Throughout the course of the Iranian revolution, the U.S. played many roles, often with varying consequences and effects. But, through these roles, the U.S. molded the outcome of the Revolution itself. At the beginning of the Revolution, the U.S. was in support of the recently-risen to power Reza Shah, who was a great advocator of westernization and modernization in Iran. Even after the deposition of Reza Shah and the subsequent rise to power of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the U.S. still had managed not to interfere in Iranian affairs unlike their wartime Soviet and English allies. It was not until 1953 that the U.S. made its first appearance in the Iranian revolution. At the height of the Cold-War, our allies tipped us off to a “soviet” threat lead by the Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh. In a magnificent display of 1950’s soviet fear, the U.S. sends in team from the recently formed CIA to unseat the Prime Minister, which the team accomplishes. It is from this initial takedown that trust for the U.S. begins to diminish in the eyes of the Iranian people, a crucial trust which would play a big role later in the revolution.
Some time later, Ayatollah Khomeini, the primary leader amongst the Anti-Shah faction, would coin the term “The Great Satan” for the United States. Khomeini viewed the U.S. as such because he viewed it as the pinnacle of Western corruption. It was the U.S. who was the leading super-power in the world at the time, and it was the U.S. who was the model of Western thought and society. It was this western society that Khomeini viewed was corrupting the true Iran, the Islamic Iran. In 1979, after 14 years of exile, returned to Iran and rose to power, appointing Mehdi Bazargan as the Prime Minister of Iran, with no official authority behind him.
3 years later, in 1982, Iran and Iraq were at war over a territory near the Gaza Strip. This Iran-Iraq war was a pinnacle point in the U.S. manipulation of the Iranian revolution. The Iraqis, committing war-crimes in doing so, used mustard gas and nerve gas against the Iranian soldiers during the war. This nerve gas was provided to the Iraqi forces by none other than the U.S., who were at this point on good terms with the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In response to this use of nerve gas, the U.S. started providing arms to the Iranian soldiers, in what can be called an attempt to even out the playing field. This war had a very drastic effect on the Iranian people, as supporters and those against the war became increasingly radical, the two opposing sides being the Basij and Khomeini respectively.
In conclusion, the U.S. not only played an important role in the Iranian revolution as a victim, but played a role as a player and molder as well.
There are some factual errors in here--Khomeini was not opposed to the war, for example, and Reza Shah did not rule at the beginning of the revolution, but long before it, in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.
ReplyDeleteBeyond those points, though, are you suggesting that the US actually was something like a "Great Satan" for Iran?