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| Iran: Between Two Worlds |
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Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in native use since the Sassanian era, in antiquity. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 75 million...
Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas...
The Persian Constitutional Revolution established the nation's first parliament in 1906, within a constitutional monarchy. Following a coup d'état instigated by the UK and US in 1953, Iran gradually became a more autocratic country. Growing dissent with foreign influence culminated during the Iranian Revolution which led to establishment of an Islamic republic on 1 April 1979.
Iran is a founding member of the UN, NAM, OIC and OPEC. The political system of Iran, based on the 1979 constitution, comprises several intricately connected governing bodies. The highest state authority is the Supreme Leader. Shia Islam is the official religion and Persian is the official language...
In 1921 Reza Khan, Prime Minister of Iran and former general of the Persian Cossack Brigade, overthrew the incompetent and corrupt Qajar Dynasty and became Shah... in 1941 he had been forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, by Britain and the USSR... During World War II, Iran was once again subject to British and Russian occupation.
In 1951, after the assassination of prime minister Ali Razmara, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected prime minister by a parliamentary vote which was then ratified by the Shah. As prime minister, Mosaddegh became enormously popular in Iran after he nationalized Iran's petroleum industry and oil reserves. In response, the British government, headed by Winston Churchill, embargoed Iranian oil and successfully enlisted the United States to join in a plot to depose the democratically elected government of Mosaddegh.
In 1953 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax. The operation, supported by the Shah, was successful, and Mosaddegh was arrested on 19 August 1953. The coup was the first time the US had openly overthrown an elected, civilian government of another sovereign state.
After Operation Ajax, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi favoured American and British oil interests and his rule became increasingly autocratic. With American support, the Shah was able to rapidly modernize the Iranian infrastructure and military. However, his rule was also corrupt and repressive. Arbitrary arrests and torture by his secret police, SAVAK, were used to crushed all forms of political opposition. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became an active critic of the Shah's White Revolution and publicly denounced the government.
Khomeini was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. After his release in 1964, Khomeini publicly criticized the United States government. The Shah sent him into exile. He went first to Turkey, then to Iraq and finally to France. While in exile, Khomeini continued to denounce the Shah.
By the mid-1970s, there was growing unrest with the Shah's repressive regime. The Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution, began in January 1978 with the first major demonstrations against the Shah...
After strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country and its economy, the Shah fled the country in January 1979 and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile to Tehran...
In December 1979, the country approved a theocratic constitution, whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country...
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