Iranian Revolution (1963–1979)

The 1979 Iranian Revolution brought religious leader Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini to power, ousting Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and replacing Iran's constitutional monarchy with a populist theocratic republic. The revolution was largely the result of popular dissent within the working and middle classes of the Iranian population, who opposed the Shah's bloody rule and U.S. support for his regime. A coalition of liberal, leftist, and religious groups provided the momentum to oust the Shah from power; however, it was the fundamentalist Islamic forces, headed by Khomeini, that consolidated power and established an Islamic state. Though demands for social justice were at the heart of the early revolutionary stirrings, it was the religious extremists, Khomeini among them, who seized control in the aftermath of the Shah's ouster.

The Shah had reigned since 1941, with a brief break in 1953 when popular uprisings forced him to flee the country A CIA-supported coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh and reinstalled the Shah as the leader of Iran. This operation, code-named TPAJAX, was only the first of many American efforts to keep [Page 756]the Shah in power despite the deep dissatisfaction of the Iranian people.

In 1963, the Shah initiated a program of reform that became known as the White Revolution, which was designed to modernized and secularize Iranian society. Women were allowed greater freedom, including the right to vote and the right to seek divorce, and secular education was supported and funded, often at the expense of religious education. The Shah's secular programs angered religious leaders, who had steadily gained power since the 19th century and who held sway over a large segment of the Iranian working class.

At the same time, the Shah tightened censorship laws and put hundreds of political dissidents in prison, prompting the ire of Iran's intellectual elite, who also had grown tired of the decadence and corruption of the royal family. In 1971, the Shah further angered religious leaders with his celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the pre-Islamic Persian Empire, which stood in direct rebuke to Muslims, who considered the arrival of Islam in the 7th century as the foundation of the modern Iranian state.

During this period, Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini established himself as the leader of the opposition to the Shah's rule. Relatively unknown until the early 1960s, Khomeini distinguished himself as the only cleric who openly attacked the Shah's policies during the White Revolution. In 1964, the Shah exiled Khomeini to Iraq, from where he continued to gain support through the broadcast of messages to his followers from the holy city of An-Najaf. His supporters responded with riots, which the Shah quashed forcefully and violently, leaving thousands dead.

After being forced out of Iraq by Saddam Hussein 1978, Khomeini relocated to France, where he continued to make audio recordings of his speeches, which were distributed widely among the Iranian population. After the death of Dr. Ali Shariati, another popular intellectual and opponent of the Shah who was allegedly murdered by Iranian agents in England in 1977, Khomeini became the principle opposition leader. However, not everyone opposed to the Shah's rule did so based on religious reasons. Many agreed with the Shah's modernization programs, but wanted greater democracy, economic freedom, and human rights. Khomeini played to these sentiments as well, claiming to speak for the downtrodden masses and promised to correct the injustices of the Shah's reign.

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