The Modern Middle East (81 page)

14.
For a detailed account of Musaddiq’s trial, see Homa Katouzian,
Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1990), pp. 294–307.

15.
Ervand Abrahamian,
Iran between Two Revolutions
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 420.

16.
This actually happened to a close former associate of Dr. Musaddiq, Alahyar Saleh, a popular nationalist in his own right. Cottam,
Nationalism in Iran,
p. 301.

17.
Asadollah Alam,
The Shah and I: The Confidential Diaries of Iran’s Royal Court,
1969–1977, trans. Alinaghi Alikhani and Nicholas Vincent (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 390.

18.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
Mission for My Country
(London: Hutchinson, 1961), p. 125.

19.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
Answer to History
(New York: Stein and Day, 1980), p. 176.

20.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
Inqilab-e Sefeed
[The White Revolution] (Tehran: Imperial Pahlavi Library, 1967), p. 25.

21.
Akhavi,
Religion and Politics,
p. 102.

22.
Unlike their Sunni counterparts, who have no formal hierarchy, the Shiʿite clergy are hierarchically divided into four strata: from lowest to highest, the
muezzin
or
akhunds,
the
hojjatoleslams,
the ayatollahs, and the grand ayatollahs (
ayatollah uzma
). The 1978–79 revolution gave rise to the innovative position of the Leader (
velayat faqih,
or jurisconsult), to be occupied first by the revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini.

23.
For the White Revolution’s various principles and the dates of their enactment, see Pahlavi,
Answer to History,
pp. 193–94.

24.
For the first view, see Katouzian,
Political Economy of Modern Iran,
p. 241; for the second view, see Gholam R. Afkhami,
The Iranian Revolution: Thanatos on a National Scale
(Washington, DC: Middle East Institute, 1985), p. 56.

25.
Ibid. For a rare and recent study of Hoveida and his tenure in office, see Abbas Milani,
The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution
(Washington, DC: Mage, 2000).

26.
Even regime insiders knew this. Of the party’s first congress, the shah’s court minister wrote in his diaries: “The whole thing was excellently state-managed, but hollow; utterly hollow and false.” Alam,
Shah and I,
p. 422.

27.
Ibid., p. 494.

28.
Pahlavi,
Answer to History,
p. 145.

29.
Hushang Moghtader, “The Impact of Increased Oil Revenue on Iran’s Economic Development, 1973–76,” in
Towards a Modern Iran: Studies in Thought, Politics and Society,
ed. Elie Kedouri and Sylvia Haim (London: Frank Cass, 1980), p. 241.

30.
Ibid., pp. 254–55.

31.
Ibid., pp. 259–60.

32.
Alam,
Shah and I,
p. 535.

33.
Ibid., p. 548.

34.
There is a vast and rich literature dealing with the role and influence of U.S. foreign policy toward Iran in the final months of the Pahlavi regime. Perhaps the most authoritative work is James Bill,
The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).

35.
Pahlavi,
Answer to History,
p. 165.

36.
For an analysis of the main parties forming the National Front, see Cottam,
Nationalism in Iran,
pp. 264–68.

37.
Abrahamian,
Iran between Two Revolutions,
p. 451.

38.
Mujahedeen Khalq,
Sharh-e ta
ʿ
sis va Tarikhche-ye Vaqaye
ʿ
Sazman-e Mujahedeen-e Khalq-e Iran az Sal-e
1344
ta Sal-e
1350 [Explanation of the foundation and a history of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran from the year 1965 to the year 1971] (Tehran: Sazman-e Mujahedeen, 1358/1979), p. 45.

39.
For more on this, see ibid., pp. 58–72.

40.
For an account of the activities of the Mujahedeen and the Fedayeen before the revolution, see Mehran Kamrava,
Revolution in Iran: The Roots of Turmoil
(London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 60–65.

41.
For an English translation of Al-e Ahmad’s major work, see
Weststruckness,
trans. John Green and Ahmad Alizadeh (Lexington, KY: Mazda, 1982). See also Michael C. Hillmann, ed.,
Iranian Society: An Anthology of Writings by Jalal Al-e Ahmad
(Lexington, KY: Mazda, 1982).

42.
See Ali Rahnema,
An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Sharia
ʿ
ti
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1998).

43.
Hamid Dabashi,
Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran
(New York: NYU Press, 1993).

44.
Kamrava,
Revolution in Iran,
p. 47.

45.
Dilip Hiro,
Iran under the Ayatollahs
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), p. 93.

46.
Ibid., pp. 106–7.

47.
See, for example, the U.S. secretary of state’s views in Cyrus Vance,
Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), pp. 370–75.

48.
Pahlavi,
Answer to History,
p. 15.

49.
Hamid Algar, trans.,
Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran
(Berkeley, CA: Mizan Press, 1980), p. 29.

50.
This included especially the hostages themselves, who believed the takeover would last only a few hours, as had been the case the previous February, or a couple of days at most. See, for example, the thoughts of a former hostage, Richard Queen,
Inside and Out: Hostage to Iran, Hostage to Myself
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981), p. 57.

51.
Gary Sick, who worked at the White House at the time and was involved in many of the initiatives to free the hostages, writes in detail of efforts by two private attorneys hired by Iran’s foreign minister, Sadeq Qotbzadeh, to broker a deal for the hostages’ release. See Gary Sick,
All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran
(New York: Penguin Books, 1985), pp. 294–328.

52.
For more on the planning and execution of the rescue mission, see Paul Ryan,
The Iranian Rescue Mission: Why It Failed
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1985).

53.
This position was taken chiefly by President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. See his
Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor,
1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1985), p. 499.

54.
Sick,
All Fall Down,
p. 364.

55.
The scenario that follows is based on Gary Sick’s
October Surprise: America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan
(New York: Times Books, 1991). Sick’s claims are corroborated by Iran’s president at the time, Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr. See Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr,
My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution, and Secret Deals with the U.S.
(Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1991).

56.
Trita Parsi,
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 105–9.

57.
The Iran-Contra Affair came to light when it was revealed that the United States had secretly sold arms to Iran and had used the proceeds to fund the Contra guerrillas fighting the revolutionary Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

58.
Hiro,
Iran under the Ayatollahs,
p. 196.

59.
Guity Nashat, “Women in the Ideology of the Islamic Republic,” in
Women and Revolution in Iran,
ed. Guity Nashat (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983), p. 195.

60.
Sohrab Behdad, “The Postrevolutionary Economic Crisis,” in
Iran after the Revolution: Crisis of an Islamic State,
ed. Saeed Rahnema and Sohrab Behdad (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), pp. 108–9.

61.
Anoushiravan Ehteshami,
After Khomeini: The Iranian Second Republic
(London: Routledge, 1995), p. 55.

62.
Quoted in ibid., p. 100.

63.
Bahman Baktiar,
Parliamentary Politics in Revolutionary Iran: The Institutionalization of Factional Politics
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), pp. 218–19.

64.
For a detailed and unique examination of the Islamic Republic’s constitution, see Asghar Schirazi,
The Constitution of Iran: Politics and the State in the Islamic Republic,
trans. John O’Kane (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998).

65.
Hooshang Amirahmadi,
Revolution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Experience
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), pp. 86–87.

66.
Behdad, “Postrevolutionary Economic Crisis,” p. 123.

67.
Anoushiravan Ehteshami, “Iran and Its Immediate Neighbourhood,” in
Iran’s Foreign Policy from Khatami to Ahmadinejad,
ed. Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Mahjoob Zweiri (London: Ithaca Press, 2008), p. 136.

68.
Mehran Kamrava,
Iran’s Intellectual Revolution
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

69.
For more on the Green Movement, see the series of articles in Negin Nabavi, ed.,
Iran: From Theocracy to the Green Movement
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

6. THE GULF WARS AND BEYOND

1.
Alan R. Taylor,
The Superpowers and the Middle East
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991), p. 133.

2.
Tareq Y. Ismael,
International Relations of the Contemporary Middle East: A Study in World Politics
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 155–56.

3.
Perhaps the most detailed chronological account of the Iran-Iraq War can be found in Dilip Hiro,
The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict
(New York: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 1991), pp. 288–96.

4.
Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi,
Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography
(New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 18.

5.
Ibid., p. 19.

6.
Ibid., p. 86.

7.
Ibid., p. 88. Later, in 1982, the president had himself promoted to the rank of field marshal.

8.
Samir al-Khalil,
Republic of Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam’s Iraq
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), p. xxxi.

9.
Ofra Bengio,
Saddam’s Word: Political Discourse in Iraq
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 83. As Bengio demonstrates, the same type of hyperbole and exaggerated sense of importance marked the regime’s propaganda later on, especially during “the mother of all battles.”

10.
al-Khalil,
Republic of Fear,
p. 270.

11.
Shaul Bakhash,
The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1985), pp. 112–13.

12.
Quoted in Rouhollah K. Ramazani,
Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 24.

13.
Quoted in Karsh and Rautsi,
Saddam Hussein,
p. 124.

14.
Edgar O’Ballance,
The Gulf War
(London: Brassey’s Defence, 1988), p. 38.

15.
Stephen C. Pelletiere,
The Iran-Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), pp. 35–36.

16.
Hiro,
Longest War,
p. 45.

17.
Ibid., pp. 297–98. These numbers, of course, cannot be verified, and different observers have presented different figures. Nevertheless, the varying figures all confirm the overall trend in the growth of both countries’ forces. See, for example, Anthony H. Cordesman,
The Iran-Iraq War and Western Security,
1984–87
:
Strategic Implications and Policy Options
(London: Royal United Services Institute, 1987), p. 42.

18.
Quoted in W. Thom Workman,
The Social Origins of the Iran-Iraq War
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994), p. 124.

19.
For Bani-Sadr’s own account of his removal, see Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr,
My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution, and Secret Deals with the U.S.
(Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1991), pp. 161–72.

20.
For an account of Israel’s daring raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, see Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander,
Unholy Babylon: The Secret History of Saddam’s War
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), pp. 123–27.

21.
Pelletiere,
Iran-Iraq War,
pp. 40–41.

22.
Stephen C. Pelletiere and Douglas V. Johnson II,
Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War
(Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1991), p. 10.

23.
O’Ballance,
Gulf War,
pp. 116–17.

24.
Pelletiere and Johnson,
Lessons Learned,
p. 32.

25.
Agence France Press, March 13, 2000.

26.
Islamic Republic News Agency, November 13, 2000.

27.
More than a decade after the downing of the Iran Air flight and a U.S. congressional investigation into the incident, many details of the tragedy remain uncovered. For an examination of some of the continuing controversies, see John Barry and Roger Charles, “Sea of Lies,”
Newsweek,
July 13, 1992, pp. 29–39.