[Beerinkol]

[Ifroham4]

For anyone interested in learning more about the Islamic Revolution in Iran, check out Persepolis. It's a great, quick graphic novel that's worth the read.

[NeroASERCH]

Any Iranian wants to chime in? Because my understanding is that this is a snapshot of a rather narrow segment of the Iranian society of the time. The vast majority of Iranians were not doing nearly as well as that picture would have you believe. It would be like showing pictures of the Russian aristocracy and saying how everything was nice before those damn Bolsheviks appeared on the scene.

[brraverishhh]

I had some family there at the time, although I wasn't around yet. The revolution "made sense" at the time, the people were being mistreated and it was partially due to Western oppression so the Islamic foundation of the revolution made sense, but obviously the backlash was way too strong and now the exact opposite problem plagues the country. As for my family, most of my immediate had moved to Switzerland for college and never went back due to spouses and the growing Islamic ideology of Iran (my family was Bahai, a persecuted religion after the revolution), but some of my distant family was still there and had to leave everything behind because they didn't want to risk living in a radical nation. My one distant cousin that was still a kid there never wants anything to do with the country again because he associates it with the atrocities he witnessed when his family left, but his siblings both would like to go back at some point because they have a more idealistic memory of the country. One of my very distant uncles was in the Shah's cabinet and was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered during the Revolution. In my immediate family only my Grandpa and his siblings have significant ties to Iran, and my Grandpa constantly talks about how he never wants to see the country again.
Basically I guess I'd say that the revolution was merited, but happened in the worst way and left so many people displaced and irrevocably damaged.

[9mm_fan]

By "partially due to Western oppression" do you mean due to the aid the West provided for their royal allies in spite of the oppressive nature of those royals and their government to the common citizen?
Was the west guilty by not condemning the actions of and withholding aid to the government in power, or do you imply a more direct form of oppression?
Edit: I was asking rudiger10's opinion on the matter, as in a viewpoint from the responding representative to the request "Any Iranian wants to chime in?" Apparently that wasn't clear, but thank you for your viewpoints.

[Fegasderty]

I've read the full "Operation Ajax" post-op assessment referred to in abrahamsen's link. Here are the highlights.
Iran tried to nationalize oil fields which were developed by BP, then known as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The idea of reaching a negotiated settlement was briefly entertained, but British figured did not want the notion of nationalization spreading; the idea was to enforce the terms of its contract.
At the time, Iran was politically structured something like the UK - there was a monarchy and a parliament (called the majlis). The monarchy was losing influence to the parliamentary system in place, but the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family weren't exactly fighting to maintain supremacy; times were changing, and the Shah was allegedly plagued with self-doubt (he fled Iran repeatedly over the years when he perceived a threat).
The US, however, judged that if it were possible to force a public conflict between the Prime Minister (Mohammad Mossadegh) and the Shah, then the military and public would side with the monarchy. The strategy to overthrow Iran's parliamentary system therefore war born - the goal was to force a conflict and let the chips fall into place.
Long story short, the Shah didn't want to participate initially; he in fact, ran away in order to avoid signing a decree to dismiss the Prime Minister. There is no smoking gun proof, but I read parts of the clandestine service manual insinuating that the Shah was threatened by US officials; that one way or another, the US and UK would move forward. Don't take that as fact though. Suffice it to say, a lot of arm twisting was had before the Shah finally conceded. In fact, I think at one point the US was forging letters by the Shah.
The attempt almost failed, and as the Americans tell it, the CIA people were preparing to evacuate the US Embassy. Things then got very messy in the media, and it seems the US was unable to totally understand what was happening. The big mistake allegedly came when Mossadegh loyals came out condemning the Shah and making threats, following the initial coup attempt (there were tanks and everything); this is what polarized the military.
Mossadegh was overthrown and the Shah was installed. However, as I understand it, any undemocratic violation of a country's political structure necessarily requires brutality to enforce the new status quo; the Shah's secret police (trained by the US) captured and tortured political opponents. This was well known in Iran it seems but even the Shah claimed to be unaware of such things in some television interviews; I almost believe him.
That was 1953. In 1979, the people revolted. It was initially a socialist democratic islamist revolution, but it was the ayatollah Khomeini who led the revolution from exile, as its figure head. Once the Shah was overthrown, the islamists betrayed their revolutionary partners and agreements. Civil society was gutted; religious persons, regardless of qualification, were inserted into authoritative posts (heads of hospitals, judges, etc). You can read about this era in Shirin Ebadi's autobiography. This was the birth of the today's Islamic republic of Iran. Shortly thereafter, the Iran-Iraq war began, and galvanized the public behind its new leaders.
The revolutionary government's vision for spreading Islamic (Shi'ia) revolution around the middle east is also important for understanding the Arab spring, the civil war in Iraq, what's going on in Syria. Sectarianism is on the rise, and Arab nations (who are traditionally closer to the US) view a powerful Iran as a threat to the established power structures, which revolve around Sunni supremacy. According to Nir Rosen, Sunni and Shi'ia managed to share power reasonably well under Saddam Hussein; the US in its infinite wisdom though decided to re-create a new political class, handing over the reins of governance to the Shi'ia minority and dispossessing the Sunnis. This caused a civil war, which when read in the minutae of Rosen's field notes, overshadows the US presence in Iraq so much that it almost seems like an afterthought.
The dynamics are very complicated.

[softy54534]

I'm not Iranian, but here's a quick explanation of what they are talking about:The Iranian people weren't happy under the Shah of Iran either, (This is Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the ruler of Iran before the islamic takeover) He was sort of a puppet dictator propped up by the United States and, more influentially, the British. That is why a lot of western values were represented in this culture. However, it was a bit of a gilded age for the country. Under the Shah's control was a group of secret police who would kidnap and torture people instigating rebellion against his people. When an inevitable uprising occurred, it was very easy for an extremely organized religious zealotry to blame the human rights violations on western influence-and thus that ALL western culture should be rejected, and seize power. This of course led Iran to an even worse and more dangerous government then they had had before. It's important to remember, and learn from this however, that the Western habit of seizing governments does not help us win the more important cultural war. Had the Iranian people been allowed a democracy which we didn't interfere with, or had we not allowed a tyrant to be in power simply because he was OUR tyrant, then it would have been much harder for Iran's extreme religious branch to win the hearts and minds, however briefly of it's rebelling public. Or to be more precise, the "freedom-loving" West is JUST AS responsible for the state of Iran as the religious fundamentalists who run it now, perhaps even more so, as we did not live up to the ideals we claimed to be supporting. With most of our interactions in the persian and arab worlds, I think, we still don't.

[Slonopotam845]

You did a pretty good job of explaining the situation. One important thing to mention also is why the US and UK were so aggressively meddling with Iran. My dad is Iranian and has told me a lot about what it was like there in the 60's and 70's before my family had to get the fuck out. He grew up in Tehran and says that the American presence there was huge. This was mostly due to Iran's close proximity to the USSR and the fact that Iran shared such a huge border with the Soviets. He says that everyone knew that most of these random, single, professional American guys weren't tourists but CIA agents. They were there to not only have eyes&ears on the USSR, but to also make sure the Soviets didn't move on Iran and subsequently gain access to the Persian gulf. It was essentially a containment strategy, which was somewhat vindicated by the fact that the Soviets eventually invaded Afganistan. If the US presence in Iran had been light or non-existent, the Soviet invasion may have been directed at Iran instead.

[S.T.D.]

My old boss was an oil rig manager in Iran. He said many people wanted a revolution but there were many different factions and it was the Ayatollahs that won the struggle. He said although he hated the Shah he thought the Ayatollahs were just a step side ways, and he would have even preferred a socialist govenment even. He said he personally saw a bus load of mental patients driven to a rally to bulk out the numbers of the religious groups to make them seem more populace.
He has a lot of stories of seeing Shirley Bassey (he loved her) and Tom Jones in Tehran. He said it was the most progressive city in the middle east until the revolution. He still has stopries of the secret police and what they do (drawing pin in the forehead if a womans scarf is not low enough) and of the Vodka still that many people have in their basement.
Oddly he is maybe the most English man I have ever met - read all Shakespeare and English literature and loves all English sport with the exception of Cricket.

[NeroASERCH]

What was Iran like prior to the Shah? Was it like the Taliban or Saudi Arabia?

[brraverishhh]

Neither. It wasn't dark age fundamentalism, but it also wasn't fully "westernized." Prior to the overthrow of Mosaddegh, Iran was still very feudal. Peasants were forced to work the land for their landlords and extra-national interests held control of the oil field (UK). The reason why Mosaddegh was so popular was that he and his party, eventually, eliminated the aristocrat controlled land and gave peasants greater share of what they produced from the land. They also nationalized the oil fields, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) was only giving Iran 16% of profits. A big part of the displeasure over such a tiny sum was that the United States authorized the Arabian-American Oil Company (ARAMCO) to split profits 50-50. When Iran turned around and asked for equivalent treatment, the British balked. And eventually Iran would nationalize the oil fields. Which in turn led to the British embargo of Iran.
The embargo crippled Iran drastically. Even with freeing up production to the people, forcing employers to pay into a sort of unemployment insurance for workers and nationalizing the oil fields the poor were even poorer. Eventually Mosaddegh gets booted, Shah comes in and appoints his own PM.
Much gets said about what the Shah did or didn't do. And how Iran was or wasn't. But pretty much Iran was just like every other colonial holding. It was definitely its own country that didn't need to be liberated. But, like China, it had a history of Western States exploiting its resources through corporations. Which did little to help the day-to-day life of its common citizens. Sure, when the Shah was backed by the UK and US, the middle and upper classes benefited. Up until the Iranian economy had to face so many educated members of the work force. These students who couldn't find jobs ended up disenfranchised and siding with the poor when the Iranian Revolution hit.

[9mm_fan]

Iranian women in 1979, just before the Islamic Revolution

You are building a history around a couple of images. My mother and father were in Tehran for a year during the 70s. My mom and her upstairs neighbor had men throw rocks at them for not covering their heads.
It wasn't a daily occurence. But it wasn't all sunshine and blowjobs before the Islamic Revolution.

[Fegasderty]

Obviously religious nutjobs existed always but at least she wasn't thrown in jail for not having a hejab and monto. That's why its such a big problem now, because the religion became law

[malickk]

Joining any community is like a trend in these days sometimes people joined for getting some entertainment but sometime they want to get useful information and knowledge from other community members. I am new in thins forum and want to find out good friends i found this community is highly interesting.