On November 5, 1978, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi acknowledged in a nationwide broadcast the ongoing popular revolution taking place but says that he disapproved of it. He also pledged to make amends for his mistakes and work to restore democracy. The following day, he dismissed Prime Minister Sharif-Emami, replacing him with General Gholam Reza Azhari, a moderate military officer. The Shah also arrested and jailed 80 former government officials whom he believed had failed the country and ultimately were responsible for the current unrest; the loss of his staunchest supporters, however, further isolated the Shah. Simultaneously, he also released hundreds of opposition political prisoners.
(Taken from Iranian Revolution – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 4)
Background Under the Shah, Iran developed close political, military, and economic ties with the United States, was firmly West-aligned and anti-communist, and received military and economic aid, as well as purchased vast amounts of weapons and military hardware from the United States. The Shah built a powerful military, at its peak the fifth largest in the world, not only as a deterrent against the Soviet Union but just as important, as a counter against the Arab countries (particularly Iraq), Iran’s traditional rival for supremacy in the Persian Gulf region. Local opposition and dissent were stifled by SAVAK (Organization of Intelligence and National Security; Persian: Sāzemān-e Ettelā’āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar), Iran’s CIA-trained intelligence and security agency that was ruthlessly effective and transformed the country into a police state.
Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, achieved phenomenal economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s and more particularly after the 1973 oil crisis when world oil prices jumped four-fold, generating huge profits for Iran that allowed its government to embark on massive infrastructure construction projects as well as social programs such as health care and education. And in a country where society was both strongly traditionalist and religious (99% of the population is Muslim), the Shah led a government that was both secular and western-oriented, and implemented programs and policies that sought to develop the country based on western technology and some aspects of western culture. Iran’s push to westernize and secularize would be major factors in the coming revolution. The initial signs of what ultimately became a full-blown uprising took place sometime in 1977.
At the core of the Shiite form of Islam in Iran is the ulama (Islamic scholars) led by ayatollahs (the top clerics) in a religious hierarchy that includes other orders of preachers, prayer leaders, and cleric authorities that administered the 9,000 mosques around the country. Traditionally, the ulama was apolitical and did not interfere with state policies, but occasionally offered counsel or its opinions on government matters and policies.
In January 1963, the Shah launched sweeping major social and economic reforms aimed at shedding off the country’s feudal, traditionalist culture and to modernize society. These ambitious reforms, known as the “White Revolution”, included programs that advanced health care and education, and the labor and business sectors. The centerpiece of these reforms, however, was agrarian reform, where the government broke up the vast agriculture landholdings owned by the landed few and distributed the divided parcels to landless peasants who formed the great majority of the rural population. While land reform achieved some measure of success with about 50% of peasants acquiring land, the program failed to win over the rural population as the Shah intended; instead, the deeply religious peasants remained loyal to the clergy. Agrarian reform also antagonized the clergy, as most clerics belonged to wealthy landowning families who now were deprived of their lands.
Much of the clergy did not openly oppose these reforms, except for some clerics in Qom led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who in January 22, 1963 denounced the Shah for implementing the White Revolution; this would mark the start of a long antagonism that would culminate in the clash between secularism and religion fifteen years later. The clerics also opposed other aspects of the White Revolution, including extending voting rights to women and allowing non-Muslims to hold government office, as well as because the reforms would reduce the cleric’s influence in education and family law. The Shah responded to Ayatollah Khomeini’s attacks by rebuking the religious establishment as being old-fashioned and inward-looking, which drew outrage from even moderate clerics. Then on June 3, 1963, Ayatollah Khomeini launched personal attacks on the Shah, calling the latter “a wretched, miserable man” and likening the monarch to the “tyrant” Yazid I (an Islamic caliph of the 7th century). The government responded two days later, on June 5, 1963, by arresting and jailing the cleric.
Ayatollah Khomeini’s arrest sparked strong protests that degenerated into riots in Tehran, Qom, Shiraz, and other cities. By the third day, the violence had been quelled, but not before a disputed number of protesters were killed, i.e. government cites 32 fatalities, the opposition gives 15,000, and other sources indicate hundreds.
Ayatollah Khomeini was released a few months later. Then on October 26, 1964, he again denounced the government, this time for the Iranian parliament’s recent approval of the so-called “Capitulation” Bill, which stipulated that U.S. military and civilian personnel in Iran, if charged with committing criminal offenses, could not be prosecuted in Iranian courts. To Ayatollah Khomeini, the law was evidence that the Shah and the Iranian government were subservient to the United States. The ayatollah again was arrested and imprisoned; government and military leaders deliberated on his fate, which included execution (but rejected out of concerns that it might incite more unrest), and finally decided to exile the cleric. In November 1964, Ayatollah Khomeini was forced to leave the country; he eventually settled in Najaf, Iraq, where he lived for the next 14 years.
While in exile, the cleric refined his absolutist version of the Islamic concept of the “Wilayat al Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurisprudent), which stipulates that an Islamic country’s highest spiritual and political authority must rest with the best-qualified member (jurisprudent) of the Shiite clergy, who imposes Sharia (Islamic) Law and ensures that state policies and decrees conform with this law. The cleric formerly had accepted the Shah and the monarchy in the original concept of Wilayat al Faqih; later, however, he viewed all forms of royalty incompatible with Islamic rule. In fact, the ayatollah would later reject all other (European) forms of government, specifically citing democracy and communism, and famously declared that an Islamic government is “neither east nor west”.
Ayatollah Khomeini’s political vision of clerical rule was disseminated in religious circles and mosques throughout Iran from audio recordings that were smuggled into the country by his followers and which was tolerated or largely ignored by Iranian government authorities. In the later years of his exile, however, the cleric had become somewhat forgotten in Iran, particularly among the younger age groups.
Meanwhile in Iran, the Shah continued to carry out secular programs that alienated most of the population. In October 1971, to commemorate 25 centuries since the founding of the Persian Empire, the Shah organized a lavish program of activities in Persepolis, capital of the First Persian Empire. Then in March 1976, the Shah announced that Iran henceforth would adopt the “imperial” calendar (based on the reign of Persian king Cyrus the Great) to replace the Islamic calendar. These acts, considered anti-Islamic by the clergy and many Iranians, would form part of the anti-royalist backlash in the coming revolution.