I will argue that the Iranian revolution of 1979 was one of the most decisive events of the last 35 years. Without it you would not have an emboldened Saddam, hence no Gulf War or Iraq invasion. The Soviet Union, with no fear of a strongly allied country to its south, would not have invaded Afghanistan; which means no allied support of the Mujhaideen, which means no OBL, no AQ, and no 911. Hezbollah would have still been created, as it arose to resist the Israeli invasion, but would not have the support of a rich oil state. If you read literature about Iran written in the 70s you would think it was on course to being an industrialized in a very short period of time. Given the above, Where would you see the Middle East and the rest of the world without an Iranian revolution? Any POD is acceptable, what is the best way to avoid it?
How do you avoid the Iranian revolution of 1979.
- Thread starter Dfront21
- Start date
If by "literature" you mean "the regime's propaganda"/"things major western countries investing in Iran said in full-page paid-advertising", then yes.
When you read literature about Iran written in the 70s, the only thing it seems on course for is a revolution. And lo and behold that's what happened.
The Shah was a cruel, vicious guy with exactly zero interest in sharing the proceeds of the countries oil resources with ordinary people. And like a lot of dictators, he ended badly. Hard to see how you keep his regime going without transforming him into a completely different person. You can't just make him less repressive, since he was so lacking in popular legitimacy (as a legacy of the Mossadeq affair) that less repression just has him fall quicker IMO.
Shariatmadari isn't driven onto the side of the revolutionaries when SAVAK stupidly kills one of his followers right in front of him in summer 1978.
Alternately, Khomeini is never made a marja in 1963, and is then executed for treason.
More successful White Revolution in the 1960s.
Anti-Khomeini article isn't printed in October 1977, thus avoiding the immediate trigger for the protests.
Alternately, Khomeini is never made a marja in 1963, and is then executed for treason.
More successful White Revolution in the 1960s.
Anti-Khomeini article isn't printed in October 1977, thus avoiding the immediate trigger for the protests.
whitecrow
Banned
Weren't preparations for the Afghan Intervention already underway BEFORE the Iranian Revolution?
If the Shah lived up to his reputation of being a bloodthirsty tyrant, then Khomeini would have been dead years before 1979, and the Iranian Revolution would have taken a lot longer than January to succeed, if it even prevailed. Was the Iranian Monarchy repressive and autocratic? Absolutely. However, it was not on the same scale of brutality that succeeded it, nor of contemporary figures in the region. That being said, it was still a very dysfunctional regime that crumbled very easily.
Part of the reason the revolution happened so fast, was because the Shah was timid and cowardly. For all his bluster of being this stern authoritarian figure, he was really a reserved and shy person who had serious issues with his father in regards to his upbringing and legacy. He was more or less forced to adopt the kind of stern demeanor of his father, even though his personality was completely different, and his policy making can be seen as warped by this. Saddam Hussein was a brute, but it was his nature, and he was good at it and that made all the difference.
When the violence started to spread, and Martial law was breaking down, the Iranian Army talked about rounding up thousands of members of the Ulema, and executing them. I think the number was 10,000 or so that one general threw about. Instead, the Shah dithered, and tried to appease the revolutionaries past the 11th hour by arresting officials in SAVAK and the military, which did nothing other than sap morale among loyalists, and have key supporters of the regime waiting to be executed by the Revolutionary Tribunals after he fled. He also dragged his heels about endorsing a coup until the situation grew so badly that officers he would have relied on were already detained by Hezbollah.
The Shah could have easily tried to quell the movement like Gaddafi or Assad, but instead he chose a rather inopportune time to be moralistic about bloodshed.
As for ways in which the situation could have been prevented altogether, I will return to this thread later when I have the time.
Part of the reason the revolution happened so fast, was because the Shah was timid and cowardly. For all his bluster of being this stern authoritarian figure, he was really a reserved and shy person who had serious issues with his father in regards to his upbringing and legacy. He was more or less forced to adopt the kind of stern demeanor of his father, even though his personality was completely different, and his policy making can be seen as warped by this. Saddam Hussein was a brute, but it was his nature, and he was good at it and that made all the difference.
When the violence started to spread, and Martial law was breaking down, the Iranian Army talked about rounding up thousands of members of the Ulema, and executing them. I think the number was 10,000 or so that one general threw about. Instead, the Shah dithered, and tried to appease the revolutionaries past the 11th hour by arresting officials in SAVAK and the military, which did nothing other than sap morale among loyalists, and have key supporters of the regime waiting to be executed by the Revolutionary Tribunals after he fled. He also dragged his heels about endorsing a coup until the situation grew so badly that officers he would have relied on were already detained by Hezbollah.
The Shah could have easily tried to quell the movement like Gaddafi or Assad, but instead he chose a rather inopportune time to be moralistic about bloodshed.
As for ways in which the situation could have been prevented altogether, I will return to this thread later when I have the time.
By this time I think it would've been too late. If the Shah responded in that manner he would have ended up with a long drawn out insurgency or it descends into a full blown civil war
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
I can only think of Mossadegh's term surviving a bit longer as the prerequisite, along with a far more, aggressive secularization campaign in Persia/Iran. On the other hand, how can a Kemalist-esque reformation ever become successful in Iran to the point where the mullahs are marginalized.?
The armed wing of Khomeini's Islamic Republican Party was called Hezbollah, a modern sect of the group is called Ansar-e-Hezbollah which is a paramilitary like group similar to the Basij.
The Lebanese organization named itself after the Iranians since they were inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini.
Secularization is what made the Ulema enemies of the Pahlavi Regime. Once Reza Shah started to demand that the state take over education, forced unveiling of women, and interfering with traditional matters of the clergy, the Ulema became vicious opponents. Khomeini himself saw the Family Law passed as part of the White Revolution as the breaking point, because it liberalized divorce laws to be favorable to women.
If the Pahlavi Dynasty behaved more like the Saudis, then they might have still been around to this day.
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The reason why Khomeini wasn't executed in 1963 was because Shariatmadari made him a Grand Ayatollah and the Iranian Constitution prohibited their execution, ironic when you think of what Khomeini subsequently did to him.
Another blunder the Shah made in the final months was pressuring Saddam to expel Khomeini from Karbala, as counter-intuitive as this sounds he was actually able to exert greater influence from France as the phone lines from Paris were far better than those from Iraq.
I do agree with the OP about the implications of the Revolution, to me it and the collapse of the USSR are the two most defining events of the late 20th Century, had it not happened or gone in a different way, the Revolution was effectively hijacked by Khomeini and his followers, then we would be in a radically different and probably more peaceful Wirld.
Another blunder the Shah made in the final months was pressuring Saddam to expel Khomeini from Karbala, as counter-intuitive as this sounds he was actually able to exert greater influence from France as the phone lines from Paris were far better than those from Iraq.
I do agree with the OP about the implications of the Revolution, to me it and the collapse of the USSR are the two most defining events of the late 20th Century, had it not happened or gone in a different way, the Revolution was effectively hijacked by Khomeini and his followers, then we would be in a radically different and probably more peaceful Wirld.
Actually, this is probably likely. Another factor that contributes to the poor decision making was the fact that the Shah was dying of cancer, which was hidden from the public for years. By 1978 he grew depressed about his illness, and started firing people working in the palace. I think part of the fact that he caved so quickly was that he knew he wouldn't survive long enough to see an end to the ordeal.
If the Shah had gone public with his illness when he was diagnosed, and explained his rationale for his increased insistence on getting things done without delay, like the banning of all political parties outside of the Rastakhiz, then perhaps he might have gained public support and sympathy. Instead, he remained this aloof and stern caricature and started to ram through policy in an even more authoritarian manner that exacerbated the liberal youth's dislike of him, as well as the bazaaris.
Of course, the Rastakhiz was an incredibly bad idea to begin with, since it forced Iranians to join the party, and pay members dues. Plus the extravagant decisions like changing the calendar from the Islamic to the "Imperial" based on the birth of Cyrus was absolutely ridiculous and did little to counter the cultural tensions that the Islamists exploited about fears of Westernization.
Cook
Banned
This was not connected to the Islamic Revolution, the invasion of Afghanistan was to maintain the Brezhnev Doctrine: that no socialist country was to be permitted to fall to reactionary forces.
Actually that is not the case; the reason why there was so much foreign investment in Iran in the 1970s was because the country was seen to be so stable, unlike much of the rest of the region. The Islamic Revolution came as a massive shock to everyone.
You have just described the leadership of almost every nation in the Middle East in the 1970s with the possible exception of Jordan’s King Hussein, who survived an attempted coup and several assassination attempts himself during the ‘70s and ‘80s, in fact it was usually the more moderate leaders that suffered assasinations or coups. The decisive difference between the Shah and the various Kings on the other side of the Persian Gulf that survived, was that the Shah alienated Iran’s religious conservatives by secularising the nation as part of the modernisation process. The Saud family chose the alternative route; they were every bit as repressive as the Shah, but they very carefully kept the powerful religious conservatives on side; had the Shah done the same the Pahlavi's would probably still be on the throne.
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Ok, I'll list some of the major policy mistakes that lead to the revolution. First of which was the failure of the Pahlavi dynasty to create a broad and deep enough base of support in Iranian Society. Reza Shah has alienated the Ulema by the forced secularization policies, which lead to many figures abandoning the "Quietism" tradition of staying out of politics. Even so, it took decades for figures like Khomeini to be radicalized enough, and it wasn't even until the 1960s that he decided that monarchy itself was inherently Un-Islamic. If the Shah had tried to garner support among a larger portion of the Ulema, than he might have been able to stifle Khomeini and the "Activist" clerics, but instead he mostly resorted to threats and siccing SAVAK on them.
Secondly, the regime had alienated and marginalized a lot of potential allies and people sympathetic to his policies by being heavy handed and through the amazing tendency to shoot itself in the foot. The Shah saw himself as the paternalistic "Father of the Nation" and felt that he had to do things himself, instead of trusting and supporting liberal politicians. Mossadegh's Nationalists were alienated through the Abadan Crisis, although both sides were equally stubborn that lead to the disaster in the first place. The Shah learned all the wrong lessons from the crisis, which lead to the White Revolution and his rule became further strayed from what the Constitution actually allowed him to do. The regime felt that they had to start and lead a revolution for the people, because they couldn't be trusted to do so on their own.
The Shah had also become obsessed with suppressing left wing opposition as he was fixated about the Soviets trying to overthrow him, which was not entirely unwarranted given the assumptions at the time and the rather acrimonious history that Russia has had in meddling in Iran's politics. The only effective opposition that was left was the religious community.
The economic policies were incredibly oversold and too ambitious. The Iranian economy was overheated by the rise in oil prices with large amounts of inflation. A prosperous new class of wealthy businessmen emerged, but they were small and their interests clashed with the Bazaaris, who grew frustrated with the regime. Measures meant to stop black markets and "price gouging" infuriated them because it exacerbated the bottlenecks that were in the economy. What really made the demonstrations worse in 1978 was the austerity measures that were being enacted, which lead to workers joining students in the protest.
Finally, you have the incredible shifts in the social fabric that occurred in Iran in the 20th Century that caused a great deal of unrest. Iran around the 20th Century was largely rural in population. In the late Qajar Era as much as 20-25% of the population was tribal and living a traditional nomadic lifestyle. Modernization happened at a breakneck speed, cramming what took Western Europe 200 years to accomplish at essentially 2-3 generations. Grandparents who lived as peasants now saw their grandchildren living in massive modern cities, wearing mini-skirts and talking about Marxism. The Shah didn't address these concerns, and appeared to be too eager to embrace Westerners with his own lifestyle, and the 2500th Anniversary of the Persian Empire's celebrations did a lot to unintentionally assert that belief in the public.
Secondly, the regime had alienated and marginalized a lot of potential allies and people sympathetic to his policies by being heavy handed and through the amazing tendency to shoot itself in the foot. The Shah saw himself as the paternalistic "Father of the Nation" and felt that he had to do things himself, instead of trusting and supporting liberal politicians. Mossadegh's Nationalists were alienated through the Abadan Crisis, although both sides were equally stubborn that lead to the disaster in the first place. The Shah learned all the wrong lessons from the crisis, which lead to the White Revolution and his rule became further strayed from what the Constitution actually allowed him to do. The regime felt that they had to start and lead a revolution for the people, because they couldn't be trusted to do so on their own.
The Shah had also become obsessed with suppressing left wing opposition as he was fixated about the Soviets trying to overthrow him, which was not entirely unwarranted given the assumptions at the time and the rather acrimonious history that Russia has had in meddling in Iran's politics. The only effective opposition that was left was the religious community.
The economic policies were incredibly oversold and too ambitious. The Iranian economy was overheated by the rise in oil prices with large amounts of inflation. A prosperous new class of wealthy businessmen emerged, but they were small and their interests clashed with the Bazaaris, who grew frustrated with the regime. Measures meant to stop black markets and "price gouging" infuriated them because it exacerbated the bottlenecks that were in the economy. What really made the demonstrations worse in 1978 was the austerity measures that were being enacted, which lead to workers joining students in the protest.
Finally, you have the incredible shifts in the social fabric that occurred in Iran in the 20th Century that caused a great deal of unrest. Iran around the 20th Century was largely rural in population. In the late Qajar Era as much as 20-25% of the population was tribal and living a traditional nomadic lifestyle. Modernization happened at a breakneck speed, cramming what took Western Europe 200 years to accomplish at essentially 2-3 generations. Grandparents who lived as peasants now saw their grandchildren living in massive modern cities, wearing mini-skirts and talking about Marxism. The Shah didn't address these concerns, and appeared to be too eager to embrace Westerners with his own lifestyle, and the 2500th Anniversary of the Persian Empire's celebrations did a lot to unintentionally assert that belief in the public.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
I think no coup in 1953. Tran becomes a constitutional monarchy. With a Democracy there is much less frustration.
Get the Shah to abdicate the throne before the 1977 protests start. His son, Reza Pahlavi, was a much better person than his father, and was much more pro-democracy. The new Shah could work to reverse the policies of his predecessor and try to win over the Iranian people before the more radical elements gain control over them.