Revolution in Iran--Fervor That Shook the World

A mere 11 days after his triumphant return from exile, Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers forced the Pahlavi dynasty’s caretaker government to resign and the world’s sixth most powerful army to surrender--the last two steps in formally ending 2,500 years of monarchy.

The subsequent transformation of one of the world’s oldest civilizations into its only modern theocracy ranks among the century’s most important events on several counts.

For the Middle East, Iran’s revolution was one of the three seminal turning points of the century, along with the creation of Israel and the demise of the Ottoman Empire that opened the way for carving up the region into modern Arab states. The revolution again redrew the region’s political map, as the former protector of the Persian Gulf became the greatest threat to the status quo in the Middle East.

For the West, Iran’s upheaval meant the loss of a key diplomatic ally and trading partner. The reversal in relations was symbolized traumatically nine months later when militant students seized the U.S. Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for the next 444 days. The ordeal made the yellow ribbon as synonymous with Americana as apple pie and the Stars and Stripes.

For the world, Iran’s revolution redefined the modern political spectrum. By employing Islam as a successful route to political empowerment, it may be remembered as one of the three key revolutions of the modern era.

Like the French and Soviet revolutions, the Islamic Republic introduced a new ideology that produced a novel form of government--in Iran’s case a theocracy based on a republican constitution that combined Islamic law dating back to the prophet Muhammad and Napoleonic law borrowed from France and Belgium.

The impact was immediate on the Islamic bloc, the 53 nations that accounted for the largest residual batch of kings and autocrats in the world. Virtually every Muslim country experienced the rumbling of political Islam.

Iran’s revolution also redefined the tactics of modern warfare by weak nations against the superpowers and their allies. The Islamic republic introduced hostage-taking, trained surrogates on suicide bombing, and was linked with coup plots, attacks and assassinations from Beirut to Buenos Aires. It institutionalized a severe form of Islamic rule, requiring Iranian women to wear the chador and outlawing anything considered contrary to the Koran’s teachings.

Ayatollah Khomeini once pledged defiantly: “We must settle our accounts with great and superpowers and show them that we can take on the whole world ideologically, despite all the painful problems that face us.”

During its first decade, the revolution did just that. It survived economic sanctions, political isolation and domestic turmoil, not to mention an eight-year war with Iraq. And then Khomeini died.

The Islamic republic spent the second decade debating whether the theocracy should--or even could--move beyond Khomeini-ism. Ultimately, it also meant deciding whether Islam and democracy were compatible.

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Often in spite of the revolutionaries themselves, Iranians did transform society. From 1989 to 1999, a vibrant women’s movement brought females to the forefront of academia, sports and politics. And a renaissance in cinema led an Iranian film to be nominated for a 1999 Oscar.

Perhaps more important to the outside world, Iranian intellectuals launched a religious reform movement potentially as pivotal to Islam as Martin Luther’s Reformation was to Christianity.

The Iranian public clearly had a ravenous appetite for change, reflected in the 1997 presidential elections when a little-known cleric named Mohammad Khatami overwhelmed the regime’s favored candidate. Khatami immediately pushed for major reforms and tried to warm relations with the outside world.

Whether Iran’s revolutionary creed will survive is still up in the air.

If bettering life for the oppressed was a prime goal, then Iran did passably well in areas such as education. But it failed economically, because most Iranians had a harder time making ends meet than during the monarchy.

If producing a new society of devout Muslims was a goal, then Iran did spur an Islamic consciousness. But it also sparked a deep suspicion about the powers and purity of the clergy.

If creating a state not beholden or dependent on any other country was a goal, then Iran fared well--but at an extraordinary cost that may jeopardize the revolution’s longevity.