By: C.N.
(The following article was sent to Persian Heritage and does not represent the opinion of the magazine)
Years later and during the reign of his son, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, that bold decision was reversed and during the short premiership of Hassan Ali Mansoor it was reactivated. It was done in a surreptitious way assuming that it would not be public because it was so unpopular. But one member of clergy, Hojatolislam Ruhollah Khomeini learned about it and worked out a plot to embarrass the Shah, and thus was the source of what has happened ever since.
His revolt exploded on 15thof Khordad, June of l963. It was a serious blow to the regime and had it not been suppressed it may have hastened what came to be known as the Islamic Revolution. That was the whole purpose. At the urging of Assadolla Alam, who was trusted by the Shah, this violent uprising was brutally suppressed and many people lost their lives. However, the movement never died. It changed its strategy working under the radar and slowly and methodically prepared the foundation of what followed so violently 16 years later. There were numerous plans that were implemented one by one. They seemed innocent at the time but later showed up as components of a larger destructive scheme. The remnants of the slaughter of 15th Khordad had penetrated the armed forces. The soldiers in the Shah’s army were conscript and heavily religious. During some of the demonstrations they sided with demonstrators. Worse than that the plotters penetrated in Imperial Guard which was designed to protect the Shah. They were called the Immortals. On one occasion one of the soldiers opened fire in the soldiers’ mess and killed quite a few. All of these were designed to shake the regime and were extremely effective. They also showed deep penetration in the regime where the Shah and his sycophants presumed they were secure.
As part of a long-term strategy, the schemers picked simple young men from highly religious communities, like Isfahan, and sent them to countries like Syria, Libya and Palestinian camps to be trained as terrorist. It should be reminded that these countries and Palestinian (after the revolution succeeded and the Shah left, Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader visited Tehran where he met with his collaborators. This did not go well with the nationalist who were completely against the Shah’s regime for his action in recognizing Israel. They were doing everything to undermine his regime. One effective way was to train young men in terror tactics so that could be used to terrorize people and institutions that the regime depended on to run the government. It turned out, that whoever thought of the scheme, knew exactly what they were doing. Another plan which seemed to be very effective was to establish schools just for girls. On the face of it seemed very innocent. But in the process, they trained young women to take part in demonstrations against the regime and against the Shah. These girls dressed in black veils formed the first line of the demonstrations. They knew that the soldiers, who were most likely from poor or middle class families, would hesitate or not fire at women. These girls were also trained to follow the members of the clergy, who were always present during such moves.
While these demonstrations were taking place, another violent group called the Mujahidin were doing their destructive share by blowing up bars and businesses like the BMW dealership (which catered to the wealthy) or setting movie houses on fire. To finance their destructive operations, they would rob banks which forced the banks to hire armed guards for protection. Meanwhile the young people that were sent (by the invisible Mullahs) to Syria, Libya and Palestinian camps for terrorist training were busy doing their destructive work. All of these activities were intended to destabilize the regime and prepare it for ultimate collapse, which succeeded.
Meanwhile the American Ambassador urged the Shah to leave the country, because the regime was collapsing piece by piece. The terrorist elements trained by the Arabs who could not stand the Shah, because of his non-Arab policies which were strictly in the best interest of Iran, were enjoying the destructive events that were being orchestrated by the Mullahs. The coalition that had emerged was also taking great pleasure knowing the structure that had evolved during the last two decades after the Coup. In this coalition, certain persons have to be blamed more than anyone else. Those persons were the National Front leaders who assumed that once the Shah left they would take over the government. They did not understand their own culture one, where some Mullah’s are like a parasite and therefore has no incentive to disappear and is by nature a consumer who prospers, while others have suffer, as is happening right now in Iran.
The questions are how, however, how does this parasite emerged, how and where did it come from and who is or was the main sponsor/mentor and benefactor of this process? To emphasize the core of this paper.
1: The Role of the Old Nemesis of Iran, the British Intelligent Services
The destructive and demanding behavior of the British in Iran dates back about more than two centuries, when the British made a vast empire on the shoulders of the poor but essentially rich people from the Far East to Asia and the United States.
One of the lasting damages that the Safavi Shahs did to Iran was to create a national religion, an act that was absolutely unnecessary, but was used for political purposes. The decree that Shiiate was the official religion of Iran brought misery to thousands of people who were Sunni, which was an established religion imposed on Iranians by Arabs. From then on, the Shiate clergy found a receptive dynasty and began to get close to the ruling kings, through sycophancy and spreading of superstitions to make sure that people believed in it.
In the early 1500 Century, the British had already expanded their territory and influence world-wide and began to dominate the Indian subcontinent which was endowed with tremendous wealth including precious minerals and natural wealth. Given the Naval power that had contributed to the expansion of the British Isles, they knew that protection of the subcontinent, the best prize in the empire, was paramount, and that the Persian Gulf was the most visible area where other powers of the time, the Ottoman empire, could begin to encroach the friendly relations with the rulers of Iran. This could prevent the Turkish sultanate to subvert the British in that area.
Therefore, they decided to establish some sort of relations beginning with a commercial interest in Iran by using clerical powers with deep influence in the Iranian communities. They began with sending an Indian by the name of Maqsood Ali to investigate the situation. Maqsood was fluent in Persian poetry (the elite language of India before the British changed the whole thing) and entertained groups of Darwish and Soofis. In doing so he earned praise and accommodations. He ultimately convinced the people he was entertaining, to name him “Majlessee” meaning a person who can entertain people in a setting. The date goes back to late 16th century when the British were still expanding the empire and Maqsood was as a matter of fact the first British spy in Iran.
Another small but influential tribe which had serious influence in the emerging Shiiate sect was Jabal Ameli. Despite its size it had an out of proportion influence in spreading Shiiate and by definition superstition in Iran. The reason that these dogmatic elements persisted in Iran and continued to influence kings and other leaders were in a way masters in creating supercilious agents. Agents, that managed to spread false stories among the uneducated and rural people, thereby spreading ignorance. And by definitions they became subservient to regimes that adhered to such superficially myths and made it possible for the rulers to maintain their grips on the population. In many ways, these were the elements that enhanced the rule of Mullahs in Iran.
According to Torab Sultanpour none of what happened , which took about 8 years to take the nation to such a miserable social and economic state, would have occurred had there been good objective advice given to the Shah with serious discussion of the potential consequences that might take place and damage the monarchy. The origin of what happened, and has brought much misery to the nation, goes back to the early 1960’s. This is about 9 years after the CIA and British Intelligence Coup that put an end to premiership of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, who, for the first time, had shown that the Iranians were capable of surviving the ruthless economic sanctions that the British had imposed on them.
Iran was moving ahead in spite of limited foreign exchange resources imposed on the country. Different strata’s of society were beginning to move on, when the sudden shock was felt deeply by the religious community highly concentrated in the city of Qom(a city not known for any political ambitions. This was because the leadership had decided that supporting the Shah was in their interest and their job was educating young men to assume religious activities in different parts of the country.) These Houwzez (circles of religious teachings) were guided by young and aspiring clergy and were financed by personal endowments or subsidies provided by the central government.
According to Turab Soltamour (Centuries of British Intervention in Iranian Affairs) in one of these Houwzes the teaching of religion was not the only subject. The leading clergy was also interested in seeing appropriate implementation of axioms of religion. This young clergy was Ruhollah Khomeini. So when extensive land reform in addition to other social measures were initiated under Prime Minster Assadolah Alam, Mr. Khomeini was alarmed. He wrote a very polite and cordial letter to the Shah expressing great concern about some of the social movements that the Shah had initiated and Alam implemented, regardless of the economic and social-societal-religious structure of Iran.
The Shah’s response was positive and had instructed Alam to inform Mr. Khomeini that his concerns would be considered. Instead Alam shelved the letter and completely ignored the Shah’s instruction. Subsequently Khomaini led an uprising and Alam being in charge crushed the uprising violently with considerable people losing their life. In his memoires Alam refers to the suppression of Khomeini’s movement many times telling the Shah there will never be another Mulla uprising.
In modern historical and commentaries about Alam, one comes to the conclusion that he was a dedicated, trained and absolutely loyal British Intelligent services. In his 6-volume memoire authored by late Dr. A.N. Alikhani, he mentioned specifically that Alam’s grandparents (Arabs) were dispatched to the North Eastern province of Iran to put down a movement that people there had led against the Arab rulers. From then on Alam, being a powerful minster of the Imperial Court did whatever he could to insulate the Shah from criticism and the real deep changes that were taking place in Iran.
The Shah was alarmed at some of the changes and decided to retire Premier Howaida and replace him with a leading technocrat Jamsheed Amuzegar who had shown his capabilities in various high positions in the Government. Being careful about the nation’s Treasury and in preventing waste, Amuzegar created the position of Assistant Premier, who was in charge of the religious endowments which were wealthy and had remained outside the control of the government. This move was not welcomed by numerous Ayatollahs, who had enjoyed the privilege of these endowments.
All of a sudden there was a major fire in a Cinema in Abadan, where hundreds of people lost their lives because the exit doors were locked. That fire was followed by numerous events which gradually created the movement against the regime. The fire at Abadan Cinema was the beginning of serious religious events that nobody could comprehend. Amuzegar resigned and was followed by some incompetent government individuals, all of who were chosen by the Shah himself. This process of course indicates either no close wise advice or no advice at all was given to the Shah. Unfortunately, the Shah ditched the last hope by considering very wrong advice which again was based on no counsel or deep thoughts.
The Final Act and Shah’s Departure:
During the final days and after failures of numerous incompetent cabinets installed by Shah, the time came to ask for help from the peoples ‘people. The Shah invited Dr. Gholam Hossein Sadighi, a distinguished Tehran University Professor, to meet with him. Dr. Sadighi’s last job was Minister of Interior in Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh’s cabinet. He was most well-known for his devotion to Iran and the national interests. Rule of law had an unequal primacy in late the Dr. Sadighi’s mind.
In his last desperate hours and days, the Shah was alone. All the men who had advised him, honestly and carefully, were either dead or had left the country heart-broken. The ones inside the country did not trust the Shah to tell him anything. On the one hand American Ambassador Sullivan was telling him to find someone with national popularity and with a base of political support and on the other hand military people were telling him to appoint a strong general to quell the turmoil. While he was considering Dr. Sadighi’s appointment as a leader to take the helm and provide some sort of stability, something happened that was completely false and loaded with potential problems and possible violence. The person who did this was head of SAVAK, the intelligence agency who intervened and convinced the Shah to allow Dr. Shahpour Bakhtiar to take the helm. Bakhtiar was an honest man who had fought against foreign interest, primarily British, in Iran, but he did not have a strong political base nor the support of the leadership of the National Front. The head of the SAVAK argued on points that were irrelevant at this crucial time, but the Shah bought the argument and finally appointed Bakhtiar as prime minister. Soon after the appointment, the National Front leaders denounced the appointment Ipso Facto and denied Bakhtiar the moral and political support that he needed at the time.
In a few weeks, his government collapsed and leadership of the Armed Forces declared their neutrality and the Calamity began to wreak havoc for the last 42 years.
The system has the taken human cruelty to new levels. First was execution of more than 5000 political prisoners (most of them talented university students) ordered by Khomeini and implemented by the Death Commission, whose members included Ibrahim Raisi, Rafsanjani (himself killed by Khamenei’s order) and many others whose credentials included executing innocent people. The last act is the presidency of Raisi, whose election was rigged in broad day light.
Human suffering has been taken to new heights under a regime, who has a well established reputation for corruption and human suppression. Raisi admitted that the execution of the 5000 bight and talented students was one of the proud achievements of the system.
“As Robespierre of the French Revolution and Trotsky of Russia reflected in their final moments, all revolutions end up eating their own.”
What else one can say?