The Iranian revolution is rolling

Ayatollah Khomeini came back to Iran from Paris three days ago, and was welcomed by five million people. Now, on 4 February 1979, he announces Mehdi Bazargan to be the new prime minister in competition with the Shah’s prime minster Bakhtiar. Fighting breaks out, and one week later Bakhtiar flees to Paris – Bazargan a pro-democracy activist and well respected religious intellectual forms an interim government. 

Khomeini returns from exile 1 February 1979.

But Iran is becoming anything but democratic. Iranian students occupy the US embassy and hold 52 hostages for 444 days. Bazargan opposes this and resigns. On 4 February 1980 Bani-Sadr, a supporter of Khomeini who arrived with him in 1979, becomes president. He is sacked in June 1980 and flees… to Paris. Bakhtiar is assassinated in that same city. Not very chic - as so often a revolution eats its own children.

Khomeini and prime minister Mehdi Bazargan.

The impacts of the Iranian revolution are important, even today: Saddam Hussein thinks Iran is very weak and invades in September 1980. The Iranians repel the attack, and become determined to bring the revolution abroad. They start to support Hezbollah in Lebanon, al-Assad in Syria and the Shia in Iraq. The hostage crisis ruins relations with the US and leads to decades of sanctions. But it also draws the US closer into the region, first by supporting Saddam, then by eliminating Iran’s two rivals, a Sunni-ruled Iraq and the Taliban of Afghanistan. 

Former President Bani-Sadr.

In 2014 the US and Iran are talking, and Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA today announces that 10 US companies want to participate in an international exhibition in Iran. Important changes are occurring, but lack of trust and very different views on freedom and the meaning of life, means that Iran does not aim to become a friend of the West. The clerics rule, imprisonment of opponents and executions continue, as does the support of the Syrian regime and Hizbollah. I think this year will be an interesting one in relation to Iran.

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Warmly

Bjarte Bjørsvik