Following
the turmoil and oppostion against the Shah of Iran, the
revolution of 1979 brought
on the Islamic government. The coup d’etat was was
lead by no other than religious exilee Ayatollah Khomeini.
He had been smuggling in anti-Shah messages using cassette
tapes and distributed them among religious leaders in mosques
and communities all over the country.
Mohammad Reza Shah left the
country on January 16 1979. With that, the country faced
chaos and when Ayatollah Khomeini arrived to Iran on February
1, the masses were ready for a new beginning. Shapour Bakhtiar,
who had been assigned the new prime minister under the
Shad could no longer control the people and gave up power.
Even with the Army at his disposal, he went into hiding,
and then exile. Processes against the supporters of the
former Shah started, and hundreds were executed.
Khomeini was able to declare
Iran an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979, after a landslide
victory in a national referendum. Voters were offered only
one choice was: Islamic Republic: Yes or No. The Ayatollah
became the supreme spiritual leader (Valy-e-Faqih) of Iran.
On November 4, Iranian Islamic Students stormed the US
embassy, taking 66 hostages. 14 were released before the
end of November. At the same time, Prime Minister Mehdi
Bazargan resigned and Abolhassan Beni Sadr was elected
in his place.
On September 22: Iraq invaded
Iran, to claim territories inhabited by Arabs (Southwestern
oil-producing province of Iran called Khouzestan). The
Iraqis also wanted to declare their right over Shatt el-Arab
(Arvandroud).
On January 20, 1981 the US were released, in exchange for money and military
equipment for the war.
Prime minister Beni Sadr only
lasted until June and promptly removed by Khomeini. He
left for France in July and former prime minister Mohammad
Ali Rajai was elected president. A month later, he was
killed in a bombing, ushering in the presidency of Hojatoleslam
Seyed Ali Khamenei.
The new president was also
one of the founders of the Islamic Republican Party. The
parliament or Majlis
(the national legislature) was dominated by this party
and appointed him to the Council of the Islamic Revolution
in 1979. Between 1979 and 1981 he was a member of the Majlis,
serving as deputy minister of defense, commander of the
Revolutionary Guard, and representative on the Supreme
Council of Defense. In addition he had also served several
times as general secretary of the Islamic Republic Party.
By the summer of 1982, Iraq's territorial advances had
been regained Iran and Iraq was forced out of Iran. Finally
on August 1988, a cease fire was signed between Iran and
Iraq and both parties accepted UN Resolution 598.
On June 3 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini died of a heart attack, and Khamenei assumed
the position of supreme spiritual leader. Following this promotion, Hojatoleslam
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Majles was elected as a president.
Rafsanjani had graduated in the late 1950s as a Hojatoleslam, a Shiite clerical
rank just below that of ayatollah.
In
1993 Rafsanjani was re-elected but decided to step down
in 1997, since it was his third
term. In 1997 Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami became president,
who pursued political reform and opposed censorship. He
was considered to be the first reformist and the youth’s
hope towards democratization. He also tried to resume relations
with the west and reduce tensions in the Middle East. He
was re-elected in 2001 for a second term.
