INDEPTH: IRAN
History
CBC News Online | Updated May 31, 2006
Reza Shah Pahlavi: 1921-1941
In 1921, in the midst of economic turmoil left over from the war, Reza Khan, an army officer with the Persian Cossack Brigade, took control of Iran in a coup d'etat and formed a military dictatorship. Four years later, he became shah, calling himself Reza Shah Pahlavi.
The shah began a program of Westernization and modernization that has, since its inception, been at odds with so many of the Iranian followers of Islam. He reformed education and the courts, and gave women more favourable divorce laws and an end to the wearing of the veil. The power of the clergy was curtailed, causing great societal tension.
Internal dissent and the old anxieties about the motives of outside powers were constant concerns to Pahlavi. Fearing the effects of British and Russian influence on his country (officially named Iran by royal decree in 1935), he turned to Nazi Germany. In 1941, two years into World War II, the Russians and British invaded Iran to ensure supplies could reach the Soviet front through Iran.
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi: 1941-1979
The same year, Reza Shah abdicated and his son, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, took over. It was another 16 years before martial law finally ended in Iran.
In March 1951, Iran's parliament voted to nationalize the country's oil industry after negotiations for higher royalties with the British — who owned the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company — reached a stalemate.
A month later, members of parliament elected Mohammad Mossadegh as their prime minister. Mossadegh picked up the pace of nationalizing the oil industry by expropriating the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The British government responded by saying it would not allow Iran to export any oil.
The stalemate continued and the British enlisted the help of the American CIA in a plot to topple Mossadegh on the pretext that he was plotting to overthrow the Shah, declare Iran a republic and move the country close to the Soviet sphere. In August 1953, violence broke out between monarchists and Mossadegh supporters, leaving hundreds dead. Mossadegh surrendered on Aug. 19. He was charged with treason and sentenced to three years in prison.
A year later, the new government reached a deal with foreign oil companies to resume the flow of Iranian oil to world markets.
In 1955, Iran joined the Baghdad Pact, a U.S.-leaning association of Middle East nations, and the U.S. sent enormous amounts of financial and military aid to Iran.
Through to the 1970s the shah, as absolute monarch, continued his attempts to modernize Iran economically and socially.
A 1963 referendum overwhelmingly approved his plans for land reform, a process that had already begun. The government bought estates and sold them to individuals in order to end the feudal relationship between landowners and farmers. In addition, crown-held land was distributed to the public. One-and-a-half million former tenant farmers became owners.
The referendum also approved of compulsory education and profit-sharing schemes in industry.
Also in 1963, women received the right to vote, and the Iran Novin Party was introduced into parliament. Although it was backed by the government, the party showed some official intention toward democratization.
But reform had its opponents. Rioting broke out as religious groups and their political affiliations, concerned about their declining influence and the godlessness of Western secular ideas, reacted against the new order.
In 1965, one year after the head of the clergy, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was exiled from Iran, there was an assassination attempt on the shah's life. Opposition to Westernization continued to grow and was countered by the shah's hated and feared secret police force, SAVAK.
Through the 1970s, Iran established better ties with Communist countries. Relations with Iraq, on the other hand, deteriorated. This was caused in part by conflict over the Shatt al Arab waterway, a part of the Iran/Iraq border where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flow into the Persian Gulf. In the short term, the hostility resulted in armed border clashes. The longer-term result was an eight-year war (1980-1988) that depleted the resources of both countries.
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Official Title:
Islamic Republic of Iran
Area:
1.648 million sq. km
Arable land:
10.17%
Irrigated land:
75,629 sq. km
Land borders:
5,440 km
Coastline:
2,400 km along the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, also 740 km along the Caspian Sea
Climate:
Mostly arid or semi-arid, subtropical along Caspian Sea
Terrain:
Mostly a central desert basin surrounded by mountainous rims
Government:
Theocratic republic
Capital:
Tehran
Head of State:
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei
Head of Government:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Population - July 2005:
68 million
Age structure:
0-14: 27.1%
15-64: 68.0%
65 and over: 4.9%
Life expectancy at birth:
Male - 68.58 years
Female - 71.40 years
Literacy (15 and over):
79.4%
Gross Domestic Product:
$552 billion US (2005)
GDP by sector (2002):
Agriculture 11.8%
Industry 43.3%
Services 44.9%
Inflation rate:
16% (2005)
Unemployment rate:
11.2% (2005)
Population living below
poverty line:
40% (2002 est.)
Sources:
CIA World Fact Book
CBC News
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Iran presidency website
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