visit in 1977, and afterwards the Shah was encouraged.  He condemned Ayatollah Khomeini in a newspaper in January 1978, but that sparked huge demonstrations in Tehran. Some were discontent with the social and economic conditions, others with the lack of political freedom and some by the westernization that Iran had gone through, leaving them like inferior copies of Western culture and society. Demonstrations increased throughout 1978, many unemployed migrants from the countryside. On Black Friday hundreds, nobody knows for sure were killed. The Shah was surprised and sacked 500 loyal government officials including his prime minister. He didn’t take responsibility himself. Finally on 16 January he brought the family on what was officially called a vacation and left the country. Two weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini landed in Tehran and a new chapter opened. That will be treated in an article on 1 February.

Sources and more information 
The Last Shah - BBC Documentary Narrator Ben Kingsley 60 min. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6zl1mmcqD4

All the Shah’s men Stephen Kinzer John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken New Jersey, US 2008.

Britannica Iran history: http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/293359/Iran/230070/Cinema#toc230074

National Geographic http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/iran-protest-david-burnett-pictures/index.html

I am open to your comments and proposals.

Warmly

Bjarte Bjørsvik