Let's Talk About Iran

Iranian women in Shiraz wearing the chador.

Alice C. Linsley

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was born in 1919, the son of Reza Shah, an army officer who came to rule Persia after forcing out the previous Qajar dynasty with the backing of the British. He re-named his nation "Iran" and ordered foreign diplomats to cease using the name Persia.

Iran’s strong trade ties with Germany, and Western fears of possible Nazi control of the Iranian oil fields led to a Russian-British invasion of the country in 1941. At the insistence of the occupying British forces, Reza Shah abdicated in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Reza Pahlavi was a very ambitious leader who attempted to drag Iran into the 20th century. Modern western styles were forced upon the Iranians under the Shah who did a great deal of window dressing to gain military and economic support from the West. Along with Western styles can public drinking, nudity in movies, and an influx of foreign nationals on such a large scale that housing and food costs became impossible for most Iranians. The Shah demanded that women not wear the chador. Older women refused to appear in public because for them this was an issue of modesty. The religious conservatives greatly resented the imposition of Western style and values. They also opposed the shah granting suffrage to women and his opening of private universities.

I lived in the city of Isfahan and felt the growing resentment. I left 1 year before the 1979 Islamic revolution and the capture of hostages in Tehran.

Nomadic peoples did not fare much better under the Shah. The Bahktiari were pressured to give up migration and the men were to wear western suit jackets. The Shah imprisoned and executed some of their leaders. The Shah's government was troubled by their semi-autonomy and their agreement with the British to protect the oil pipelines and share in the profits of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company. The Bakhtiaris were ordered to surrender their weapons and some were rounded up for conscription duties away from their territory. 

Qashqai women and children in Southern Iran

The Qashqai are another nomadic people who suffered under the Shah. The Qashgais revolted during 1962–1964 due to the land reforms of the White Revolution that endangered their herds. Most of their tribal leaders were exiled. After the 1979 Revolution their leader, Khosrow Khan Qashqai, returned to Iran from exile in the United States and Germany.

There has been growing interest in Iran since General Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force was killed on January 3 in Baghdad, Iraq. He was a responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations and suspected of proving aid to terrorists groups in Asia and Africa.

In 2011, Soleimani's men recruited a drug dealer named Manssor Arbabsiar to attempt to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, DC because Al-Jubeir had publicly decried Soleimani's terror ties.

After the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad and Soleimani's assassination, some fear that the Iranians and Iraqis will join forces against the United States, seeking retaliation. That may be so, but historically, the Iranians and the Iraqis are not natural allies. They are culturally and ethnically very different and do not share the same religious beliefs. Iranians are Indo-Europeans and Iraqis are Arabs. Iranians adhere to Shia Islam and Iraqis to Sunni Islam. The two groups hate each other.

Related reading: Chronology of Iranian Events Leading Up to the Hostage Crisis; Photos of Iranians in Tehran Before the Revolution

The Middle East seesaw

George Friedman


A painful realignment of forces coincides with the European debt crisis.


U.S. troops are in the process of completing their withdrawal from Iraq by the end-of-2011 deadline. We are now moving toward a reckoning with the consequences. The reckoning concerns the potential for a massive shift in the balance of power in the region, with Iran moving from a fairly marginal power to potentially a dominant power. As the process unfolds, the United States and Israel are making countermoves. We have discussed all of this extensively. Questions remain whether these countermoves will stabilize the region and whether or how far Iran will go in its response.

Iran has been preparing for the U.S. withdrawal. While it is unreasonable simply to say that Iran will dominate Iraq, it is fair to say Tehran will have tremendous influence in Baghdad to the point of being able to block Iraqi initiatives Iran opposes. This influence will increase as the U.S. withdrawal concludes and it becomes clear there will be no sudden reversal in the withdrawal policy. Iraqi politicians’ calculus must account for the nearness of Iranian power and the increasing distance and irrelevance of American power.

Resisting Iran under these conditions likely would prove ineffective and dangerous. Some, like the Kurds, believe they have guarantees from the Americans and that substantial investment in Kurdish oil by American companies means those commitments will be honored. A look at the map, however, shows how difficult it would be for the United States to do so. The Baghdad regime has arrested Sunni leaders while the Shia, not all of whom are pro-Iranian by any means, know the price of overenthusiastic resistance.

Syria and Iran
The situation in Syria complicates all of this. The minority Alawite sect has dominated the Syrian government since 1970, when the current president’s father — who headed the Syrian air force — staged a coup. The Alawites are a heterodox Muslim sect related to a Shiite offshoot and make up about 7 percent of the country’s population, which is mostly Sunni. The new Alawite government was Nasserite in nature, meaning it was secular, socialist and built around the military. When Islam rose as a political force in the Arab world, the Syrians — alienated from the Sadat regime in Egypt — saw Iran as a bulwark. The Iranian Islamist regime gave the Syrian secular regime immunity against Shiite fundamentalists in Lebanon. The Iranians also gave Syria support in its external adventures in Lebanon, and more important, in its suppression of Syria’s Sunni majority.


Read it all here.