Reza Vaghefi —
Persian Heritage, #112, Summer 2024 —
Introduction:
Throughout history and in every nation, the leaders are perpetually concerned about their own personal safety and preservation. But the problem is that some rulers, kings, president, Fuhrers learn from each other either by design or simply out of thinking that such and such event may not happen to me which in essence it creates serious problems.
The Founder of Pahlavi Dynasty, Reza Shah came to power in 1925 and served the nation until 1941 when he was forced to retire. He created a nationally well-disciplined army. When a soldier completed his two years of military duty, he was given a concealed letter and was told in case the nation is attacked, he should open the latter and follow the instruction as to where to report for military duty.
Then What Happened
But when the Russians invaded Iran, General Nakhjevan, the Minister of War, ordered the Northern Army to put down their guns and Reza Shah, disgusted with such decision, was faced with fate accompli. Which takes us forward to the days that revolutionary turmoil was rule of the day in Iran.
The scenario has not changed much except that there was no foreign army preparing to attack Iran, it was the Islamic revolution preparing to take over Shah’s government.
And Happened Again
So, on Bahman 22, 1357 (late in 1978) the top commanders of the Iranian armed forces announced that the army shall remain neutral, which Ipso Facto speeded up collapse of the Imperial regime. Personally, I heard this announcement on the Tehran radio and told my wife “It is over”. These commanders were all promoted to their position and had sworn loyalty to Shah as the supreme commander of the armed forces.
The question is how this happened?-According to Iraj Mesdaghi’s Five volumes documentary (Page 9 first Volume), there were extensive discussion among the top commanders of the armed forces, General Huyser (representing President Jimmy Carter) and Ayatollah Beheshti, representing Ayatollah Khomeini about ways to maintain the integrity of the armed forces (given the fact that USSR was just across northwest border of Iran) and transfer the power to the revolutionaries.
Even before that epochal decision people like A.A. Hashemi Rafsanjani (later speaker of Parliament in new regime, and recently to be drowned in a pool by the regime he helped create) Motahari, and Montazeri met with Lt. General Nasser Moghadam, head of SAVAK, the dreadful security organization, to speak about necessary arrangement to bloodlessly transfer power.
Making Mockery of a Promise
Khomeini had promised not to execute the commanders of the regime’s armed forces to entice their cooperation.
But after the revolution succeeded in replacing the Shah’s regime all the top commanders were captured, sent to prison and executed. Once the Provisional government of Mehdi Bazargan was in office, General Fardoost, Shah’s closest friend and confidant (and a British spy) told head of SAVAK to report to Prime Minister’s office to receive his appointment in the new government. Moghadam, naively, did so and was arrested by revolutionaries and executed.
Once the revolutionary people solidified their position and took over the Courts and justice system, they put on trial the very same people who had helped their transition to power. The Head of SAVAK had to be liquidated to obfuscate, forever, the deal and wheel he had with the new regime.
A big question here is: Didn’t Moghadam, the head of SAVAK know that Fardoost who had encouraged him to fall into the trap, was himself a British spy?
All those who fell into trap including Minister of Education Farokhru Parsa had helped people like Beheshti who duplicitously put them to death to cover his previous cooperative engagements.
The only person who knew how duplicitous and treacherous these holy men were, was Ayatollah Taleghani, the most trustworthy and respected clergy by the people. He warned Bazargan not to accept premiership in the new regime. He said they are not loyal and reliable. He knew clergy as Hafez, the national poet, had said more than 800 years ago. Duplicity is the hallmark of clergy. He was sidelined and ultimately had a heart attack and died soon after.
History Repeats Itself
All of us have heard the phrase: History repeats itself. All revolutions seem to have their henchman and Islamic revolution was no different except that it all happened under the guise of religion by holy men. Chinese revolution under Mao Zedong was to save poor farmers but thousands of farmers lost their lives. Russian revolution of November 1917 was to remove the Tesar, but Lennin and his successor Stalin established a reign of terror during which Tesar Alexander and his family, and thousands of farmers died of famine and Trotsky who was favored by the army left Russia to be assassinated years later in Latin America.
Of all the revolution during the last 400 years, French Revolution and Islamic revolution seems to have something in common which differentiates them from others.
Reign of Terror:
During the early phase of French revolution there were people that preferred liberalism against tyranny and bloodshed. And there were others that voiced Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The former goal was inspired by people like Lafayette and the latter by a 30-year-old lawyer named Maximillan Robespierre.
For a good part of the year after the revolution everybody was trying to take a position but gradually Robespierre and his gang of workers used the dreadful Guillotine to slaughter thousands of innocent people and spread fear where nobody felt safe.
Antoine Lavoisier, the famous French chemist was one the unfortunates. There were thousands of innocents and nobility who were sent to guillotine.
Murderer Meets the Death
Finally, other groups that made up the revolutionary corps gathered and realized the atrocities committed by Robespierre and decided it was his turn to face the guillotine.
The Islamic revolution had its own Robespierre, Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti. He was nowhere to be seen early on but soon he emerged and tried to dominate the narrative of the revolution. Supported by Ayatollah Khomeini who installed him as the Chief justice, he proliferated as much power as possible especially in Judiciary where he did his best to neutralize a modern system that had evolved over 100 years and substituted it with 14the Century Islamic dogmas.
Iranian Bar Association was dismantled and some of its leader went underground or left the country fearing jail time. Meanwhile as top head of judiciary, Beheshti appointed highly unqualified people to carry out a reign of terror. Many groups that had a major role in the success of revolution including the leaders of National Front were discredited and left for Europe.
It is Time for Him to Go
Ayatollah Beheshti established Islamic Republic Party and appointed some thugs to the leadership position, and they returned the favor electing him as the party leader. Finally in a general meeting of the Party leadership, he was assassinated by a bomb deployed under podium behind which he was speaking. Another bomb had been deployed next to the pillar of the Hall.
When the explosions occurred, all the leadership was wiped out. Ayatollah Khomeini learned of the disaster and ordered massive arrest and execution of people suspected and a reign of terror intensified with more people executed in a short period of time. So, both Robespierre and Beheshti created their own destiny by destroying so many precious lives. Here ends the similarities between the two revolutions but the tragedy is that one of the two could have been prevented if deep thinking had prevailed.
A Preventable Tragedy
If and only if the late Shah and the leadership in the White House had listened to Abol Hassan Ebtehaj, it is quite possible that Iranian revolution could have been avoided. Before accepting the leadership of Plan Organization in 1954-59, Ebtehaj pleaded with the Shah to allow the oil revenues to be allocated to economic development projects to raise the standard of living of millions of Iranians who were deprived of necessary means of living.
The Tragedy that Could Have been Avoided.
Furthermore, after the rebellion of 1965, which was led by an unknown clergy, Ruhollah Khomeini, was put down by Asadullah Allam, Ebthaj warned the American government that, if necessary, measures were not taken to improve peoples’ living conditions worse would be inevitable.
Neither Shah nor his supporters in the White House cared to take him seriously. Ebtehaj was prescient and fully aware of the social mood and effects of corruption that had tarnished the Shah’s regime. So, the roots of revolution in Iran were more visible than the French nobility and aristocrats that occupied special position in France.
Everything Is Fine at Imperial Court
It is not surprising that Ebtehaj’s warning did not receive a welcoming audience in Iran simply because Shah was surrounded by meticulous sycophants who told him not to worry about Mullah who would never have a chance for uprising again.
The White House occupiers were even worse in terms of vision for the future of their puppet in Iran given the fact that they had plundered so much in Vietnam (By late President Johnson) and years later created a disaster by George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan creating ISIS and Abu Ghraib and now by thoughtless Biden in heart the Arab world.
When American Leaders Wake-up?
The two revolutions that people supported ended up with different outcomes. In France people ultimately received what they had fought for: Freedom and democracy as is observable today in streets of Paris from time to time. In addition, the revolution produced a young military man and the leaders thought they had a puppet who would carry out their orders. They were wrong. Napoleon Bonapart turned out to be a brilliant military strategist who spread the message of the revolution throughout Europe.
Napoleon also created the Napoleonic Code which became the foundation of proper justice. Additionally, he advanced meritocracy, equality before the law, modern secular education was all codified and extended by Napoleon, Fareed Zakaria (p.95)
The opposite happened in Iran. With all the problems before the revolution, meritocracy was beginning to establish a foothold in the country in addition to justice which was not perfect but did some good for society.
In the New Regime
Meritocracy was replaced by Nepotism; justice system flew away and was replaced by 14th century Islamic shariah. Women become second class citizens and their rights wiped out to be replaced by men who may not allow their partner to leave the country without written permission. Women were considered not reliable to leadership and were expected to be good housewife. But Woman, Life, Freedom rose and shall never die. It will be a return one day.
Conclusion:
In Iran, the people who rose up and changed the regime wanted freedom and an uncorruptible regime. What they received, instead, has been worst corruption, bloodshed, depravity, isolation, suppression and a Mullah aristocracy plus highly stratified society where the upper class composed of corrupt clergy and people of high position in the government enjoy all the privileges of a good life whereas the rest of people immiserated cannot afford a minimum wherewithal to survive.
In sum, shah was brought down by the very people that he had tried to provide them with advanced weapons. Many in America, such as Dean Acheson and President Truman had advised him to improve people’s life, giving example of Chian Kai Check but Shah was insisting for more weapons.
We should hope that future leaders learn from the mistakes of their past peers. Hope is the only phenomenon that binds all of us. Hope can change the Darkness at Noon (by Albert Camu) .
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Sources:
– Iraj Mesdaghi, The Islamic Revolution in 5 volumes.
– Fareed Zakaria, Age of Revolution. Second of ten on NYTimes list of Nonfiction publications.