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Highlights of the History of Iran

Called Persia until 1935, Iran is a sprawling, strategically placed, oil-rich country that lies in western Asia and is bordered by Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. Some highlights from its tumultuous history are:

1927 - Reza Khan, a Cossack officer, seized power in a military coup and was subsequently elected Shah, adopting the title of Reza Shah Pahlavi. In 1941, British and Soviet forces invade the country and force the Shah's abdication in favour of his son, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi

1951 - Dr. Muhammad Mussadeq becomes Prime Minister on the heels of Iran's national assembly approving the nationalization of Iran's oil industry. American and British oil companies protest this, pushing for a coup d'etat against Mussadeq's government. They dragoon the Shah into their schemes.

1953 - Mussadeq is overthrown in a military coup engineered by the CIA and British intelligence and is replaced with the Shah, who had fled to Italy after he had tried to dismiss Mussadeq's government. Thus begins one of the most brutal dictatorships of the 20th century. With the help of the CIA, the Shah establishes SAVAK, Iran's secret police renowned for its ruthlessness and torture techniques. The Shah also hands over control of the country's oil resources to American and British oil companies.

1963 - Assuming dictatorial powers during this year with the so-called "White Revolution", the Shah now enjoys personal control of the government. A year later, the conservative Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is deported from Iran due to his opposition to the Shah, and takes up residence in Iraq. Eventually he would move to Paris where he lives until the Iranian revolution.

1965-1977 - Iran enjoys political stability as the Shah uses oil revenues to modernize the country and build one of the region's most sophisticated armies, equipped by the U.S.

1977-1979 - The Iranian revolution is ignited, spurred into being by the Shah's crackdown on the clerics that lead to widespread demonstrations and strikes that spread across the country. In January of 1979, the Shah is forced to flee Iran, and dies of cancer the following year while in exile in Egypt. Khomenei arrives from France in February of 1979 and takes power soon afterwards. Meanwhile a provisional government is formed, which is to run the country in conjunction with an Islamic Revolutionary Council.

November, 1979 - Iranian students seize 63 hostages in the US embassy in Tehran. They are eventually held for more than a year, and the crisis helps push Jimmy Carter out of the American presidency. The hostage crisis forces the resignation of the moderate provisional government. Under Khomenei, the clerics garner increasing power over the apparatus of the Iranian state. They create a secretive, parallel state that enjoys more power than Iran's elected assembly and its titular leaders. The clerics use the former wealth of the Shah to fund their activities.

September, 1980 - Iraq invades Iran, thus initiating the eight-year Iran-Iraq war that will cause anywhere from 500,000 to one million casualties. The US supports Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in this conflict, supplying him with weapons.

January, 1981 - The embassy's remaining 53 hostages are released on the day Carter leaves office and Ronald Reagan takes power. Years later, stories emerge suggesting that the Reagan election team cut a deal with Iran so that the hostages would not be released before the October 1980 US presidential election.

1982 - Iran helps form Hezbollah, a Shiite group in Lebanon that wants to establish an Islamic state in that country. Hezbollah begins a campaign of terror to rid Lebanon of Western and Israeli forces. In 1983, Hezbollah blows up the US embassy in Beirut, followed by bombings of a US Marines and French barracks, killing well over 300 people in total. Hezbollah also starts a hostage-taking operation, whereby American and European journalists, professors and administrators are grabbed. All told, 18 American hostages are held, of whom three are eventually killed, including Bill Buckley, the CIA's Beirut station chief. The longest hostage, journalist Terry Andersen, is kept for nearly seven years. Iran oversees this hostage-taking operation.
Hezbollah also pioneers the art of suicide bombings, a method that has since been adopted by other Arab groups in the Middle East, most notably Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hezbollah also spawns Imad Mughniyah, considered to be the most effective terrorist after Osama bin Laden. Mughniyah is responsible for the hostage-takings, the embassy and barracks bombings, and other terrorist attacks. For instance,

he hijacks a TWA plane in 1985 and personally kills one of the passengers. He is also linked to the 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Argentina (killing 29 and wounding 242) and the bombing of a Jewish community center in that same country two years later, which kills 86 people.
By the 1990s, Hezbollah has emerged as a legitimate political party in Southern Lebanon, and runs schools, housing projects and welfare agencies. It receives as much as (US) $75-million a year from Iran in the '90s. Over time, Hezbollah distances itself from Iran, especially after Israel pulls out of Lebanon two years ago. However, Hezbollah is now thought to be very much involved in the second intifadah that began in Israel/Palestine a year and a half ago.

1986 - It comes to light that the Reagan administration, in a bid to free hostages taken by Hezbollah, had begun to secretly ship weapons to Iran in hopes of winning their freedom. Oliver North, a US government official, used profits from the sale of these weapons to support the Nicaraguan contras. When this arrangement is revealed, it becomes known as the Iran-Contra scandal.

1987 - The first intifadah begins in Israel and occupied territories. This leads to the emergence of Hamas, a Palestinian group that wants to see an Islamic state founded in Palestine. In 1991, Hamas establishes a military wing that embarks on a campaign of suicide bombings within Israel. Leaders of Hamas and Iran meet repeatedly, but the ties are not close, although Iran is thought to spend about (US) $3-million a year on supporting Hamas.
Iran has closer ties to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which wants to see Israel destroyed and Jews expelled from the region. The PIJ was inspired by the Iranian revolution and currently has its headquarters in Syria. The PIJ has also embraced suicide bombings, and has been responsible for more than 20 such attacks within Israel since 1994.

1989 - Khomenei dies. The Council of Experts, one of the cleric's powerful ruling bodies, elects Ayatollah Khamenei as Iran's new Supreme Leader. Soon afterwards, Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected president of Iran, ushering in the first wave of reform within the country. Rafsanjani introduces economic reforms and prevents conservatives from being elected to the Council. But the new president is viewed as too cautious and establishmentarian by reformers (he is also the country's wealthiest man). Nevertheless, he begins to open up of Iranian society, with opposition newspapers and intellectuals gaining some breathing space.

1992 - Four members of a Kurdish socialist party are assassinated in a Berlin restaurant by an Iranian hit squad. All told, Iran assassinates nearly 100 dissidents and critics of the regime in Europe alone - many more in other countries. The hit team is caught by German police and put on trial. When the verdict comes down four years later it's a stunner: the judge links Iran's leadership to ordering the assassinations. This causes an international sensation.

1996 - A group called the Saudi Hezbollah blow up a US air force housing complex called al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen and wounding hundreds of others. This terrorist act is linked to Iran and undermines efforts of the Clinton administration to improve relations with Iran.

1997 - In a surprise upset by reformers, the mild-mannered Sayed Muhammad Khatami is elected president. Khatami is viewed as someone who will hopefully usher in a new era of liberalization within Iran, improve relations with the West, and meet the growing needs of Iran's young population.

1997- present day - Since Khatami's election and subsequent re-election in 2001, the process of reform has been hampered by a backlash launched by Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, the conservative clerics and Rafsanjani (who has been alienated by reformers and pushed into the conservative camp). The conservatives begin a ruthless campaign of shutting down newspapers, arresting and killing reformers, and sending journalists, intellectuals and politicians into exile or to jail. Yet student demonstrations in 1999 and recent teachers strikes reveals that Iran's young population are growing ever-more fed up with the clerics, their corruption and heavy-handed methods.

January, 2002 - A ship called the Karine-A, loaded with tons of sophisticated weapons, is intercepted in the Red Sea by Israeli commandos. The boat is alleged to have come from Iran and is destined for the Palestinian Authority. Iran officially denies involvement in the incident.

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