Changes

When Mossadegh received word, he began mass arrests. Two days of chaos ensued. Rioters smashed statues of the Shah and his fahter and screamed, "Death to the Shah!"  With assurances from the CIA, the Iranian Army turned against the officers Mossadegh installed, and drove rioters off the streets.  On August 19, Mossadegh turned himself over to the Shah's forces and was jailed along with Tudeh leaders.  In December he was sentenced to three years in solitary confinement.  The Iranian economy and living standards of the people gradually recoverd as oil exports regained a market share which had been decimated during the previous two years.  The Shah expressed his understaing of the importance of Iran's position in the region, and the world, as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism.

When Mossadegh received word, he began mass arrests. Two days of chaos ensued. Rioters smashed statues of the Shah and his fahter and screamed, "Death to the Shah!"  With assurances from the CIA, the Iranian Army turned against the officers Mossadegh installed, and drove rioters off the streets.  On August 19, Mossadegh turned himself over to the Shah's forces and was jailed along with Tudeh leaders.  In December he was sentenced to three years in solitary confinement.  The Iranian economy and living standards of the people gradually recoverd as oil exports regained a market share which had been decimated during the previous two years.  The Shah expressed his understaing of the importance of Iran's position in the region, and the world, as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism.

===1979-present===

===1979-2001===

[[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]] emerged as an active critic of the Shah's increasingly autocratic government.  Khomeini was imprisoned and later exiled, but popular anti-government sentiment continued to spread. In 1979, the Shah fled Iran as Khomeini returned from exile. The Shah's troops were defeated by the rebels and in the following year, the Islamic Republic was established following a national referendum.

[[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]] emerged as an active critic of the Shah's increasingly autocratic government.  Khomeini was imprisoned and later exiled, but popular anti-government sentiment continued to spread.  

On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students entered the US embassy and took a number of American personnel hostage, citing the overthrowing of Mossadegh in 1953 and accusing the embassy staff of preparing another coup against the revolutionary government. Some of the hostages, including women, African Americans and an employee diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, were quickly released. Others were held for 444 days before being allowed to leave Iran and return to the United States.

During the Carter presidency, the State Department’s Bureau of Human Rights was headed by Patricia Derian, a liberal political activist who had worked in Mississippi during the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. Once appointed to State, Ms. Derian publicly deplored aspects of the Shah’s rule, particularly SAVAK, and issued low ratings for Iran’s and other pro-American government’s treatment of dissidents. Aligned with Derian in a general way was President Carter’s Ambassador to the United Nations, [[Andrew Young]], who on one occasion had referred to the Ayatollah Khomeini as a "saint." The American Ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, a veteran diplomat of many years experience and an acute observer of the stresses in Iranian society, sought to steer a middle course through the official U.S. debates on Iran. Nevertheless, when instructed, Sullivan also would remind the Shah of the State Department’s concern (and presumably President Carter’s) about the regime’s treatment of its enemies.

In the 1980s America was revelations of the Iran-Contra affair, were uncovered.<ref>[http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/060204.html]</ref> Large volumes of documents relating to the matter were lost or withheld from investigators.<ref>"Excerpts from Iran-Contra Report" [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/iran-transcript.html]</ref>  The affair is still shrouded with secrecy and it is very hard to discover the facts. It involved several members of the Reagan Administration who in [[1986]] helped sell [[arms trade|arms]] to Iran through Israel, and used the proceeds to fund the [[Contras]], an anti-[[communism|communist]] [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla]] organization in [[Nicaragua]]. <ref>[http://www.answerpoint.org/columns2.asp?column_id=1165&column_type=feature]</ref>

With the exception of Ms. Derian and members of her staff, it is unlikely that other American officials were ready to dump the Shah immediately and cast U.S. policy in the Gulf to the revolutionaries. What is clear, however, is that when the voices of critics were added to the activities of the demonstrators in Teheran and Washington, all of it lavished with media coverage, new and destabilizing aspects to United States policy were set in motion.  

Iran desired the weapons in order to fight [[Iraq]], which had invaded the majority [[Arab]] [[Khuzestan]] province in southwestern Iran in September 1980.  The ensuing [[Iran-Iraq War]] lasted until 1988, when some naval operations by the [[United States]] against Iran impressed the impossibility of their position upon the Iranian leadership.  Iran finally signed an armistice which ceded to Iraq the [[Shatt al-Arab]] waterway, the latter country's main war aim.  Less than three years later, Iraq ceded it back to guarantee Iranian [[neutrality]] in the [[Gulf War]] against the United States.

By the fall of 1978, events in Iran were moving fast. The Iranian armed forces—whose officer corps had been carefully cultivated by the Shah and had sworn a personal oath of allegiance to him—witnessed the growing disorder and violence in Teheran. Knowing of the Carter administration’s discomfort at attempts to repress it, the generals nevertheless urged the Shah to crack down. The result, enacted on the 7th of September, was "martial law" without exactly being martial law. Opponents of the Shah quickly found they could challenge their sovereign’s authority and court the foreign media.

 

 

 

Iran needed the weapons after US arms sales were cutoff in the wake of the break in diplomatic relations.  [[Iraq]] had invaded the majority [[Arab]] [[Khuzestan]] province in southwestern Iran in September 1980.  The ensuing [[Iran-Iraq War]] lasted until 1988, when some naval operations by the [[United States]] against Iran impressed the impossibility of their position upon the Iranian leadership.  Iran finally signed an armistice which ceded to Iraq the [[Shatt al-Arab]] waterway, the latter country's main war aim.  Less than three years later, Iraq ceded it back to guarantee Iranian [[neutrality]] in the [[Gulf War]] against the United States.

After the war, Iran continued to support [[Hezbollah]], the most powerful [[Shiite]] militia in [[Lebanon]], which had waged war against the United States during the latter's intervention to end the [[1982 Israeli invasion]].  With Iran's assistance, Hezbollah launched [[terrorist]] attacks even against such clearly inoffensive countries as [[Argentina]], which seems to have been attacked because there were [[Jews]] there.  The head of Iranian intelligence during the early 1990's, [[Ali Fallahian]], was indicted along with various Hezbollah operatives and an international arrest warrant was issued for him in March 2007, which the Iranians immediately appealed.  This and the Iranian role in the 1996 [[Khobar Towers bombing]] prevented any normalization of relations, even after [[Mohammed Khatami]] became President of Iran in 1997 and made this one of the principal goals of his administration.

After the war, Iran continued to support [[Hezbollah]], the most powerful [[Shiite]] militia in [[Lebanon]], which had waged war against the United States during the latter's intervention to end the [[1982 Israeli invasion]].  With Iran's assistance, Hezbollah launched [[terrorist]] attacks even against such clearly inoffensive countries as [[Argentina]], which seems to have been attacked because there were [[Jews]] there.  The head of Iranian intelligence during the early 1990's, [[Ali Fallahian]], was indicted along with various Hezbollah operatives and an international arrest warrant was issued for him in March 2007, which the Iranians immediately appealed.  This and the Iranian role in the 1996 [[Khobar Towers bombing]] prevented any normalization of relations, even after [[Mohammed Khatami]] became President of Iran in 1997 and made this one of the principal goals of his administration.