The Iranian Revolution
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
As with most revolutions, in the case of Iran, any one of a number of dates or epi-
sodes can be cited as the start of the upheaval that swept Mohammad Reza, the shah,
from power in 1979 in favor of an Islamic theocracy headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini. According to Khomeini, the revolution began more than fifteen years ear-
lier. In June 1963, a coalition of Shiite clergy and landowners provoked demonstra-
tions against the so-called White Revolution, a modernization program set in motion
by the shah. The central feature of this program was a land “reform” scheme that
entailed breaking many large landholdings, including those owned by Islamic institu-
tions, into smaller plots for peasant farmers to work. The shah’s security services bru-
tally suppressed these demonstrations, but at the price of radicalizing the clergy and
other elements of society and undercutting the shah’s political legitimacy. In sup-
pressing the rebellion, in 1964 the regime exiled Khomeini, the cleric who had
fomented opposition to the White Revolution. He went first to Turkey, but later took
up residence in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq.
Iran experienced unprecedented modernization and economic prosperity during
the late 1960s and the early years of the 1970s. The shah brought in Western experts
to upgrade the oil industry and create the infrastructure of a modern state. When world
oil prices soared after the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, he spent billions of dollars
buying the latest warplanes and other weapons from the United States, which began
to view Iran, along with Saudi Arabia, as one of two pillars supporting its twin poli-
cies of safeguarding Persian Gulf oil and keeping the Soviet Union out of the region.
The shah failed, however, to couple his program for modernization with an open-
ing of the political system. In 1975 he abolished all political parties except for one, which
he controlled. This quelling of dissent inspired not only fear but widespread anger across
a broad range of Iranian society. The shah’s overspending on weapons and other imports
from the West resulted in high inflation and economic decline during the mid-1970s
just as oil revenues began to decline. Public anger at the shah and his policies boiled
over into a series of protests beginning in 1976 and continuing throughout 1977. Despite
such discontent, U.S. president Jimmy Carter, during a visit to Tehran in December
1977, referred to Iran as “an island of tranquility in a sea of turbulence.” The shah took
Carter’s visit and statement as a sign of U.S. support for his regime.
In January 1978, a pro-government newspaper published a harsh attack against
Khomeini, prompting large protests in Qom, a center of Shiite scholarship southwest
of Tehran. Security forces fired on the protesters, killing several dozen students. This
episode spawned more protests throughout the year. An imposition of economic aus-
terity measures by the shah added fuel to the fire. The government then compounded
popular anger with a violent effort to break up a large demonstration in Tehran on
September 8, 1978, and an attempted use of force to quell a strike by oil workers at
the end of October. Khomeini, who had been exiled to Paris by a nervous Iraqi
IRAN 379