The Making of Modern Iran (Part 1)

Hello breaking history listeners, so I got some big news for the feed in 2026. We've decided to switch things up a little bit in several weeks. You'll be getting details here on breaking history for a new mini series we're going to be doing these instead of episodes every two weeks. These are like mini seasons and they'll go in a much deeper way into a big juicy topic over multiple episodes and I can't wait to tell you guys about the first topic we've already started working on. It's a really good one. Stay tuned for the trailer. In the meantime never fret because you'll be hearing from me on this feed more often than you might think and I will be posting my various takes on the news based on what I'm in writing for the free press. You'll get some interviews for myself and our great producer Poppy Damon and for now we want to replay an episode that we did over the summer about the history of Iran and its quest for democracy. We felt it was appropriate to share this because I think what you'll find is that we really see how there's this tension in Iranian history between a desire for accountability from their leaders but also the pull of a land that has been ruled by kings for millennia. So stay tuned for a replay of the making of modern Iran and keep your ears glued as it were to this feed for great episodes and our new approach to breaking history. Do you ever gaze longingly at your old NPR tote bag and wish you could call up the car talk guys and ask them how to fix the meeting crisis. Do you get a fab confused with a cab but are too embarrassed to admit it? Do you long for a social life that was a little more nuanced? Sounds like you might need the unspeak easy. The unspeak easy offers intimate off the record gatherings with incredible guest speakers amazing food and life changing conversations. This October 19th through 21st will be in New York's Hudson Valley with John McWhorter, Jungian analyst Lisa Marciano and rising theater star PJ Adzema. Spaces are very limited and going fast so go to the unspeak easy.com to learn more. If you're listening to this podcast use promo code free press at checkout. That's one word free press and get $100 off your retreat fee. That's the unspeak easy home of the original free speech vacation. Welcome back to Breaking History. In this episode we dive into Iran between its revolutions and what this recent history tells us about what comes next for a regime wobbling after the 12-day war. The fight you got this next year's model, the heavy odds, Erming Berlin. What happened once happens again? Only a few weeks ago in the afterglow of America's bombing of three critical Iranian nuclear sites known as Operation Midnight Hammer, President Donald Trump let this slip on Truth Social. It's not politically correct to use the term regime change, but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change? For America's isolationists it seemed that the president who campaigned as the anti-war candidate had taken off the mask like the end of an episode of Scooby-Doo to reveal he was John McCain all along. But Trump has just acknowledged something that millions of Iranians have understood now for at least a quarter century. The Ayatollahs lack popular legitimacy. They rule by fear. The Israeli government understood this as well. The time has come for you to unite around your flag and your stark legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime. It has never been weaker. This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard. Woman, life, freedom, zan, zandagi, azadi. There wasn't a velvet revolution in Iran last month though, but this doesn't mean the Iranian people are content with living under the fanatic clerics who purport to rule them. On June 15th, seven of Iran's leading democratic opposition leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize winners Sharina Badi and Narjas Mohamedi, issued a joint statement in Le Mans calling for an end to uranium enrichment, an end to the war, and another plea for the unelected clerics of Iran to step down from power. Meanwhile, the son of the last Shah of Iran is urging his countrymen to rise up. So today, I have a direct message for Ali Khamenei, step down, and if you do, you will receive a fair trial and due process of law, which is more than you have ever given any Iranian. He is pushing on an open door. The Iranian people have led national uprisings five times since 2017. In 2009, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest a stolen election. In 1999, students all over the country led demonstrations again. That protest was about a newspaper. This is Ahmed Battabi, who helped organize the 1999 demonstrations and was featured on the cover of the economist in an iconic photo, waving a bloody shirt. That time, one of the reformist newspaper in the name of Salam published a confidential letter about Iranian intelligence service before that group of employee of intelligence service started to kill some intelligent people in Iran. Some journalists, some writers, some directors, without any reason. And the reformist government released some information, confidential information about that. That was a reason that Iranian regime arrested this group and sent to the jail. The head of this group wrote a letter about their activity. And he said that yes, we killed these people, opposition people actually of the government by our decision and the Iranian regime officials didn't order us. And one of the Iranian reformists, a newspaper in the name of Salam, which means hello in English, released this confidential letter and the Iranian regime closed this newspaper. Street protest has been part of Iranian culture now since 1892, when a few moly's stoked crowds in Tehran to boycott tobacco after the Shah at the time cut a sweetheart deal with the British Empire to corner the market on what was then one of Iran's leading exports. Every leader of Iran understands that the street is always watching and if he's not careful, his regime may topple. The man in charge, Ayatollah Ali Haminay, has been in power since 1989. The year the Berlin wall crumbled under similar circumstances. And so we shouldn't be surprised that despite the detentions, tortures, exile, and murders, Iranians of all classes and creeds have time and again expressed their disgust for the killers who purport to rule them. So that was a reason student come in street for protest and said that we have to have democracy, we have to have freedom of speech while you close this newspaper. It is now a corrupt and lethal police state. Haminay is approaching 90 and it's unclear who his successor will be. It may not be the street, but a mafia of killers spies and clerics smell blood. Anything can happen. Does this mean that what comes next will resemble a democratic republic? We can hope, but the ferment for self rules stoked since the end of the 19th century has crashed against a much longer tradition in Iranian history. Two and a half millennia of kings. It dates back to the Achaemenid Persian Empire and while the Iranian revolution in 1979 ended this streak of monarchs, the supreme leader Haminay resembles the past Shah's of Iran in that he alone is the decider of his nation's fate. Like the Polavis, the Qajars, the Zans, and the Safavids before him, Haminay is a supreme leader. And this illustrates a kind of paradox. Haminay is Iran's second supreme leader that came to power in what was portrayed in Western media as a democratic revolution. It followed a pattern. At hinge moments in modern Iranian history, the Democrats have empowered the autocrats. And at the same time, the Polavid dynasty overturned so violently in 1979 by an exiled Ayatollah, did more to liberalize and modernize Iran than the constitutionalists that both empowered and despised the Shah that ruled over them. I'm Eli Lake and you're listening to Breaking History. In this first of a two-part episode, we examine the Iranian riddle. How has a country so restless against tyrants ended up voting for kings? after the break. origin story of Iranian democracy and the unmet promise of its first revolution. We love them all, we love them too, we threw them all, we love the search, we love them all. Before we get into the tale of the constitutional revolution, we have to give a little background. By the end of the 19th century, Iran was in desperate shape. The vast majority of Iranians were illiterate. Four decades into the 20th century, most farmers tilled their land with donkeys. There was no centralized education system or even a real army. Now, for some countries, this wouldn't be such a big deal. The strong do what they please, the weak suffer what they must, as the lucidities instructs in the Malian dialogue. But Iranians have a long civilizational memory. They go back to Cyrus and Xerxes. They equemened Persians who were the villains of the travelogues of Herodotus and the heroes of the Old Testament. Later, Persian empires ruled over the kingdoms of the Caucasus and Central Asia at times reaching into what today is a rock. And yet, by the end of the 19th century, and into the dawn of the 20th, Iran was a prize over which Russia, Germany, the British Empire, and the Ottomans fought. Iran was now the chessboard in a game played by great powers. This sad state of affairs is due to the Al-Khaja dynasty. It was decadent, corrupted by British gold and bullied by Russian Cossacks. The state of affairs angered both the common people and the elites. When a Khaja Shah sold off the rights to export Iranian tobacco in 1892, there were riots. A similar dynamic ensued at the end of 1905, when the governor of Tehran imposed excessive price controls on sugar, infuriating the powerful sugar merchants in the Bazaar. On December 12, 1905, the situation came to a boiling point. A mullah named Jamal Aldin Isfahani addressed an angry crowd with blood in their eyes. He made the case that if the Shah was a real Muslim, then he must lift the price controls and adhere to popular will. This challenge, to the Shah's authority, was too much for the government appointed cleric that oversaw Friday prayers in the capital city. So he ordered his guards to physically remove Isfahani from the pulpit. This led thousands of Iranians who were stirred by Isfahani's sermon to march to a shrine on the outskirts of the capital and conduct a massive sit-in. No one knew it at the time, but a revolution had just begun. Now all of this sounds like an echo of 1776, no? Economic grievance leads to civil unrest, and then a new republic is born in freedom. But there are some important differences. To start, there are no founding fathers per se. One of the beauties of the constitutional revolution, if I may say that, I'm a little bit biased and very wealthy. That it is a, first of all, a leaderless revolution. This is Yale historian Abbas Aminat and the author of Iran, a modern history. It does not have a charismatic figure with a beard and terrible sitting up there as it is sacred or something close semi-sacred, like Romani. So if you want to point out who is the leader of the constitutional revolution, there is not. There is a bunch of people, okay? And none of them were, as a matter of fact, had, had certain superiority over others or their blameless. So they were all the same. They were all basically more or less supporters of a constitutional cause. The second feature is that while the constitutional revolution results in the establishment of a parliament known as the Marshless, it taps into a very ancient Iranian sentiment about justice. This goes back to the Shia origins of Iran, which is a polyglot nation, a hodgepodge of Persians, Azaris, Kurds, Awazi Arabs, and many other smaller ethnicities. And while there are religious minorities in Iran, one of the factors that holds the country together since the early 1500s, has been that most Iranians adhere to the Shia strain of Islam. The Shia believed that the rightful heir to the caliphate was Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law Ali. His martyrdom is a central theme of the Shia Muslim faith. This leads to a profound sense of wanting to write injustice. Again, this is Abbas Amanat, which brings me to a second part of your question. And that is, you often, it has been said it has been the establishment of democratic regime in Iran, or a democracy in Iran, which is true. But democracy in different contexts in different societies, the fair, I need not to tell you that, okay? So in the Iranian case, one can say that it's a concept of justice, which then translated into social justice, or social political justice, became crucial and central. And this was a fairly familiar concept for the Iranians. So while it's true that Iran's constitution, which is drafted in 1906, establishes a parliament, and a foundational law, passed in 1907, enumerates basic rights, the driving force of the revolution, particularly in this early period, was a sense that the Qajar dynasty had led Iran to ruin. Iran had been reduced to a plaything of the great powers. Iranians were being exploited. The escalating tensions eventually persuaded the Qajar's Shah, Mosefar Al-Din, to sign the constitution, which establishes this parliamentary system, and limits his power as a monarch. This is a great moment in Iranian history, but it did not lead to democracy. Mosefar died five days after signing the constitution, and his son, Muhammad Ali, succeeds him. He's not like his father. Muhammad Ali sets out to restore an absolute monarchy, but he has to contend with a wildly popular modulus, which continues to establish basic laws that wouldn't theory enshrine a democratic system and individual rights. Now, we should note that up to now, the Iranian transition to democracy is relatively peaceful. Primarily, the liberals use the power of protest. There are massive sit-ins, for example, at the British Embassy in Tehran, and other Shia shrines. These are known in Farsi as Bosts, but there are also radicals. And in February 1908, two bombs nearly kill the young Shah in Tehran, leading Muhammad Ali to fear that the dynasty was in danger. So he consults with the Russians. Now, at this point in the story, we have to explain the Khazr dynasty aligned with the Romanov Empire in Moscow as a hedge against the British in the southern part of their country. Part of this cooperation was that Russian officers commanded Iran's most effective military force. A cavalry modeled on the Khosaks, the brutal force, the terrorized Jews and other minorities in the pale of settlement. So after the attempted assassination, the commander of the Iranian Khosaks, colonel Vladimir Liakov, persuades the Shah to attack the Majlis itself. The assault was brutal. Not only did the Khosaks forces nearly level the actual Majlis building with artillery, but when they were done, they sacked the parliament and sent out their soldiers on horseback to pillage the surrounding neighborhoods. Ultimately, though, this legislative coup, you could say, backfired, it led to the formation of now armed groups throughout Iran to coalesce an eventually march on Tehran to depose Muhammad Ali, the Shah himself, and restore the Majlis, and then select his 12-year-old son, Ahmed, to replace the deposed Shah. By 1909, the second Majlis convened, and a regent was in charge of the Qajar dynasty. But the constitution movement was still in trouble. Iran's economy was in ruins, and by this time, the Russians and the British were backing different factions of the Majlis, eventually the parliamentarians decided to hire an American financial expert to audit the government s books, where did all the money go? But the auditor is never a given the chance to finish his work because the Russians invade northern Iran and demand that he s fired. By the end of the revolution, the Shah's powers are limited and the Majlis survives. But Iran is still a weak power coerced by the Russians in the British. Much blood has been spilled, there are no fireworks and celebrations, rather many Iranians are left wondering whether this new, weakened government will be able to make good on the promises of justice and prosperity. The poet, journalist, and political theorist, Muhammad Taki Bahar summed up the mood in the country in 1912 with his famous poem, "It is from us, but but falls us." The black smoke that arises from the roof of the motherland, "It is from us what befalls us." The burning flames that flare from left and right, "It is from us what befalls us." Even if we are at our last gasp, we should not complain of the stranger. We shan't quarrel with the other, but complain of ourselves. This is the call of the matter. It is from us what befalls us. We are the tall plain tree who does not complain of the storm, but grows on the soil. What can we do? Our fire is in our belly. Ten years were wasted in disputation in the madrasa, while staying awake all night. Today we see that all was a riddle. We claim we are awake now. What an illusion. What is our wakefulness, but that of an infant who needs a lullaby? After 1911, Iran limps along. World War I was a disaster for the once mighty nation. Russia still had troops in the north and the British now aligned with imperial Russia. Control Iran's southern ports. Meanwhile, the Germans sent agents of influence to incite tribal rebellions against their adversaries. Iran remained the chessboard of the great powers. After the war, a great famine came to Iran, and the weakened government in Tehran was unable to meet the challenge. Up to two million Iranians perished in that famine, and then hundreds of thousands more succumbed to the Spanish flu epidemic. In the midst of all of this, a middle aged officer in the Russian-led Iranian co-sax named Reza Khan was watching and waiting. He would go on to end the Khajir dynasty and begin his own, but in this period Reza Khan was a rising officer and a nation falling apart all around him. In 1920, he gets his chance to shine. Now at this point, the Romanov dynasty is finished after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The new Russians are interested in spreading communism all over the world, and they focus on the northern Iranian province of Golan, and begin aiding a local insurgency, fighting from the forest known as the "Jungal". Reza Khan, who is now a Brigadier general, is sent to suppress the rebellion. His first attempt fails. So the second time he showed his, basically, abilities to lead, and eventually prevail over the revolutionaries in the north, the "Jungal Movement" in the north. Again, this is Abbas Amanat. I mean, this period of "Jungal Movement". It was first nationalist, it was first nationalist Islamic, then it turned to become more Bolshevik. The Bolshevik support, it was an area stage of pre-Cold War where you would see the Bolsheviks are striving to create a socialist republic of Iran in Golan province in the north, and the central government and the British are opposing it. What happens is the result of that he became well known, relatively well known. So still, nobody thought that this guy is going to be the future of the country, they thought he's okay then, he's a valiant kind of a leader of the Kossak forces. One of the problems for Reza Khan is that he had no formal education. The other constitutionalists were intellectuals, reform-minded mellows, and representatives of the older leads under the declining Kajar dynasty. Reza Khan is just a general from a military family of no particular distinction, but he is also a man of the moment. The Kajar dynasty is in decline, but at the same time, the modulus in the constitutionalists lacked the unity and power to address the many crises befalling their country. So in February 1921, Reza Khan teams up with a prominent political journalist and they overthrow a weak and hated government. As a Khan consults with the British, we're an occupying power in the South, but we should say the British Empire did not really help them. They said, "We're open to a new government if you can pull it off." Now nonetheless, the Kajar Shah, now a ceremonial king, remains on the throne. As a result of the coup, young Reza becomes commander of the Iranian army, which at this point is not much of a national army, we should say. And Taba Taba'i becomes Prime Minister, the modulus was suspended, but we convened a few months later. In 1923, Reza Khan is selected as Prime Minister. He is now in de facto control of the country. So at this point, Reza Khan could go down as a Kamal Ataturk, the reform-minded president who left behind a quasi-democracy in Turkey. But instead, he chose to become the man from whom he had taken power. This is the fork in the road, Reza Khan becomes Reza Shah. And that is a kind of coup, except he got that title through a vote of Iran's parliament, and the liberals and constitutionalists largely supported him. Again, this is a boss Amanat. Why intellectuals want it? Why all these constitutionalists want it? You look in the group of people who served him are among the most capable of the constitutionalists of the earlier period. This is a period of chaos in the post-war era, post-fest, festival war era. Iran is suffering from great depression because of the war. Whatever they had was destroyed during the war, the Spanish influenza comes to Iran. And along with the great famine that follows it, Iran loses probably a few million people. Out of the population of 9, 10 million, it loses 2 million or perhaps more. It's unbelievable. The big moment comes on October 31, 1925. That's when the modulus itself essentially fashions the rod for its own back. They vote to dissolve the Kosher dynasty formally, you know, it was barely limping along at this point, we should say. And to make Reza Khan the new Shah, they also amended the constitution to give the new monarch some of the power as the modulus took away from the Kosher Shaws in the first place. And the modulus dissolves itself, and there's an election for a constituent assembly to determine the country's future. These moves were overwhelmingly popular, but a few of the legislators offered mild criticism, choosing to praise Reza Khan's service to Iran while opposing in theory the idea of making him an absolute monarch. One of those deputies was a 43 year old lawyer in a Mohammed Mosadat. He had emerged as one of the leading lights of the constitutionalists. Born into privilege, his father was a powerful tax collector for the Kosher dynasty, and Mohammed had inherited the job himself before going to Europe for law school. He was one of the few elites in this period with a reputation for unimpeachable integrity. He once sent deputies to collect back taxes on his own mother. He also had an unforgettable style. He would faint during his speeches at times for a dramatic effect. He often conducted his affairs from his bedroom in pajamas, silk robe, and slippers. And he was constantly attended to by doctors. Dean Atterson, who served as President Harry Truman Secretary of State, described the Iranian lawyer as follows in his memoir. Small and frail, with not a shred of hair on his billured ball head, a thin face protruding into a long beak of a nose flanked by two bright shoe-button eyes. His whole manner and appearance was bird-like, and he moved quickly and nervously as if he were hopping or about on a perch. His pixie qualities showed an instantaneous transformation. Over time, as we shall see, Mosadat becomes a potent foe of the new Shah and his son. But in this period, he treads very lightly. From the floor of the Majlis, he argues, at first, that making Reza Khan a Shah would deprive Iran of a great Prime Minister. He then turned to another member of the Majlis, Said Ya Ghub, who was an ally in the constitutional revolution, but was now supporting the motion to make Reza Khan a Shah. If they cut off my head and cut me into pieces. and if Sayyid Yakub assales me with a thousand curses I will not accept this. After 20 years of bloodshed Sayyid Yakub where you are a constitutionalist a freedom seeker I myself saw you in this country ascend the pulpit and urge the people onto freedom and now it is your opinion that this country should have one person who is shah and prime minister and magistrate all at once if so this is reactionary it is depotism why did you needlessly shed the blood of the martyrs on the road to freedom? why did you send them off to die? from the beginning you should have come out and said we lied and never wanted constitutionalism you should have said that this is an ignorant people who must be beaten into submission again this is Abbas Aminat so people are desperate for some kind of an order for some some fear that emerges and would hold on the reins of power and would tell them this is how the government is going to be run and Reza Khan had that kind of instinct ability to say so or to do so and the intellectuals came through their service their service realize that the path through constitutionalism is not going to take them anywhere after Reza Khan become shah he adopts a name based in part on the paladin tribe of his family Palavie and with that a new dynasty is born after the break the rise and fall of the first Palavie shah there is no nice way to say this Reza Palavi was a tyrant and while his tyranny was effectively legislated into existence by Iran's parliament that institution the modulus became a rubber stamp during his reign much like it is today in the Islamic Republic of Iran the shah killed exiled and arrested his political opponents including former allies he banned opposition parties newspapers and many unions even though the modulus approved without dissent his decrees he rigged the parliamentary elections to pack the legislature with loyalists anyway in the 1920s and 1930s Reza Shah made war on tribal councils that had existed for centuries in harmony with Tehran and one of his most controversial policies the Shah imposed a ban on the hijab instructing the police to physically remove the veil and head covering from women who wore it in public he banned public Shiite religious ceremonies and exiled mullahs that displeased him and Reza Palavi's foundation confiscated property throughout the country by the end of his reign he was the largest landowner in all of Iran so let's credit most of that here the constitutionalists empowered a constitution killer and yet at the same time one could argue that it takes a tough man to raise a tender chicken the first Palavi Shah used his power to bring Iran into the 20th century he built a national railroad he forged a national army out of an old system where tribal militias would lend their forces to the Shah in times of war and he created a modern education system resting power out of the hands of the mullahs and their seminaries in this respect Reza Palavi was comparable to Atteter that strong man who transitioned the Ottoman caliphate into modern Turkey he manages to basically create a certain national integration this is Abbas Aminat again that's a huge thing because if you compare Iran with Afranistan or with Iraq or with Syria Iran is a country that has been centralized or if you look at Iran map of tribal distribution in Iran you would be amazed there are hundreds of tribes and sub tribes in the 19th century he manages to create a unified, a big expense don't think that it's already positive authoritarianism strong rule suppression as Reza Shah modernized Iran he also began to pursue a policy of balancing the great powers that had always tried to influence his country and this is where he got into some trouble by 1939 the Shah decided that Iran would be neutral in World War II this was a red flag for the allies particularly after Adolf Hitler double crosses Joseph Stalin and violates their earlier alliance in 1941 the Soviet Union and the British Empire invaded Iran at the same time it was 1914 all over this is the newsreels record for history of the linking up of the British and Indian force in Iran with the army of the Soviet Union the swift action that occupied a weak country in danger of falling into the grip of Hitler Iranians of Iran still about in the streets watching the entry of the empire army there is no sign of hostility or resentment they have heard of the devilish rule just practiced by Germany in the countries they profess to protect they know that a British army in occupation does not destroy liberty but preserve it had they been watching the arrival of Nazi-Ghostepper the Shah's crown jewel his army ended up capitulating when it made contact with the enemy and the Shah was furious in his last meeting with his generals he physically beat up the chief of staff of the army and showered the others with invectives he then ordered the command staff to be court-martialed and tried for treason but Rezapolavi was out of time the British demanded his abdication it was a humiliating end to his reign he wanted to live in exile in Canada but he was first sent to India and then South Africa this is Reita Kay at the council on foreign relations and the author of the last Shah and it was a fairly miserable exiled for him he was a very proud person and so to have been exiled and cut off from his country was a very difficult time for him and he died a very sorrowful, more fearful person once again, Iran is the chessboard it was little more than a supply route for the allies in World War II to get the guns and material from the Nazis on the eastern front the country's elites had zero leverage and yet miraculously they take their lemons and make lemonade Iran it was on a democratic society but it had institutions that mattered again, this is Reita Kay it was an aristocratic elite that generated from the land owning class and as a result of their ties to the land to the country they had a feel for the temperature of the country they were an elite that lived in urban areas in some cases even were educated abroad but they had a feel and a sense for the country because they had a relationship with their promises and others through their land holding it's not that they weren't exploitative but they had a feel for the country and it was a very talented aristocratic rule in 1941 it is a country that's occupied by the Soviet Union and Britain that is a major accomplishment given the circumstances and is a reminder that Iran's diplomats are excellent at negotiating from a weak position just consider the skill with which Iran's envoys forged the 2015 nuclear deal after nearly 20 years of pursuing an illegal uranium enrichment program they managed to keep their ill-begotten infrastructure in exchange for a promise to only use it for peaceful purposes as a result of the bargain Iranian elites struck with their occupiers the polavi dynasty continued the new Shah was Muhammad Reza polavi the first Shah's son in some ways it's an echo of the deal made with the Qajar Shah Muhammad Ali in 1909 when he abdicated in favor of his 12-year-old son unlike his father Muhammad Reza polavi was born he did not have a hard life and he was only 21 years old when he ascended to the throne he began his reign under British and Soviet occupation now let's just reflect here on how the liberal elites in 1925 formally empower the first polavi Shah and now 16 years later many of these same elites negotiated for the continuation of that dynasty unlike the 1925 votes of the second polavi Shah did not result at first in authoritarianism indeed the first 12 years of his reign were a kind of golden era for Iranian democracy so what happens is that the replacement in answer to your point replacement of Reza Khan by his son was condoned by the Iranian population because they were felt what at least is one of ours this is Abbas Amanat again he is not somebody the British has appointed the British said they gave a green light but eventually what emerged is a lot in the post-war period to experience the period of democracy, which I call the chaotic democracy, between the 42 and 53-10 years, 11 years. And I think very crucial period, because there are several important questions come about, oil rationalization and the center of it, revival of the constitutional aspirations for the creating of a democratic regime. So this is what I call the half revolution, the constitutional revolution is a four revolution, the events of 1942 to '53, the half revolution, and then it's 1979 is another revolution, so Iran expires two and a half revolution. And in the second one, which is very crucial, again the ultimate outcome was a kind of disappointed. Why? Because again there was some meddling by great powers, by the British, by the Americans. Now, not everyone was happy with a young Shah in this period, in 1944 with the war still raging, a 42-year-old mid-level cleric in Kome, chastises Muhammad Reza Palafi for continuing the secularization policies of his father. He rails against the ban on the hijab and accuses the new Shah of sending bogus representatives to the Majlis. In an open letter to the people of Iran, this cleric calls on Pious Muslims to rise up. Today is the day that the breeze of divine spirituality is blowing on us. It is the best of times to start a reformative uprising. If you miss this opportunity, and don't rise up in the path of God, and don't restore religious rights, tomorrow yet another lustful licentious bunch will prevail over you and make all your faith and honor subject to their false malevolence. Today what excuse do you have before God, the creator? The man who wrote those words in 1944 was relatively unknown. In less than 40 years, though, he would change Iran and the world. You know him as Rahala Homeini, who would go on to eventually lead a revolution along the lines of that open letter. After the break, how Iran's opening became a Mossadach's moment. The unspeak easy offers intimate, off-the-record gatherings with incredible guest speakers, amazing food, and life-changing conversations. This October 19th through 21st will be in New York's Hudson Valley, with John McWhorter, Jungian analyst Lisa Marciano, and rising theater star PJ Adzema. Spaces are very limited and going fast. So go to the unspeak easy.com to learn more. If you're listening to this podcast, use promo code free press at checkout. Mohamed Reza Shah was lucky. One of his first tests as a national leader was in 1946 when Soviet back forces in Iranian Kurdistan and the Azerbaijan provinces began an uprising. The national army that wilted in the face of the British and Soviet invasion proved their medal and for the final campaign against the Azeri Separatists, the young Shah traveled to the front and personally commanded the troops in the final stage of their victory. It was an important moment for this untested leader. His powers were diminished at this point. The Prime Minister, for example, was now setting national policy and nationalist inside the mosque list led by Mohamed Mosodech were calling for the Shah's power to be reduced even further to be a ceremonial head of state like the modern king of England. In this half revolution, as Aminat calls it, Mosodech emerges as a star. Some of this is because of his erudition. He is a dramatic and eloquent speaker who knew the law as well as he knew Persian history. He could appeal to both the hearts and minds of Iranians with his oratory. The man also had sharp political instincts. He knew how to press an issue and after World War II, he found political gold, Iran's oil, specifically who owns Iran's oil. The old regime sold away the rights to the British. Mosodech's position was simple. Give it back. A little context. Remember that one of the main issues animating the original constitutional revolution was a sense of justice or precisely injustice. It was this perception that Iran's rulers at the time, the Qajar dynasty, had colluded with foreign interests against the interests of the Iranian people that really gave the constitutional revolution its fire. This is what led to the tobacco uprising in 1892. That royal decree that gave a British firm exclusive rights to sell and control the market for one of Iran's biggest cash crops. Well, in the late 1940s, there was no bigger Iranian export than oil. But the British took the lion's share of the profits. This again goes back to another sweetheart deal from the Qajar dynasty. A British investor named William Knox Darcy secured the rights for a pittance 20,000 pounds to explore Iranian oil in 1901. An ideal with Mozafar Al-Din, the same Shah who signed the 1906 constitution. After discovering oil in 1908, Darcy formed the Anglo-Persian oil company and the British government became its chief investor. Eventually that company would become British petroleum. To make a long story short through a series of opportune renegotiations with subsequent Shahs, the British secured the rights to take the majority of the revenue generated from Iranian oil and gas sales through 1993. This was a matter of national pride. And it wasn't just the exploitative arrangement in terms of profit sharing. The conditions for the Iranian workers were abysmal, and the Anglo-Iranian oil company, as it was now known, ran the wells like a plantation. The English speakers were in management. They were the engineers and the technicians. The grunt work was left to the Bhaktiari Hertzman that had their villages uprooted to make way for the oil rigs. In Aminat's history of modern Iran, he quotes one contemporaneous observer of a refinery as follows. Wages were 50 cents a day. There was no vacation pay, no sick leave, no disability compensation. The workers lived in a shanty town called Kegazabad or Paper City without running water or electricity. In winter, the earth flooded and became a flat, perspiring lake. The mudden town was knee deep, and when the rain subsided, clouds of nipping, small-winged flies rose from the stagnant water to fill the nostrils. Summer was worse. The heat was torrid, sticky and unrelenting, while the wind and sandstorm shipped off the desert hot as blower. The dwellings of Kegazabad, cobbled from rusted oil drums, hammered flat, turned into sweltering ovens. In every crevice hung the foul, sulfurous stench of burning oil. In Kegazabad, there was nothing, not a tea shop, not a bath, not a single tree. The tiled, reflecting pooled and shaded central square that were part of every Iranian town were missing here. The unpaved alleyways were imporiums for rats. Most of that becomes the champion of these oil workers and rallies the country to their cause. His argument sounded like something one might hear from Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. The contracts that established the Anglo-Iranian oil company were null and void because it was signed with an illegitimate regime without the consent of the Iranian people, and his argument wins over a wide coalition of political factions in the mosque, ranging from the far left communists to even fascist parties to many of the astere clerics. This national front considered most of that, it's leader. Everybody understood that there was something wrong with the British government getting more tax revenues from the Anglo-Iranian oil company than Iran getting revenue from the soil. This is Ray Takay again. Everybody understood that the supplemental agreement that the British had forced down the throne of the monarchy in the past was exploitative. Namely, that contract, if it allowed to have existed, would have expired in 1993. That wasn't a dispute. By the way, I think the British government understood that. The American government certainly understood that. The leadership of ARLC did not. So the idea that the negotiations had to happen between Britain and Iran, regarding re-examining of the contract that was imposed on Iran in early 20th century, and it exploits it as a matter. Everybody got that. - The problem, as Takeh explains, is that Mosata did not understand that Iran did not have the technical expertise to actually extract the oil from the ground. It still needed British know-how in 1950 and 1951, when the oil nationalization bill was being debated. The other issue was that Mosata was not flexible enough in offering compensation to the British, which they would have accepted. It was a matter of principle for him. - Mosata did not seem to understand that then there had to be some kind of a compromise about the oil apparatus of Iran. He didn't want to understand that actually foreign technicians at that time were critical to the operation of the Iranian oil refinery. He didn't seem to understand that Avagon refinery was the largest British overseas assets and a declining colonial power would actually be prickly about simply walking away from such things. And he didn't seem to understand that the Iranian people wanted the oil reclaimed, but they also wanted their economic life to improve and therefore economic austerity and financial pressure were gonna be ill advise for him. He didn't seem to understand that he was a single actor in a constellation of power that involved the monarchy, the military, the clergy, the immersion class, and foreigners, Americans. He didn't seem to understand that in his very dogmatic approach to oil nationalization and his maximalist demand that the British cannot have any role in the future operation of those refineries and facilities. He was incapable of compromising at a time when the art of compromise was necessary and indeed urgent. On March 17th, 1951, the modulus passed a bill to nationalize its oil and four days later revoked the Anglo-Iranian oil company's concession. Nearly seven months later, the Brits said goodbye to Iran. Here is the account of that company's official historian, Henry Longwurst, on the British legation, leaving their headquarters at Abaddon. On the morning of October 4th, 1951, the party assembled before the Jim Carna Club, the center of so many of the lighter moments of their life in Persia, to embark for Basra in the British cruiser Mauritius. Some had their dogs, their most had had to be destroyed, others carried tennis rackets and golf clubs. The hospital nurses and the endomas were Miss Flavalle, who ran the guest house in three days previously had intimidated a Persian tank commander with her parasol for driving over Halon, were among the party. And the Reverend Tyree had come sadly from locking up in the little church, the records of those who had been born, baptized, or had died in Abaddon. The ship's band, correct to the end, struck up the Persian national anthem and the launches began their shuttle service. The cruiser Mauritius steam slowly away up the river with the band playing. The assembled company lining the rails and roaring in unison, the less printable version of Colonel Bogey, the greatest single overseas enterprise in British commerce had ground to a standstill. This was Mosadez crowning achievement. He was named Time magazine's Man of the Year. This is an excerpt from the accompanying essay. There were millions inside and outside of Iran who Mosadez symbolized and spoke for and whose fanatical state of mind he had helped to create. They would rather see their own nations fall apart than continue their present relations with the West. Communism encouraged the state of mind and stood to profit hugely from it, but Communism did not create it. The West's military strength to resist Communism grew in 1951, but Mosadez's challenge could not be met by force. For all its power, the West in 1951 failed to cope with a weeping, fainting leader of a helpless country. The West had not yet developed the moral muscle to define its own goals and responsibilities in the Middle East. Until the West did develop that moral muscle, it had no chance with the millions represented by Mosadez. That quote from time gives a good sense of where the American elites were in 1951. This was the second red scare and President Harry Truman, like his successor Dwight D. Eisenhower, is obsessed with Communism. But they also understood that Mosadez was not a Communist. He just represented a coalition that included Communists. The US position throughout the Iranian oil crisis was largely as a neutral third party. Indeed, both Truman and Eisenhower in his first months in office viewed Mosadez position favorably and Mosadez sought the US's good offices to help negotiate a solution. But after the Iranian Prime Minister rejects a generous American proposal to resolve the dispute in 1953 with the British, Eisenhower begins to be persuaded of another approach, regime change. Now, part of this was because by this point, Mosadez had alienated so much of his own coalition, this national front that many Iranian politicians already of all political stripes were quietly petitioning the US embassy in Iran to support a coup. Again, this is Reita Kek. And then you began to see the movement against Mosadez primarily because there was such internal opposition. Remember, throughout this time, as sort of a cascade of Iranians are coming to the American embassy, saying, "Help us do a coup." And the position of the United States government at that time was we don't deal with internal politics of Iran. That was a rotating door of Iranians coming through saying, "I'm going to do a coup, I'm going to do a coup." "Help us do a coup." And the position of the United States government was, "No, we're not going to do that." So, but that gave traction around March, April 1953, and you began to see the planning. The Americans take over the planning from the British because Mosadez has broken official relationship with Britain and the embassy had closed. Now, in the telling of the story of the coup, the CIA and the left have exaggerated the American role in the whole affair. Some of this is because of a man named Kermit or Kim Roosevelt, the grandson of theater Roosevelt. Roosevelt was tasked by the agency with overseeing from Tehran this operation, known as Ajax to oust Mosadez, and he thinks very highly of his own work. In the opening pages of his memoir of the 1953 coup, he writes, "At the end of this true account in the late summer of 1953, the Shah said to me truthfully, "I owe my throne to God, my people, my army, and to you." By you, he meant me in the two countries, great Britain in the United States. I was representing. We were all heroes. This is all a bit grandiose, no. Now, one has to remember at this point that the British have imposed a kind of embargo on Iran. The wells in southern Iran and that the British once controlled are no longer pumping oil. Iran's economy is in the toilet and as a result, Mosadez coalition is fracturing. A number of senior army officers that the prime minister had fired are now openly calling for his ouster. He also lost the support of the clerics, more on that in a bit. But they are the most effective force for most of the 20th century in Iran for ginning up popular street protests. So the black propaganda element of Operation Ajax, as it was known, was like pushing on an open door. What's more, Roosevelt, who spoke no far seat, had placed his black propaganda articles in newspapers that were mainly read by polo v supporters in the first place. The one thing that Roosevelt and his team did manage to do was to pressure the Shah himself to use his constitutional authority to dismiss Mosadez from office. By this point, Mosadez was pressing his advantage and the Shah was seriously considering abdication. In the summer of 1953, as Roosevelt was planning his operation, the Shah had taken off for his summer palace in a kind of internal exile. - He didn't want to take responsibility for it. I don't know if I want to be the Shah, I don't want to take responsibility for it is. What happens if this fails? This is Ray Takhe again. - So at some point, I think he makes a suggestion to Kermit Roosevelt that why don't I verbally tell you on the against Mosadez? (laughs) - Not issue any faimons. That's not quite the way it works. He gets visited by his sister, as you mentioned. He gets visited by Elder Schwarzkopf, the father of Noah Schwarzkopf, or the Gulf War claim, who had been involved in organizing the Iranian police force. And eventually, of course, Kermit Roosevelt, at least Kermit Roosevelt's account of this is exaggerated, but he does meet with the Shah and essentially presses him to dismiss his prime minister which he had constitutional authority to do so, by the way. - In this period, the young Shah seeks assurances that Eisenhower will support him if he fires Mosadez. So Roosevelt arranges for a line in one of the President's speeches that expresses vague support for whatever form of government Iran takes. That was enough for the Shah. He dispatches the head of his royal guards to deliver this. message to Mosuda himself at his residence. He also signs another decree making General Fazlola Zahadi, the chief of staff of the Army of the new Prime Minister. What happens next sounds like something from a comic novel. Mosuda is furious and has the poor colonel delivering the decree arrested. He then goes on national radio to explain that he will remain the Prime Minister. This is on August 15th. The Shah is now spooked and takes off for Baghdad and eventually Rome, where he runs into CIA Director Alan Dulles, causing a minor panic inside the agency. The CIA Director and the Shah cannot be seen together in the same room during a coup. Come on. Mosuda holds on for a few more days, but on August 20th 1953, pro-shah demonstrators flood the streets of Tehran and Mosuda realizes his position is untenable and steps down. These events have become a kind of dogma for American progressives and Iranian diplomats. The story goes like this. In 1953, Israel is once again the victim of great power meddling. And it's the coup in 1953 that leads directly to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Now we should say eventually the U.S. government officially apologized for the 1953 coup after the election of a reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in 1997. Here is Madeline Albright in an address to the American Iranian Council. In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammad Masidik. The Eisenhower administration believed his actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs. Obama himself internalized this narrative about the fall of Mosuda. And then I think the last thing that this is maybe not something I've learned but has been confirmed. Even with your enemies, even with your adversaries. I do think that you have to have the capacity to put yourself occasionally in their shoes. And if you look at Iranian history, the fact is that we had some involvement with overthrowing a democratically elected regime in Iran. Now one of the reasons why so many people have seized on the coup is because of the timing of our friend Kermit Roosevelt's memoir. That book was released in 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution. I kid you not. So this view that the I coup was the spark that let the long fuse that led to the toppling of the Shah in 1979 is far too simplistic. It also airbrushes away many inconvenient facts. Let's start with Mosodec himself by 1952. When he began his second term as prime minister, Mosodec started to resemble the kind of autocrat that he had spent his entire career opposing. He bullied the modulus in November of that year to grant him the powers to find exile and imprison anyone suspected of undermining national security. This law ended up banning most expressions of civil disobedience and created a de facto martial law. Mosodec also shut down opposition newspapers for a new law targeting the press, prominent newspaper editors and journalists staged a sit-in at the Mosulis to protest these draconian measures. In 1951, in a showdown with the Shah, Mosodec was allowed to serve as both prime minister and defense minister. This gave him the authority to purge the military of more than 150 senior officers that he suspected of being disloyal to him. He also purged the judiciary, summarily firing without due process, nearly 200 judges and state attorneys, including all of the justices on Iran's Supreme Court. He then dissolved the recently created upper chamber of the legislature, its senate, and then he dissolved the modulus itself, calling for another consultative assembly similar to the dissolution of the parliament in 1925. In this light, the overthrow of Mosodec looks much more like a duel than it does accrue. Remember, in 1953, the Shah himself is relegated to a kind of internal exile. He almost left the country in a move that many of his supporters feared would be his abdication, but decided to stay after demonstrations erupted in the streets demanding that the Shah remain in Iran. This again is re-tookay. A politician who entered political office as a champion of rule law became essentially an outlaw. A politician who entered seeking the essentially institutional arrangements that will limit the power of the any one institution tries to become a grand ice power. He essentially, what I would say, Mossadec as Prime Minister, betrayed Mossadec as a parliamentarian, Mossadec as a lawyer, Mossadec as a writer, because he also was essentially trying to clamp down on the press. So he subverted his own principles, which was very tragic, because he was one of the more upright and ethical politicians in Persia at that time. Another problem with the CIA coup narrative is that as Mossadec consolidated his power, he alienates the broad coalition that gave his government political legitimacy. Let's start with the mollus. In this period, the speaker of the modulus is Ayatollah Sayed Abu Ghassam Khashani. He initially supported Mossadec and was part of the national front that nationalized the oil industry. But he too had a falling out with the Prime Minister, even though he was persecuted by the Shah. In one of the great ironies of Iranian history, Khashani, who was one of the most powerful and respected clerics inside of the Khome seminaries, ended up gining up the street protests that ousted Mossadec in the 1953 coup. Khashani, who adhered to a strain of Shia Islam that believes a hidden imam or one day returned, was a major theological and political influence on none other than Ayatollah Khomeini. So yes, the radical clerics of 1953 supported the coup that many Western apologists today blame for fueling the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After the coup, Mossadec is tried and sentenced to prison. He ends up spending three years behind bars. He is spared a death sentence when the Shah intervenes. After his release, Mossadec is sent into internal exile on his family as a state east of Tehran and spends the rest of his life writing memoirs under house arrest. He died in 1967 and his funeral was a private affair. It's a sad tale, but we should also recognize that even Mohammed Mosadec, the champion of the Constitution, the hero of Iranian democracy, was becoming a tyrant after his first taste of executive power. Once again, Iran's liberals in a sense had chosen autocracy. In the next episode, the Shah consolidates his power and faces a formidable rival, a radical cleric who cedes and plots as another polyby modernizes this ancient land. Stay tuned for part two as we dive into the Shah's demise and the revolution that created the Islamic police station that still stands today. [Music] [Music] [Music] ♪ If we don't get our freedom, we take it to the streets of ♪ ♪ We love the sun, we love the moon, we love them too ♪ ♪ We threw them off, we love the sun, we love them all ♪ ♪ We love them too, we threw them off ♪ ♪ And they knew we, the King of kings ♪ ♪ We can't give up, I'll pretend to be ♪ ♪ Then they knew we, the King of kings ♪ ♪ The cards are reaching the southeast ♪ ♪ Then they knew we, the King of kings ♪ Tammy regularly hauled stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's wholesale club saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods even they can't screw up. Have you met my kid? 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