Empire: World History - 121. The Fall of the Shah of Shahs

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

The Shah cracks down on dissent, to the point even his great ally Jimmy Carter begins to cool on the relationship. The economy continues to overheat and the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini has never been more popular. In early 1978 people take to the streets in protest. This quickly escalates until the Shah believes he has no choice but to abdicate. But will Khomeini bring respite to the country, or will things just keeping get worse? Join William and Anita as they are joined by Ali Ansari for the last time to discuss the climax of our story, the Iranian Revolution, and the terrible bloodshed that accompanies Iran's mullahs rise to power. For bonus episodes, ad-free listening, reading lists, book discounts, a weekly newsletter, and a chat community. Sign up at https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/ Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. And welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Duremberg. And with us, because we've locked all the doors, we nailed the windows shut. He is nowhere for him to go. Professor Ali Ansari is where this professor of Iranian studies at the University of St. Andrews.

On spectacular form. Because you're so good. And the thing is, Willie and I both know how this story is going to end, but we're both on the edge of our seats. Like, what's going to happen next? It does. And it feels like a sort of terrific tragedy building up. There's so much promise, so many possibilities.

And then you know how it's going to end. But I really, really, really, really, really want to know. Where are you, Ali? Because this, you know, you exist at this point in time. I mean, in the early 70s, I was somewhere between Geneva and Brussels, because my father was an ambassador for the Shah, as it happens, and was based in Geneva and then Brussels. So until around 19, I think 74, I would have been in Europe. And then my father basically retired and we returned to Iran. So in the lead up to the revolution, I was in Iran. I mean, obviously, and I was going to the British school in Tehran, by the way. I'm an alum.

are the British School in Tehran. And, you know, I mean, one of the interesting things about revolutions, to be honest, is that you never really know when you're living through a sort of a revolutionary period. I mean, we all know it with the benefit of hindsight. And even when I left Iran in June 78 to come to school here, actually, to come to school, the boarding school in Britain, I didn't think I wasn't going to return. No one did, did they? No. There are so many Iranian expat friends of mine say exactly the same thing. Nobody thought that the Shah was going to fall. Yeah, nobody thought, you know, He said, oh, there's more difficulty, but even in June 78.

I mean, I'll give you an example also of how bizarre these things are. So I had a, I've actually rather sadly kept this old diary that I had as a kid. And one of the things I noticed is in April 78, I went to see the spy who loved me in Tehran in the original Persian, as I always tell people. And it was nothing. You know, I mean, nobody thought anything strange of it. When he goes off the cliff and the Union Jack flag comes out, everyone was hooting and yelping in the cinema and clapping.

But, you know, everyone would tell him. tell you, oh, the revolution had started. Wow. Okay. I've not lived through a revolution, but a little bear tells me you also still have in your possession, your Empire of Iran passport. Is that right? I do. I do. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. What does the cover look like? The cover is, it's basically a nice maroon cover. It has the lion and sun with the crown on top of it, and it's French. Which is a flag we're seeing more and more now with the diaspora, waving it. It is. And it says on the front, Empire de l'Iran. Okay. So look, I'm I wanted to ask you, I mean, as somebody who has studied this and lived this, was it inevitable?

You took us to a cliff edge at the last episode. You know, things were becoming angry and tense. And yet it was very prosperous in the cities. The economy is booming. And yet the inequalities are growing too. That's the problem. So was it inevitable that a revolution was coming? I don't, you see, I don't think it was.

I don't think it was, and I think there are a series of areas where you can certainly highlight where the Shah made some pretty bad mistakes. But I think right up until 77, even 78, you could say that had he taken different decisions, it certainly wouldn't have developed as it did. I think it's quite late by late 77 to say that, you know, could he have survived? But he might have been able to hand over to a regency by his wife, the Empress. There might have been a means by which something could have transitioned. Was she more popular? She was. She was. She was seen as much more left-leaning, more arty, more tolerant. So she was actually

quite popular among the people. Had done a lot of work for women. And I mean, I think, you know, he was seen as the austere, you know, dictator and this or thing. Although, as, as, you know, people subsequently said, they said, there's only one thing worse than being a dictator, and that is to pretend to be a dictator. So, and this was the Shah's problem because, you know, as I think Sir Anthony Parsons, the British ambassador famously said, that we're all wondering at the time, is this man changed or is he going to get on a plane to Rome like he did last time? I mean, you know, they weren't entirely sure. And I mean, I think at the time, the tragedy really of the shy is that he was not, you know,

he has a man of tremendous vision, actually. I mean, if you listen to him, there's a reason why, curiously, I mean, in a sense, he was very close with Richard Nixon. The relationship with the Americans was at its tightest during the Nixon administration. But like Nixon, there's a deep flaw. There's a wonderful sort of foreign policy articulation, but a failure to see some of the, you know, the domestic details are a little bit of a nuisance. I don't want to deal with it. And that's really what was his undoing. He moves in a direction, which is very, very autocratic and actually in some ways quite dictatorial. Okay. Well, let's talk about, I mean, you talked about Nixon, but this is the really pivotal administration that we want to talk about right now as a Carter administration. So just tell us how and why that makes a difference. And we're talking about 1977 here. So what is it that happens?

Well, the Shah has a tendency to look at what's going on abroad and to take perhaps the wrong lessons for them. So he goes off on a trip to China and he comes back and he says, well, I like this idea of a one-party state. So he abolishes the two-party system, established a one-party state. And this was a complete disaster. I mean, a complete disaster. He's also acutely, you know, thinking about his own mortality.

He's got cancer. It's not public, but he's got cancer. He knows he's got it already, does it? Oh yeah, he does, yeah. He knew, but it was a tightly held secret. I don't think even his own wife. He looks very gaunt in those last years, doesn't he? But, you know, it's not terminal yet,

but he's obviously thinking about his future and how he's going to transition to his son. And there's a very interesting visit by Tony Ben, believe it or not, who I will say about Tony Ben, you can take the man out of the House of Lords, but you can't take the House of Lords out of the Man. So he was quite full of effusive praise about the Shah. He thought the Shah was marvellous, sort of like leading, you know,

Democratic Central. Really? Oh yeah, yeah. There's a dog. That's so against all preconceptions in both directions. He goes to the show. I mean, at some of it, he sort of says, you know, your social reforms are much more advanced than what we've done in Britain. He says, and he goes, yes, yes. It's a really so obsequious meeting. But in that meeting, quite interesting, the Shah says, you know, I think I probably have another eight, ten years in me. I will probably abdicate in 1984 and hand over to my son to allow him to give him a bit of time to grow. And it's the only document I've seen, by the way, where he talks about it. I haven't seen anything else.

And this isn't a discussion in 1977, I think. Now, Carter comes in. Okay, so the Shah has a wonderful relationship with the Republicans. He loves it and he's very keen on the Republicans. Always had a very tense relationship with Democrats, partly because he had a very bad relationship with Kennedy. Why? Oh, tell me why.

Kennedy, because basically he thought Kennedy had imposed on him a prime minister he didn't want, and Kennedy was very intolerant of the Shah's bombast. Kennedy had no time for this sort of sense of dignity that the Shah had, you know, just get on with it. And they said he wasn't reforming and he had to reform. And, you know, the argument was was that the Kennedy's, you know, the Democrats were much more interested in human rights. Ironically, you know, Carter comes in and there is this thing, you know,

Carter came on on a platform of human rights and ethical foreign policy, you know, as you get these things. Of course, when you talk to members of the Carter administration, they tell you that very soon Carter got in and realized that all this ethical foreign policy stuff ain't going to work, you know. And they basically say, well, the Shah is, you know, he's a mixed bag, but he's one of ours and, you know, let's leave him alone. I don't think that apocryphal statement that he's one of our bastards or whatever that they would say. I don't think that actually came out. He's a bastard, but he's one of our bastards. Yeah, but I don't think that really

really implies here. But there was this sort of view that the Shah was really the only show in town and they needed to back him. But by this stage, the Shah was, I think, already thinking about succession planning, you see? How old is he now in his 60s? 58 years old. My age. He's barely out of kindergarten. You know, there's this sort of anxiety about, you know, because they thought, oh, the Democrats are going to come in and put all this pressure.

But interestingly, the Shah had already started the process of liberalisation. It starts in 76. He starts to move very tender to allow more freedom of expression on university campuses to allow. I mean, it's a very limited process, by the way. But then, you know, the argument is, and this is the great irony, the argument is that a bit like Donald Drumsfeld said, freedom is messy. you know, obviously they're getting a reaction, right? I mean, people are sort of coming out, having meetings, chanting things, you know. So the Shah says, I'm determined to continue with

this process of liberalisation and all this stuff that's coming out that's a bit unsavory. Well, you know, it's a process of liberalisation. We've got to expect it. So he actually doubles down on this process. He then starts to release people. He starts to, but probably at the wrong time, if I can put it that way, because you've got an economic crisis in the country, you've got a political crisis of confidence. And at this very moment, he's beginning to liberalise because he thinks that, A, he needs to sort out his succession, and also, of course, on a less important role, really, the Americans will be more satisfied with him. And of course, his critical moment is in, and it's a real coup for the Shah that Carter goes to a meeting in Moscow, and then he's coming

back to the United States, and the first place he stops on route home, it's not London, it's not Paris, it's not Berlin, well, it wouldn't be Berlin, Bonn, it's, it's Tehran. He stops in Tehran and he spends New Year's Eve, 1977, win the Shah's company and he makes a very fateful speech and the speech that Carter says which there's a lot of debate about who told him to write this sentence

was, you know, Iran under the leadership of your majesty is an island of stability and in other words, turbulent and the Shah thinks, ah, that's an endorsement. I mean, that's not bad, yeah. They've got my back. Yeah, so I'm going to go and give this Khomeini

who keeps saying rude things about me some grief. Well, where is Khomeini at this time? Khomeini's in Iraq. He's in Iraq still a Najaf, you know, writing sort of angry things. And also what, I mean, is he just sort of being angry or is he actually sort of formulating an alternative way for Iran? So by this stage, coinciding with the 2,500 anniversary of the Persian Empire that we talked about earlier. The big party, yeah.

Yeah. Khomeini issues a series of lectures called Islamic government. And for the first time, he articulates an alternative vision. And he basically says that government, in the absence of the hidden imam, and Shiism is illegitimate, and government should be in the hands of the representatives of the hidden imam, basically himself. So, you know, he articulates this idea and he records his lectures on cassette tapes, and its cassette tapes are taken back into Iran throughout the 70s. But Khomeini was one of a number of opposition leaders. He wasn't the only one, but he was certainly there.

Ali, what I find hard to understand now, looking back at it, is what was his attraction? Was he a very Fari's speaker? Was he very charismatic? Because he appears in the photographs to be so austere, so puritanical, fierce, unsmiling. The chief attraction of Khomeini, apart from his educational background, which appealed to both, you know, traditionalists and modernists, and also his own desire to cultivate the young. I mean, Khomeini was very careful at cultivating public support among the young. But his chief attraction was basically that he offered clarity and he offered decisiveness. And, you know, people say he was uncompromising. You could also say he was just very stubborn. I mean, people thought he was quite a bit, but he offered a degree of clarity

at a time when many Iranians were very lost about what was going on. Modernization was a bewildering process. You talk about that for a second. What do you mean by that? Why was it bewildering to have better cars on the roads or the roads to be tarmac? Yeah. Here you have a society and a culture that's very ancient, has very ancient roots, is very traditional in its outlook, both Islamic and, you know, just Persian. I don't want to say it's all Islamic. And the modernisation seemed to be reflecting, as some writers talked about, the westernization of Iran. I mean, basically, people were saying that Iran is becoming a sort of a clone of a Western European country or a clode of America. And people just didn't like it.

And filled with Americans, there are hundreds of thousands of American citizens living in Iran. So one of the things that was very striking, and one of the bits of research I did, I was very struck about was attitudes towards Americans in Iran. Okay. And one of the things you'll find is that for most working class people, the real problem was not Americans. It was Labor coming from the Indian subcontinent because that was the competition to their jobs. Yeah. What really? So immigration problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the Iranian economy was booming. It's a story as old as time. Goodless me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what they were worried about. The group of people who were bothered about the Americans, interesting enough, were middle class. Were middle class in Asper. Now, it's a very

interesting dynamic because the argument had been that the Americans will provide economic and technical and military support to Iran, but eventually Iranians will start to take over these professional jobs, bit like with the oil company. What was happening was that some of the equipment that the Americans were sending into Iran, military equipment, was such a technical specification that actually they were shipping more technicians to come and service them. in Afghanistan recently. Yeah. So what happened was, is that a lot of these people said,

we were under the assumption that as the country develops economically, you know, there'll be an Iranianisation of the labour force. But actually, what was happening was more Americans were turning up to service. Now, the interesting thing is, it's in the 60s and 70s that you get an influx, and you're quite right about this, of Western sort of workers who have no interest in Iran. They're there to make money. Previously, when Westerners came to Iran, they were orientalists, and diplomats and, you know, they had some interest.

They had respect and love and adoration. Yeah, absolutely. Because this lot all just came in and said, oh, it's a great place to make money. But there's even more than that. And because of, you know, the judicial reforms that you talked about earlier, you know, whereas in the Emirates, for example, you know, if you're foreign and you're going to make money these days, you know, you can do that, but you'll have less rights than Emirates.

It was completely the flip side over, wasn't it, in Iran? That if you were American or British, you would have more rights. It is interesting. Well, they've learned the lesson. They've learned the lesson, haven't they? Yeah. Other examples in the region of oil-rich economies with vast numbers of foreigners coming in, making money, and societies radically transformed very, very quickly, Saudi Arabia, Dubai. But why is it that the Iranian one goes off the rails in this manner and not the other two? I think because in Iran there is a tradition now of political awareness, consciousness, aspiration that you can trace back to the 19th century. Yes, you're quite right. So you have a whole

cadre of people who say, what happened to the rights we were promised in the constitutional revolution? You know, what happened to the, you know, freedom of speech and all this or so forth? And they're, you know, they're very well educated, they're very well-traveled. They're very good universities, the University of Tehran, one of the great universities of the region. Yeah. But why does Khomeini appeal to intellectuals and the people working in the bazaars? Why? So it's a very good question. And one of the interesting things we found when we've done surveys of sort of like the people who became radicalized in the Islamic world. One is that Khomeini and his acolytes offered a sort of a radical mix of Islamic Marxism, if I could put it that way.

Khomeini, for a start, borrowed much of the language of Marxism. When you see those movies of those westernized associates of Khomeini, they're not all beardies. There's all sorts of young, Western-educated, left-leaning, people hanging around his camp. And the revolution, by the way, was basically led in many ways, at least by the left, not just by the clerical. But it was a union of the left in the clerical classes. It's a left that provided a considerable amount of the heft in the overthrow of the Shah.

Okay. And these people are going to see him in Najaf, and they're learning from him and his tapes, and they're bringing his tapes back. And they say things like, oh, you know, he does philosophy, you know, and he does. But the other thing is, is if you look at the educational background. Yeah, and he's a poet. It's always dangerous. If you look at the educational background of many of these people who followed him,

many of them are scientists, engineers, mathematicians, for whom there is a right and a wrong. There's a right answer and a wrong answer. And many engineers. The old Iranian dichotomy, the truth and the lie. And this is your right, actually. I mean, I think there's got to be more work done on this. But I suspect, and do you remember when I said there were bureaucrats and technocrats?

So under Reza Shah, the bureaucrats, when they were. are brought to study, they studied the humanities, law, politics, history. You had a degree of nuance. Yeah, grey area subjects. Yeah, yes. Gray area subject. In the post-1960s, what do you go and study? Medicine, technological subject, you know, engineering, we want engineers. We don't want people to deal in politics. We want people who can deal in clear scientific fact. Well, I mean, yeah, there may be that, the binary thing, but it's also, if you're, if you've trained and you've become an engineer, And then you come back to your country and nobody's explaining the technology to you because they've got their own Americans.

And it's all to, where are you going to go? You know, what are you going to do? That's also very, very irritating. Exactly. I think you're absolutely right. So they're very well educated, but they're not, you know, it's not in the humanities. I mean, again, I think there's more work that needs to be done on this. But I've always found it, like you, I've always found it very striking.

Why on earth would these people educated and all these wonderful Western universities come and pay he to this? It's because I think Homanie, he basically offered a clarity they could relate to. You know, what do you do in this crisis? It's very easy. He says the Quran and I, and it says this. But, Judge, don't you want to as an academic, just go back and shake them? I know. What are you thinking?

Don't go down this path. I know. But he also led, I'm sorry to say, I think he also was dissimulated, I think is the polite way of putting it. But where he said things like an Islamic government will be a constitution. government. Okay. He promised them things that they wanted. Well, he said it's a constitutional government, but of course, when you look at the detail, what he's saying is it's an Islamic constitution and I'm the one who can interpret it. Oh my goodness, right. Okay, so we never read the small print. I do. Well, I see what you mean. I don't know why they didn't see what he meant.

And all these lefties, just not to spoil the plot, but all these lefties are the first against the wall after the revolution, aren't they? Absolutely. Well, isn't it always the case? But hang on, hang on, hang on. At this point where the court of Humini is growing with, you know, people who, one could argue, should have known better. But, you know, there they are. At what point does he train his cannons on the Shah? He's talking about a different way of doing things, but when does the Shah become the man who's got to go? And when does he start articulating that? Well, no, I mean, that happens throughout the 70s. But the point is, nobody's listening. The people start to listen. So what happens is the Shah has this article placed in a newspaper

on the 8th of January 1978, generally seen as the kicking off point of the Islamic Revolution, but, I mean, all with the benefit of hindsight and slightly fabricated, but nonetheless, an anonymous article goes in, Et T'allat, and basically describes Khomeini as an Indian, a sexual, a Baha, a Zai, a Zai, I mean, anything you, any, a British agent, I mean, anything you could have, they chucked it out. And of course, this causes outrage. I mean, there's people, his supporters think, you know, this is a complete scurrilous attack, and it's been done by the government on a very esteemed learned theologian, you know,

whether we agree with him or not, he's still a learned theologian. needs. And of course, this is what sparks of a series of protests against the Shah. They start in Com? Yes. And now you get this complete perversity again that the Iranian internal security forces are not equipped with things like tear gas or are they? And so what they end up doing is shooting people. And then you shoot people, these people die,

and then 40 days later you go and celebrate their, you know, their martyrdom and the cycle begins to go. There are very, very good videos and footage of this whole period, isn't, aren't there? And you can see these angry young men in flares. I have to tell you how, you know, up until June, July, nobody thought the Shah was going for, okay? Margaret Thatcher, leader of the opposition, goes to Tehran in April to get a bit of a history lesson on world politics. There's a plan for a state visit at some stage that they're working on. But the most dramatic thing is the British ambassador in Tehran goes on a three-month

vacation. Anthony Parsons? Yeah, yeah. So when you look at it, and I've I've written about it. I've written a kind of detailed article on this year. It's very interested to see when people in the embassies start to think something isn't right. And really, that starts to happen in August, September. So when Anthony Parsons comes back from his summer vacation, he goes, there's something that's not happening here. The Shah is losing control. People shouting death to the Shah now in the streets. Well, basically, the death to the shire, there's a dispute over when that was first said. But we think it was basically after the Jaleigh Square massacre, which is Black Friday, which was in September. I mean, to cut

a long story short, every conceivable decision is the wrong one at the wrong time. He puts in martial law, but he puts in martial law with a general who doesn't like to shoot people. He releases political prisoners from prison en masse and then arrests all his own supporters. Many of the first people to be executed when the Shah fell were people that the Shah himself put in prison. Oh my God. Okay. I mean, just just one second more on the Black Friday. I mean, you know, again, if you're going to screw this up, screw this up like this. So you've got your sort of protesters coming out and, you know, know, they're loud and noisy, I guess, at first. They're not violent at first, but doesn't he send in tanks? What he sends in, really, I mean, what actually happens is, I mean, under martial law,

they want to obviously, the tanks are there to sort of maintain order, but it's completely, as you say, inappropriate. But what he does is he sends in, you know, obviously martial law, he sends in the troops, and at the Jarlow Square massacre, there were about 82 people died. And earlier, there'd been 370 dead in Abidon, in the, in the Rex cinema, and that was meant to be blamed on him. Oh, more, more, more than that. And that, and that, interesting thing about that, of course, that was actually Islamic radicals who did it. But he gets the blame. He gets the blame, yeah.

So the cinema wrecks fire is a disaster. I mean, 400 people are locked in a cinema and burnt alive. And, of course, they all say, this is Savak. And it isn't. But, you know, of course, the authority had failed by there. But the thing about the Jaleigh Square massacre is, of course, people exaggerate the numbers that die there. But the biggest consequence of the Jali Square massacre is that on the Shah himself. I mean, he's deeply shocked by it.

He can't deal with it. He sort of says, the throne cannot be. built on blood. And this is the thing that's the most curious and tragic thing of this whole thing, is, as I said, there's no point, the only worst thing than being a dictator is to pretend to be a dictator. He wanted to be the strong man. The minute people shot at anyone, he went, no, no, stop it, stop it. But the thing is, once you have momentum, you have momentum, and you can want whatever the hell you want, it's now running out of your control. And after that massacre in Jarlay Square, the Black Friday, and it's in September, I mean, things just carry on deteriorating until you've got,

in December protests where 135 people are killed when tanks ran over them. And this is on a holy day as well. This is our show, but this is when you get the truly massive crowds on the streets. I mean, this is because it's still with the... But before that, there's an even more absurd thing where he's given a sort of a letter to read on air in November. And I always remember this because people tell me about it, where he announces very much like Louis the 16th.

He says, you know, I have heard the voice of your revolution and I am happy to lead it. I think someone had been reading a bit too much from that French Revolution. And he goes on air. It's a terrible thing. And I remember my family saying, he said, for the first time, we all thought, Christ, we're in a revolution. Wow, really? Because the Shah had announced it.

And of course, the minute you do that, you just enable your opponents. I mean, they all said, he's on the run. And as you say, the momentum is very important because they'd realize, they called his bluff. He wasn't willing to do, you know, he certainly wasn't going to do an asset. Let's put it that way. And they thought, right, right, let's chase this guy out. And by this stage, the Europeans had lost faith.

Well, the Europeans had lost, you know, Jimmy Carter, the man of human rights, he's watching these tanks rode over people. No, you know, whatever the Shah might have thought with Carter saying, I've got your bag, clearly he's not going to be able to do anything for him now. And there's one million people in the streets demonstrating against him. One million. By then, by then. But the thing you have to be careful about, again, here is that the image of these,

but these are quite late in the day, December, and this is the thing you have to understand. The minute the Shah announces on television that I have heard the voice of your revolution and I heard of you, people start to switch sides. People start. And the crowds become big because people are ensuring themselves. They're saying, oh my God, he's going.

I'm switching. And that's what happens. And what you find is a sea change. So these large crowds, really, are all in December. They're all in December in the Tassoa-Arshirah in the Holy Months. But they're very late in the day. And by this stage, the Shah goes to old National Front politicians, old people from the secular national front, which are basically the old Mossad de Gists, and say to them, for God's sake, we've got to save the country. And one of them, Sharpe wabatia comes up and he says, I'll take over as Prime Minister, but in order to do this, you have to leave the country. And I think this was also a big mistake, because the minute the Shah leaves the country, you knew full well he wasn't coming back. And he leaves mid-January. So it's quite quick. Yeah, January the 16th, yeah.

You say that Parsons comes back from his holiday in September and it's just beginning, and he leaves in January. It's a meltdown. It is the definition of a political meltdown. Yeah, okay, so he leaves on the 16th of January in 1979, and Hormane flies back on the 1st of February, 1979. Join us after the break and find out what happens when he comes back. Welcome back. So just before the break, the Shah has left. the country is boiling and Khomeini comes back in February. What happens when he comes up? Does he come back to a hero's welcome?

Do people sort of lie in the street saying, oh, thank God you're here? Massive. I mean, basically, again, this sort of bewilderment, alienation, suddenly they see this figure who's going to come and sort it all out for them. Well, they see someone who says he's a grown-up. Yeah. Anyone listening to this who wants visuals of this, go and look up the work of my friend Abbas, who was a wonderful...

Fantastic photographer. I worked with him when we were covering the uprisings in Egypt and the Kabatalazimir, and he did a lifetime project on Islamist movements. And his coverage of this moment, he was in Tehran, he was watching all of this, and spectacular magnanim images, which you can find online. Well, maybe let's put a link in the newsletter. Let's definitely do that. Okay, so the streets are lined with people saying, okay, you know, there's a grown-up in town.

We've got at least somebody to hold the tiller now, because it must have. feel as if you're in a chaotic vessel that's just completely speeding towards God knows where. How quickly does he manage to take hold of the reins of power, Hohmeni at this time? So when Hameini gets back, there's a sort of euphoric moment in large part because people can't believe that the Shire has gone. You know, this very politically suffocating environment, at least as a release. In just four months flat, it's just suddenly happening. Yeah, I mean, it's a, so of course, I mean, like all revolutions that happen, there's this tremendous thing that people think that, you know, it was divinely ordained, you know, I mean, it's actually, there's a wonderful bit

into Tockville's Anseigne, where he talks about how either side said, either it's a satanic plot or it's divinely ordained, but it's something supernatural. I mean, nobody can really believe that this is his man-made. But Khomeini then has to basically fight for the better part of a year to consolidate his position, because many of the sort of left and the sort of secular intellectuals who wanted the shaghan, sort of view Khomeini in this classic failed playbook. They think they can use him, don't they? Yeah, they say, you've done your job now, and off you go to Rome and go and continue your studies. And because Khomeini had no intention of doing this.

I mean, he was, you know... He's been waiting and planning for a long time. But also, he's surrounded by some very savvy secular folk who are advising him at all stage, all Western educated... Yeah, yeah. They all thought what would happen now is a republic of some sort. You know, the empire's over. It's now a republic.

And, of course, Khomeini said, well, they have to be an Islamic Republic. And they went, yeah, yeah, that's cool. But what they didn't realize is by Islamic Republic, he was now saying a theocracy. The crown may have gone, but the turban will replace it. How quickly does he set up, you know, his revolutionary committees of retribution, if you like, to sort of, you know. Well, that's all going. I mean, actually the excheats. So what he does is he sets up a provisional government of his own with a sort of a religious nationalist.

There are sort of these revolutionary comitiers, as they call them. They're running around basically handing out. revolutionary justice. It's quite chaotic. And when we say revolutionary justice, are we talking about just pushing people up against wars and shooting them? I mean, just summary executions and torture? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. It's chaos. Yeah, basically it's revenge. How quickly does that kick in? Pretty early, pretty early. And Bazaghan, who's the provisional prime minister says, you know, this is completely unacceptable. But one of the more tragic ones, for instance, is the Shah's former prime minister, Hovereda, who'd been minister of court, who the Shah had arrested and was sitting in prison,

they found him in prison, they put him on some sort of mock trial and had him executed within, I think, three days. I mean, and this was very shocking to people. I mean, people suddenly realized, ooh, there were, the revolutionaries thought, well, this is, you know, revolutionary justice, let's get things done. But many other people suddenly realized this is not actually what we voted for. I mean, what you're dreaming of, certainly. Yeah.

So the revolutionary committees, revolutionary guards already appearing? No, no, no. Revolution committees are basically modelled on the French Revolution. They're basically a bunch of student organizations all go around. It's a bit like, you know, the cultural revolution in China. It's a student union with Kalashnikov. So, so are we, I mean, are we talking about instant militia, you know, just out of water? Just out, yeah, and then that's it.

Remember everyone in Iran had done military service. They'd all know how to use a gun. Right. Gosh. Okay, so what were the intellectual saying now? Well, the intellectuals are saying now. They're saying, well, you know, this is what happens when a revolution happens. We have to phase in and we'll have calm it down or whatever.

But, of course, what happens is, is that a fully fledged, civil war takes place between the religious right and the secular left or the Islamic Marxists. It becomes very bloody indeed. And then, of course, on November the 4th... And yet even at this stage, you've still got those young men in flares interpreting for Khomeini... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The veil wasn't enforced yet. You know, I mean, there's a lot of things that people still call this the spring of freedom.

I mean, it's the early phase of the revolution when you still had a degree of freedom. But, of course, what you have is a gradual, almost like a second revolution takes place. Okay, hang on a minute, but there was, I mean, in March 79, he does have a referendum, doesn't he? He said, you know, do you love me kind of referendum? You know, do you want a state based on Islamic principles? And the referendum returned a 97% approval. Was that a fake referendum? I always think these sort of figures, when you get 97 or 98%, I always think it's a bit dodgy. Well, of course. It sounds dodgy. So basically, the referendum said, the referendum said, do you want to abolish the monarchy and replace it with a government based on Islamic principles?

And people said, obviously, they just said a revolution, the shard gone. And they went, yeah. You know, now. Yeah, but you still don't think 97% still fishy, isn't it? You're right. No, no, no. I don't think it. But I also think that it wasn't exactly a free and fair referendum.

Nobody knew what they were voting for. A government based on Islamic principles, you could say, do we abolish the monarchy? Do you want to abolish corruption and have a government based on ethics? Do you want justice? That's the other crime. And people sort of say, yeah, I'll vote for that. Yeah, I'll vote for that. I mean, this is the thing.

I mean, now people are saying we should have another referendum. And the Islamic Republic was saying, no, no, we don't like referendums. Referendums are good. And actually, the whole Islamic Republic was founded on a referendum. Okay. And at what point does he set up the Revolutionary Guards, which we still know today? Was that quite a quick thing? That was, yeah, that was set up really.

I mean, it was set up in large part because they didn't trust the regular armed forces because the regular armed forces were seen as basically a Pahalabi creation. So they decided to set up their own sort of Islamic army. And this was basically a brotherhood in arms that would protect the revolution. And do remember it's the revolutionary guards. It's not the Republican Guard. It's got nothing to do about protecting the Republic. And these people are from a different class, aren't they?

This is not the young men who'd been to university abroad. These guys are from small towns. No, originally some of them were. Some of them had been in universities. But yes, you're quite right. It was recruited from a much broader base. But some of them were educated. This is the early stages, though, mind you.

I mean, this is the early revolutionary guards. Okay, so he's consolidating. the Ayatollah is consolidating his position, consolidating his power, and people are being shot and taken away and disappearing in the middle of the night. Okay, all of that going on. And in the meantime, the Shah is kind of ping ponging rather tragically around the world. And it is a dreadful experience for him. He's sick. He knows he's got cancer.

His cancer has now kicked in pretty badly, yeah. And what is the attitude of his former allies to, you know, when he turns out? It's not great, is it? Well, the Americans in particular are trying to transition. I mean, everyone wants to transition. Because you have to bear in mind, I mean, there were some real absurdities in this period. In America, there were some people on the Democratic Party and others who thought that Khomeini was going to be a sort of a Gandhi-like figure. And they all sort of like thought this was, you know, they didn't like the Shah. They thought, you know, the support for the Shah was a huge mistake.

They basically supported the revolution. And the interesting thing is the Americans, you know, continued briefing. the CIA was briefing the Iranian government all the way through to October 79. These briefings only stopped when the students took over the American embassy on the 4th of November. Okay, so we should say this. So this is prompted by the news that the show had been allowed into the USA for cancer treatment. And what date? Fourth of November.

So that hostage situation was absolutely seismic in the psyche of the Americans as well. And many people remember it, but our younger listeners won't remember. It was deemed to be like a terrorist attack on sovereign U.S. soil. It was a major thing. Well, it's a breach of the Vienna Convention, of course. Spoken like a diplomatic child, Ali. Yeah. I mean, the Iranian students who went in were basically arguing that because the Shah had gone for medical treatment in America, the Americans were planning a coup, you see. So that was the justification. But I think Khomeini saw it in a very opportunistic way. This was not the first time, by the way, an embassy had been attacked. I mean, the American

embassy had been attacked as the British embassy earlier on. But they'd always got them out. And on this occasion, I think Homanie thought this was a perfect opportunity to inaugurate the second revolution, so to speak, to get his ideas through, to get the constitution through that he wanted with the guardianship of the jurist, with him sitting atop of all things, and to begin an Islamization of the revolution, essentially. Did Hameani send them or did he just back them once they'd done what they wanted to do? Was it was spontaneous thing, or did he plan it? No, my understanding is he backed it once it was done. Yeah, that's what I've always thought. That he didn't orchestrate it. Anyone wanting to see visuals of this,

that are not only fantastic black and white, this is the great televised revolution. And, you know, for me, for me, one of the reasons why it's so seared into the American imagination is precisely because it was broadcast every night into their arms. Well, of course it was. It was, you know, yeah. How many days were the hostages held for?

Do you remember? 444 days. So describe what happened for those that don't know the story. So they pour over the walls, they break in, diplomats are blindfolded. So the Charger de Fair, The Sharjad Affair is actually sitting in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time, and he's told that students have got into the embassy.

And he goes to the Iranian foreign minister and he says, I hope you're going to get them out. And they say, yeah, no problem. We'll ring up Khomeini and we'll get it sorted. Khomeini does not give the answer that they expect. And of course, what they also find is these students are all armed and they've got guns. Now, the Americans didn't resist it in a sense because they thought this is a routine thing in a revolution environment.

They'll be out. But instead what happened was, the Marine Guards were disarmed and whatever, they took the hostages, they released a number of the black staff because they were seen as, quote, oppressed and therefore they were allowed to go. But they kept everyone else. So it's still very much a kind of leftist spin to this whole revolution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, basically this is, you've got to remember it's the post-Vietnam period. It's the post-68 student protests in France. This is all part of that sort of wave. Yes, Arafat at large, over the border. Yeah. Okay, so when it becomes clear to the Americans that, no, Kamani's not going to lift a finger. In fact, he's going to exploit this. This starts actually impacting on the Carter's presidency as well, because he looks weak for every day.

The news, the nighttime news in America is showing no hostages are still in there and they're not coming out. And here's an anomaly you won't have worked out, which I got wrong actually when I first wrote my book on this. I got this quite wrong because I'd sort of assume that this would imply a break in diplomatic relations. Carter didn't break diplomatic relations with around until the following March. So there was a functioning Iranian embassy in Washington while the American embassy in terror. So there was no like, because now we tip for tat expel at a drop of a hat. We tit for tat. Yeah, they thought they could. Wow. It was a complete disaster. Complete disaster.

How many hostages? I think there were 52. 52. So it's April 1980 when Carter finally sends the helicopters in and the men in camouflage paint on their faces. Also a complete disaster. Well, describe, because I mean, I've seen it. Because I'm a news junkie. I've seen it. Basically, Carter decided that they'd try and get a military rescue of the hostages. And for reasons that I'm not entirely certain, I don't know, they miscalculated the distance, for some reason, across the desert from the Persian Gulf all the way up to Tehran. But there was a sandstorm that caught the helicopters.

And one helicopter hit another helicopter, and the whole thing was a fiasco. And obviously for Carter, the worst thing was, is that, you know, these mullahs then started to gloat over the dead bodies of Americans in the desert. Yeah, there were photographs. weren't there, of sort of charred bodies in the desert and these mangled helicopters without a single shot being fired by the Iranians? Yeah. I mean, it was, and then of course they took it as a divine, a divine... Well, I was going to say, God is God is on our side. Yeah, of course, it doesn't, it doesn't hurt. And so basically, they keep the hostages, they keep the hostages until 15 minutes, I think,

after Reagan had been inaugurated as the new president in January 1981. Right. And it is the thing that's said to have hobbled the Carter presidency completely, this whole fiasco made him look, weak and ridiculous, yeah. Yeah, yeah, completely. It made him look weak. And of course, Reagan was, you know, I mean, ironically, it brought in a much tougher American administration. Is this, would you say, the root of the hatred that, you know, now exists between America and Iran, that, you know, you made a mockery of us and we hate you?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so basically the Iranians say, you know, we did this because of 1953. So they root it down to 1953. the Americans obviously have a deep, they say, no, no, 1970, I was a complete atrocious. And to be honest, the American case is stronger than people think, because the Americans were actually helping the Iranians right up until October 79. But then the third thing that really puts a nail in the coffin is the Iran-Contra affair, which, as you know, became exposed from 84 onwards, which is basically the... Oliver North. Yeah, Oliver North. And the Republicans getting, Reagan getting badly burnt by this

Eskabade, which actually had very little to do with the Iranians, and it wasn't the Iranians who leaked it. but it just sort of said, God, you touch Iran, it's a complete disaster. Well, again, again, just in a nutshell, I just remind people what Iran-Contra was all about. I mean, we're sort of overstepping our boundary, but it's worth, but it is bound-ups and you've brought it up. So, I mean, what was Iran-Contra? I mean, basically in 1980, September 1980, Saddam Hussein evades Iran. So the revolution quickly morphs into a war, and there's a major war, the first significant war the Iranians have been involved in in the modern age.

during the war, the Iranians are looking for equipment. I mean, they're looking to resupply what is essentially an American army, by the way. I mean, it's American-equipped army, a British-equipped army. And British, yeah, they got Phantom Jet. Yeah, yeah. They had a lot of the equipment. I mean, it was a very powerful army. I mean, to be honest, the Shah had built up.

And interestingly, of course, everyone says that the revolutionary government was extremely grateful to the Shah for having built up such a powerful army. Because, you know, once Saddam Hussein invaded, they needed something to resist it. So the Americans, basically there was a wheeze, shall we? we say, that the Americans would supply Iran with some of the spare parts it needed for its air force and other things as a means of opening the door to moderates in Iran. It would help build bridges. And the contra side of it is basically that Oliver North decided on his own back, I think, that the money they got from Iran for these extra spare parts could

then just be siphoned away to help the Contras in the Caragua. Contras being the right-wing sort of death squads. Yeah, opposition to the Sandinista government, I think. We all know families like Ali's that are now in exile. There are huge numbers in Paris, huge numbers, massive suburbs in L.A. How quickly do all those people pack their bags and flee from Iran? Is it a slow seepage? No, there are successive waves. I mean, there are successive waves.

So there are people that go in the revolution, there are people that go doing the war, and then there are people that go in the 1990s and afterwards. Total numbers? I think that the, I mean, it depends whether you call them first or second generation diaspora. but I think there's four, four million, five million abroad. Out of a population of...

Well, now the population in Iran is doubled. I mean, almost triple to what was the intention. So in 1978, the population was around 38 million. Now it's around 90 million. I mean, this has its own consequences for the sustainability. So it's, what, 10% of the population? 4 million leave out of 40. Yeah, you could, yeah, yeah.

I mean, basically over time, I mean, I think if you took second generation 30, it could be even larger. But the figures are disputed, particularly in this country and other. because, I mean, there are those first-generation immigrants, but then after 40 years, you've got several generations, haven't you really? But most of the elite, 10% of the population, leave the country. And what I mean, we were talking about Iranian friends in the Iranian diaspora. I mean, I've heard Iranian friends who came to London, who, or whose parents came to London, who say, you know, there were cafes that served Iranian food, and you'd have people sort of

who supported the Shah and hated the Shah, all eating in the same place, all displaced from Iran, or mourning the fact that they'd lost their home. You know, they were on opposite sides of this, and they'd both lost. Yeah, because both the monarchists and the left lost, yeah. And you have a religious right, but you have a religious right in Iran, and you have a sort of an Islamic Republic that's become in its own way much more autocratic than the Shire ever was, because it's a religious despotism. Tortures more people.

Tortures more people. I mean, what I always say is the Islamic Republic took none of the virtues, but multiplied the vices of the Shah. Do you see what I mean? I mean, so it's a problem. And I think what's interesting, what I suppose is interesting from a quote, empire point of view,

is how the Islamic Republic has sought to revamp nationalism and a sort of an imperial mentality to keep people on board. So, you know, you'd think that having overthrown, you know, 2,500 years of monarchy, you would have laid monarchy to rest. But actually, in Iran, Cyrus the Great, is more popular than ever.

So we've talked about this, before and it's so interesting. But Cyrus the Great is popular among the young who question the legitimacy of the clerics. Is that right? But it was promoted. It was promoted by the clerics. I mean, this is the bizarreness. I have been in Iran where people, clerics have said to me that Cyrus the Great was a religious man who promoted monotheism. Really? But initially, if I'm not wrong, they very nearly bulldozed Persepolis at one point. Well, one of the radical clerics claim, but even Khomeini stopped to that. I mean, I think What's interesting really is that even someone like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,

that real sort of populist scallywag that came in as president, he very heavily promoted, very heavily promoted a cult of Cyrus and the Persian Empire and all this sort of thing. You cannot take empire out of the Iranians. I mean, it's extremely difficult, actually, because it's part of their heritage. In a nutshell, then, how did the revolution in Iran that we've been talking about, and you've been so brilliant, can I just say thank you so much. How significant was the Iranian revolution for the world, would you say? I think it was enormously important because it completely altered the geopolitics of the Middle East.

It removed a Western ally from the heart of the Middle East and completely altered those relationships. And of course, it introduced radical Islamism into the political debate in a way in which it hadn't been before. Which is to this very day today is changed the region completely. All those secular resistance movements like the PLO overthrown by Hamas, the Taliban now ruling again in Afghanistan. And of course they're all fighting each other if you look at it recently. There's no such thing as Islamic unity, I have to say. They're all at it to each other.

But the interesting thing is when you look at some of the radical Sunni Islamist movements, including ISIS and these people in the Taliban, how do they describe the Iranians? They describe the Iranians as these sort of Majus, these Zoroastrian idolaters. Shia are not Muslims. many of them say, yeah. But once that genie's out of the bottle, it just, it's multiplied and groan and grown and grown. I remember, I remember reading summing and they said, these are Safavids.

They're Safavia. The Safavia. And they're basically saying these are sort of like a bastardized version of it. It's basically a Persian imperial project. And you'll hear it in the Arab world quite a lot, actually. But one thing we should say, and this is the baffling thing of all, when Khomeini dies in 1989, 10 million people turn up at the funeral, one-sixth of the population turn up. That personality cult is there. So however baffling we find it, however terrible he was.

I also talked to people who said that they turned up out of pure interest, I have to say, because they just thought, you know, it was an interest in a bit. I think on the actual, in the actual funeral itself, it wouldn't have been more than a million or a million and a half, but it was certainly very, very large. I mean, it was certainly very, very large. And just finally, I mean, you're a historian, you look back, but if we were to make you look forward, is this a regime that is going to stay and run on and on or not? How has it lasted as long as it has? It's lasted as long as it has because I think no alternative has really shown itself yet

to be a viable alternative. I think the Islamic Republic of Iran has inherited a very powerful state from the Pahlavis and has essentially run it down. I mean, that's basically what it's done. It hasn't reinvested in it. And you can see that on many different levels, not least ecological, environmental, economic, whatever. I mean, it's basically an extractive state per excellence, and it's done very well at extracting stuff out and not very well at investing in. And that class of revolutionary guard from the boonies are now very rich and done very well for themselves, feathered their own nest.

Absolutely. Things move on. Well, look, thank you. Thank you. and thank you again. That is all from this absolute blockbuster. I think a Persian marathon, the only Persian to have run a marathon.

Yeah, Willie, you can unlock the doors. Thank you. You're allowed out now, Ali. For the dogs back in the kennels, he can go. Professor Ali, I'm sorry, thank you so much. Until the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William Drupul. Thank you.