Ali Rahnema - The Rise of Modern Despotism in Iran: The Shah, the Opposition, and the US, 1953–1968

The history of the Pahlavi era is full of holes and lacunas. Different aspects and periods of it need to be studied and placed under the microscope. This book attempts to address one of those lacunas. Broad historical overviews exist of the political developments between 1953 and 1968 with varying conclusions. No matter which paradigm or yardstick one uses, it is crucial to demonstrate as precisely as possible how one has reached certain conclusions. Invoking an anecdotal event or statement to explain complex historical consequences is simplistic, mechanical, and unfair to the arduous and intricate unfolding of history. This work is interested in detail. It draws upon the actions and reactions, the causes and consequences, the threats, and counter-threats, and finally, the multi-layered interconnections that provide evidence for the conclusions drawn. The aggregate picture only comes to life through parading micro-details.

Leaps in historical narratives, typical of the survey method of historiography, provide for captivating crescendos and conclusions. But they leave out important connections, motives, nuances, and explanations. In the absence of the connecting details, presenting and explaining the events and interactions, readers miss out observing how incremental concerns, hopes, and disappointments lead to an outcome. Furnishing fine points helps readers imagine alternative scenarios and outcomes. Readers can synthesize independently without being denied the authors conclusions. This work is neither about grand historical sweeps nor a theoretical contribution to the field. It is a modest attempt at filling the gaps between hypotheses and conclusions.

Understanding why from the end of the 1960s, politicized Iranian youth opted for the high-risk course of armed struggle, necessitated delving into post-1953 coup politics. Why did university students believe they had to demolish the Shahs regime to construct a better future for Iran? The ideologues and practitioners of radical and revolutionary political change insisted that it was the regimes doing. They argued that violence was forced upon them because the regime suspended the peoples political rights and liberties, prohibited the formation of independent socio-economic organizations, and abandoned the Constitution. Was their claim factually grounded or were they using the post-coup political conditions as a rhetorical tool to justify their violent method of bringing about change? Had the Shahs rule closed all peaceful paths of political dissent and opposition? Given the Shahs hardening governance style, had there been a possibility of seeking peaceful change?

Without answering these nagging questions, a satisfactory explanation of the historical chain of events becomes difficult, if not impossible. One may never fully comprehend why among the political options available to the university students they chose violence against the state. It would be naive not to assume that certain political conditions and developments were instrumental in radicalizing them. Hands-on teachers who interact with politicized students are familiar with their need to challenge authority and the status quo, and their desire to change the world. When an educational and political system enables its students to do so for the duration of their studies, and then gets them interested and invested in society and permits them to change it peacefully, it avoids crisis and instability.

In non-democracies, where political society is castrated, and the rule of law is the will of one person or a clique, the youth are forced into lurking in shadows, waiting for an opportunity to strike at the powers that be. A humiliated, systematically deceived, and enraged people will rebel against their oppressors without thought of the consequences of their actions. Asking them to think through their actions is misunderstanding their predicament. Violent repression brings people and especially the youth to a critical point of exasperation and resentment where getting rid of the status quo is all that matters. The middle-aged are busy living their lives, and the elders have already lived theirs, but the youth dream of a better future and feel the urgency to forge it.

This work began as a study of the political context and environment which led to the outbreak of armed resistance in Iran. In search of historical answers to why university students would gamble their lives to bring about political change, the text became too long. The research had a simple finding: had the Shah not embarked on a course of increasing intolerance and repression towards any, and all dissenting ideas or voices, the violence which was unleashed in the 1970s and culminated in the overthrow of his regime would not have occurred.

Ideally, this book should have appeared and been read before the work on Irans Marxist revolutionaries, as it sets the stage for it. Yet it also stands on its own merits by providing evidence for and explaining the rise of modern despotism in Iran. The factors that contributed to the Shahs despotic rule were primarily his proclivities and political choices, but there were also others, both domestic and foreign. The ethical failure of broad segments of Iranian society to stand up to the Shahs excesses, and his need to be adulated and flattered, fed his lust for power. A co-dependent relationship between the Shah and a crew of scared and opportunist sycophants pushed the imperious Monarch further into a disconnected bubble. Disconnectedness from sociopolitical reality is one of the defining characteristics of despots.

A final observation on the study of these formative fifteen years after the coup is that the Shahs regime was responsible for economic, social, and cultural advancements which deserve an independent examination. As political despotism took root during these fifteen years, so did economic growth, social mobility, cultural liberalization, and freedoms of individuality, expression of appearance, worship, and socializing.

This work has drawn upon the following sources: Iranian newspapers, magazines, and publications; deliberations at the Majles and the Senate; National Front minutes, and opposition archives; memoirs and interviews of major Iranian and foreign political players; SAVAK reports on individuals, parties, organizations, and events, published after the 1979 revolution; and, finally, US and British archives.

I am indebted to Leyla Ebtehadj for reading and rereading this manuscript. I have now become dependent on her comments, questions, and corrections of my prose. Shahram Qanbari patiently made the transliterations consistent. I am thankful to Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, who provided me with important documents during my June 2016 visit to Manchester, and to Rowena Abdul Razak for kindly providing me with documents from the Foreign Office archives. Ali Gheissari provided me with literature on the pioneers of the constitutionalist movement.

My gratitude goes to Novin Doostdar, who is an exemplary caring and supportive publisher. I only wish I had discovered him before. I would like to thank the anonymous reader for his helpful comments, David Inglesfield for his superb copy-editing, and Jonathan Bentley-Smith for making the journey from submission to publication a smooth and pleasant experience.

Paris, February 2021