Iran is a country that gets a lot of attention.
Whether its nuclear ambitions are the target
of a broad multilateral deal… or at least
it was… or as a significant player in middle-eastern
politics.
To many, Iran is one of the chief bad guy
countries in the world right now.
Heck, they were even part of the Axis of Evil.
However, you and I both know that when powerful
nations portray another country as irredeemably
evil, that way more is going on.
Let's look at the origin story for the Iran
of today.
Hi, I'm Tristan Johnson, and this is Step
Back History, where we see history sideways.
Iran today is one of the big players in the
middle-east.
People have been living there for an absurd
amount of time.
A scale set in the multiples of thousands
of years.
It has gone through many different religions,
cultural upheavals, and dynasties.
The Iran of today has no king, however.
It's an Islamic Republic, a sort of mix of
theocracy and democratic republic.
The origins of Iran in its modern form traces
its roots to the late 1970s, but the story
of how we got to the Iran of today is a bit
older.
Our story starts during a game, well the great
game.
The Russian empire in the north, and the British
from India in the south treated this region
as a massive game of Settlers of Catan in
the 19th century.
In a series of wars of conquests, Iran, called
Persia lost much of their autonomy to foreign
influence.
Local merchants struggled to compete with
the colonial advantages of Europeans bringing
in goods.
This manifested in a wave of anger towards
the ruling Qajar dynasty.
They believed he was a leader who cared little
about his citizens.
Probably because he did things like give British
entrepreneur Julius de Reuter the right to
control all of Persia's factories, mills,
resources, roads, telegraphs, and many other
public works in exchange for a cut of the
profits.
However, the anger erupted when the leader
Nasir al-din Shah, who you might remember
from my Baha'i video, allowed for the British
to hold a monopoly on tobacco in Persia.
The angry hundreds of thousands who would
lose their livelihood from this deal pounded
the streets to protest this monopoly.
But what's important is that the merchants
got help from a group called the ulema, the
Islamic scholar class.
These were the people who ran the schools,
charities and judged court cases.
The ulema declared an 1891 fatwa or Islamic
legal decision outlawing the use of tobacco.
The fatwa functioned as a successful tobacco
boycott.
The Shah cancelled the deal, and another fatwa
allowed for smoking again.
This action was vital because it was when
the Marja al-Taqlid, the highest religious
and legal authorities in Twelver Shia Islam,
flexed their power against the Shah.
Something which would lead Iran down the path
to revolution.
Iranians call this period of protest the Tobacco
Rebellion.
The victory was short.
The financial situation of Persia led to the
next ruler Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to make
more concessions to foreign, but especially
Russian influence.
His own lifestyle costs resulted in the Shah
seeking out loans from the British and the
Russians.
To pay back that loan, Iran levied tariffs.
These taxes led to another uprising similar
to the Tobacco Rebellion.
To receive sanctuary from the Persian government
protestors took refuge in an important mosque.
However, the government violated the sanctity
of the mosque to disperse the crowd.
This incident made the demonstrators explode
in number, and tons of people agitated to
oppose the Shah.
Protestors clashed with Russian elite Cossack
troops.
A descendant of Muhammad himself died in the
fray, and the protests never ceased.
The demonstrators eventually forced the Shah
to dismiss his Prime-minister and give power
over to a House of Justice, which would ultimately
become a parliament.
The Persians made a constitution for the first
time.
Figuring out how to make a new parliament
work is a fairly unstable process.
After the Constitutional Revolution, a Persian
Cossack general took power in a coup in 1921.
The general deposed the last Qajar Shah and
paved the way to make a constitutional monarchy.
He went by the name Reza Shah.
He reformed the relationship with Russia with
a treaty of friendship with the USSR.
This new Shah tried to implement many pro-western
reforms, including the replacement of the
Islamic legal code.
This included brutal crackdowns on Islamic
clothing like the hijab.
Police would tear them off women in the streets
who wore the veil in protest of the reforms.
As you can imagine, this made this new Shah
less than popular.
Remember all those concessions of Iran's resources
to European powers?
Well, one resource becoming more and more
relevant was oil.
The monopoly company was called the Anglo-Persian
or Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
The company grew very profitable, as in THE
MOST PROFITABLE COMPANY ON EARTH.
And guess how much of that immense wealth
was moving to anyone but the Shah?
Come on, guess, It's a number between one
and negative one.
Iranians lived in poverty while the British
oil barons pumped the most essential resource
on earth from under their territory.
Those oil barons would later go on to become
British Petroleum or BP today!
Luckily, Persia was now a democracy!
The protestors listened to all the nice liberals,
and instead of just being angry on the streets
they made their voices known with their ballots.
In 1951, the Iranians exercised their freedoms
and elected a new Prime Minister who vowed
to bring the resource wealth of Iran back
to Iranians.
His name was Mohammad Mosaddegh.
Hey!
Success!
Iran's wealth was going to belong to its people
again!
Score for the good guys.
Well…
The British didn't take this rebuff so well
and used their navy to impose an embargo on
the Persian Gulf against Iran.
Mosaddegh didn't budge.
He told the newspapers that he'd rather be
fried in Iranian oil than give any of it to
the British.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill tried
to organise an armed invasion of Iran to force
the Mosaddegh to surrender Iran's sovereignty,
but American President Harry Truman put the
kybosh on that.
Churchill tried to form a coup, but Mosaddegh
ordered all British ambassadors to leave and
shuttered their embassy before he could do
it.
So what's a racist imperial warmonger like
Churchill to do when the Iranians won't turn
over their resources to you, and the Americans
won't help out?
Leisurely, just wait for the Republicans to
get elected.
In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower was elected president.
And we cant let those nonwhite countries control
their own oil, can we?
In January 1953, the CIA and the state department
let the British know that the US had their
backs.
It was time to remove Mossadegh.
To destroy the only democratic government
in Iran's multimillennial long history.
Now, this event should be its own video so
I will go over the next events very quickly.
The CIA orchestrated a coup of Mossadegh in
something called Operation Ajax.
The CIA installed a brief military dictatorship
to impose the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to
rule as a more powerful monarch.
Just one more event in a long chain of the
US stomping out inconvenient democracies to
install pro-American dictators.
I'm sure there will be many many MANY more
videos in my future on these types of events.
Hey doesn't that explain why the Iranians
don't like the US?
Nah, couldn't be.
What's a little toppling your elected government
to put in a repressive dictator between friends?
Anyways, without that inconvenient democracy
to slow him down, the Shah set forth on a
series of significant reforms in Iran collectively
called the White Revolution.
Some of these reforms were pretty good things.
Some of them were kinda terrible things.
All of them garnered a mounting traditionalist
backlash that now associated stuff like the
enfranchisement of women and literacy corps
with the fist of US imperialism.
Interventionism just always works out well,
doesn't it?
The White Revolution was another stab at westernisation,
as well as an attempt to dismantle the major
institutions in the country that opposed the
Shah's rule like the merchants or those pesky
Islamic scholars.
His efforts to limit the powers of landlords
and the aristocracy (except himself of course)
led to the Shah making new enemies.
Land reforms and education produced lots of
urban workers and intellectuals, none big
fans of the monarchy.
Especially since the government outlawed unions,
political parties, and independent media.
Oh, and the Shah believed in the nonsense
of trickle-down economics.
The inequality gap grew massive, and that
doesn't make you friends.
The Shah appeared despotic and disinterested
with the welfare of the people.
Probably because the Shah was despotic and
disinterested in the welfare of the people.
Do you know who did seem to have the interests
of the massive numbers of unlanded labourers
at heart?
Those Islamic scholars and clergy from earlier
in this video.
One particular cleric important to this story
was the Ayatolla, an important title in the
Twelver Shia faith.
His name was Ruhollah Khomeini.
During these changes, Knomeini emerged on
the scene as a prominent enemy of the Shah.
He declared the Shah's actions as setting
Iran on an inevitable path towards ruin.
After leading a series of significant agitations,
the Shah exiled Khomeini from Iran, where
he lived for fifteen years in Iraq and later
in France.
Khomeini's influence was not gone, and the
pieces he set in motion did not go away.
He developed ideas through his writing formalising
the opposition to the Shah's reforms in the
context of an international movement against
western imperialism.
He combined these ideas with an Islamic legal
code that opponents of the Shah saw as the
way to liberate the colonised world from westerners.
Those opposing the Shah began to espouse this
ideology which included the concept of a nation
ruled by an Islamic scholar class.
The opponents to the Shah were not only religious
authorities.
Those who wanted to see a return of Iran's
democracy agitated against the Shah's actions
as well.
These included Marxist groups and liberals
who wanted to bring back the constitutional
monarchy.
Khomeini, despite being against these actions
managed to sway these groups under his leadership
by focusing on the common issues they held
together.
Things were unsteady but hadn't yet boiled
over into straight-up revolution.
It would take a few events over the 70s to
bring things to a breaking point.
Some extravagant spending here, inflation
and growing inequality there, oh, and of course
a new tax.
Finally, the secret police of Iran, the SAVAK
were put to blame for the death of a prominent
Islamist scholar, and Ayatollah Khomeini's
own son.
The funeral for his son brought the Ayatollah
back into Iran's attention.
Mourning events happened in major cities around
the country for the Ayatollah's son.
Soon after, an anonymous article denouncing
Khomeini sparked a protest by seminary students
in the city of Qom.
The clash with the police resulted in the
death of as many as seventy protestors and
as many as 500 injuries.
The death of the students pressured the more
moderate clergy members to get involved in
the protests against the Shah.
The alliance between merchants and clergy
dating all the way back to the Tobacco Rebellion
allowed for a movement to quickly develop
around the country.
These turned into significant protests, which
escalated into full riots.
The government deployed the army to suppress
the uprising, with death tolls varying wildly
by as many as hundreds and as few as six.
The government was not ready to handle protests
on such a scale.
Police didn't even have riot gear, and often
they needed the military to intervene, and
despite orders to not use deadly force did
anyway.
This response led to various acts of escalation,
such as the burning down of a movie theatre
with over 400 people inside with the doors
barred.
Both sides blamed each other for the fire.
By August of 1977, the number of protestors
numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
Rampant inflation led to austerity, which
put lots of young men out of work.
Woe to anybody who makes an enemy of a lot
of unemployed young men.
It's the universal symbol some severe stuff's
going to go down.
The government declared martial law after
the bombing of a bus full of American workers.
The Prime Minister resigned.
The Shah responded by trying to appoint a
prime minister he thought the protestors might
like and attempting to appease their every
demand.
The martial law involved a curfew, which the
government stayed for an event called Eid-e-Fitr,
the big celebration at the end of the Islamic
holy month of Ramadan.
What was intended for an open prayer ceremony
quickly became a march of between 200 and
500,000 people.
The protestors demanded the Shah let Khomeini
return, and make Iran into the Islamic Republic
he had written about.
Four days later, 5,000 protestors took to
the streets in violation of the curfew and
clashed with Iranian troops.
The soldiers fired into the mob, murdering
64 protestors in an event now known as Black
Friday.
By the end of the day, Iranian soldiers killed
89 people.
This shocked and appalled the Shah, but the
responsibility rested upon him.
Workers began to strike, starting the day
after Black Friday and bubbling into a general
strike by late October.
Most workers in Iran had walked off the job.
The Shah tried to increase wages and appease
the strikers, hoping to ease the strike down.
The Ayatollah moved from Iraq to France, which
with a better telephone and postage system
allowed him to exercise a more direct role
in the organisation of the resistance to the
Shah.
While in Europe, Khomeini took interviews
with western media, portraying himself to
the world as a man fighting for the liberation
of the Iranian people.
Journalists ate it up, and Khomeini became
a media darling.
He forgot to mention that he intended to impose
a theocratic government.
In November, the leader of the secular resistance
and Khomeini met to draft a new Iranian constitution;
one that would turn Iran into a democracy,
and follow Islamic legal authority.
It was the solidifying of an alliance between
those that opposed the Shah on constitutional
and on religious grounds.
In Iran, protestors destroyed symbols of the
west and the government.
Demonstrators clashed with the military in
a massive riot in Tehran.
Those young unemployed boys trashed Tehran
in an event called the day Tehran burned.
Eventually, the army and the police gave up.
In response, the Shah fired the Prime Minister
and appointed a military government.
That day he made a fateful speech on state
television, claiming he was necessary to see
the changes they want, and admitting wrongdoing
in the corruption and excesses of his regime.
Khomeini responded saying that there would
be no reconciliation and that the only solution
was to depose the Shah.
The revolutionaries didn't see anything but
weakness and were ready to close in with victory
in sight.
The protestors scheduled massive protests
for Shia holidays venerating early martyrs,
bringing out crowds in the millions.
They demanded the return of Khomeini and the
resignation of the Shah.
Roughly ten percent of Iranians came out for
these demonstrations.
Later that month, the Shah did indeed step
down.
Khomeini returned to become both the religious
and political ruler for life.
Now, the leadership of the revolution was
traditionalist, especially when it came to
the role of women in society.
At least in theory.
In reality, many women voted, marched, and
chanted alongside the men.
Khomeini returned to a shell government propped
up by the Shah before he left led by Prime
Minister Shapour Bakhtiar.
People cheered the departure of the Shah and
tore down every symbol of the royal rule.
Bakhtiar promised an end to authoritarian
rule and the return of a democratic government.
He even offered to make a city-state in Qom
like a Shia Vatican City for Khomeini to rule
as a spiritual leader.
This wouldn't do to the newly returned Ayatollah.
As he needed to take a helicopter to get past
the millions of admirers who came to watch
him arrive, he promised to overthrow this
shell government and install a new one based
on his Islamic Republican principles.
He made a provisional government in direct
opposition to Bakhtiar.
Khomeini ordered demonstrations to show how
popular he was and told the Americans to withdraw
support for Bakhtiar's regime.
Bakhtiar's government began to defect, and
the military, unsure of who to support, was
paralysed.
The rebels got their hands on a weapons depot,
and the military officially announced it was
not going to intervene against the revolution.
Iran now belonged to Khomeini.
Bakhtiar fled the country, living in exile
until his assassination in 1991.
Iranians celebrate this period every year
as a national holiday.
Hey folks, intermission Tristan here to give
you this week's CALL TO ACTION.
This video was a result of a stretch goal
on Patreon.
I save my juicy controversial, likely to get
demonetised videos for these goals.
Next up is a history of Al-Qaeda.
There are a bunch of great perks, including
early access to Step Back Videos.
If you can, it would really help to pledge
even as little as a dollar a month over at
Patreon.com/StepBackHistory.
Now Back to the shoooow.
The revolution was over.
Ayatollah Khomeini now ruled a country with
a collapsed economy, disorganised military
and police, and several rival factions within
the revolution.
Khomeini spent the next several years crushing
local rebellions, defeating political rivals,
fending off an invasion by Saddam Hussein's
Iraq, and consolidating his power.
The fight was now not against the Shah, but
a clash between those for and against turning
Iran into an Islamic fundamentalist state.
This consolidation of power rings true of
a lot of revolutions.
Angry committees, kangaroo courts, arbitrary
arrests, a lot of executions, and of course
a new secret police.
Marxists tried to resist the theocratic forces,
but could only hold out for a few months at
best.
Part of this period of turmoil involved arresting
52 American diplomats, accused of propping
up the Shah's shell government.
Iranians surprisingly didn't forget that coup
in 1953.
Iranians kept the hostages for 444 days, resisting
an attempt to free them.
Iran quickly emerged as a part of the growing
third world movement.
An attempt to deny influence from either the
Americans or the Soviets and forge their own
independent path during the Cold War.
They supported movements as far abroad as
the Irish Republican Army, the Sandinistas
in Nicaragua, the fight against apartheid
in South Africa, and even the communists of
Afghanistan.
At home, the revolution went the way Khomeini
wanted.
Iran is now the Islamic republic he wrote
about.
Women's rights have massively backslid, and
the Iranian government routinely comes under
fire for its brutal executions.
Human rights abuses run rampant, and no one
seems more angry about it these days than
the Iranians themselves.
In the last several years, massive protests
have picked up against the rule of Khomeini's
successor Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
Inequality is increasing, and the pinch of
sustained sanctions is causing unrest.
Iran's revolution is in a critical phase.
Coming up on 40 years later, a whole generation
without any experience of the revolution has
come of age, and they want the same things
everyone wants, and it seems this regime has
been having trouble providing it.
Today, because of this act of rebellion, Iran
is an international pariah state.
Attempts to bring them into the international
community are often torpedoed by the British
or the United States.
They are a country today embattled on all
sides by growing US imperialism in their neighbours
such as the early 2000s American conquest
of Iraq.
Their attempt to develop nuclear power in
this context was met with a few thinking face
emojis.
Several international attempts to stop it
included a surprisingly sophisticated cyber
attack from the Israeli secret service and
the Obama administration offered to bring
them back into the international community
in return for a stay on their nuclear development.
That is until someone pulled the US out, killing
the agreement.
Iran's revolution is a modern example of a
familiar story.
Colonisation, intervention, and revolution
created this both modern and traditionalist
state.
Where it goes next is anyone's guess.
Please deposit said guesses down in the comments.
Thanks to 12 tone for the theme, and Patreon
patrons Don and Kerry Johnson, Kolbeinn Mani,
Garrick Kwan, and Scott Smith.
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for more history.
Come back next week for more Step Back.
