Spring of ’79 - six weeks that rocked Iran

Branu Rahim
 

Today February 11, 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution which toppled the Pahlavi Dynasty and installed the undisputed leader of the uprising, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in power.

It was New Year’s day in 1979, nearly a year since demonstrations first erupted against the rule of the Iranian monarch Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, when he met the media and declared his intention of ‘going on a vacation’.

The Shah’s last appointed Prime Minister, Shahpour Bakhtiar afterwards announced that his acceptance of the premiership was conditional upon the monarch taking a long leave of absence from the country.

A few days later in preparation for his departure, the Shah vested his personal holdings in the country amounting to over US $ 200 million to the monarchy sponsored Pahlavi Foundation.

On January 13, 1979 he appointed a Regency Council to represent him in his absence. About the same time, the undisputed leader of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini announced in his headquarters-in-exile in Paris the formation of a Revolutionary Council to instal an Islamic Republic in Iran. Sources close to the Shah revealed that he had also cautioned his generals against staging a military coup.

With the monarch himself at the controls of the royal jetliner ‘Shahin’, the Shah and his family surreptitiously left Iran on January 16, 1979. He appealed to the people to preserve the monarchy during his ‘indefinite vacation’. As news of the Shah’s departure hit the cities across Iran, there was widespread jubilation with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets.

Ayatollah Khomeini

Two days later, in the backdrop of pro-Khomeini demonstrations that followed, the then US Attorney General Ramsay Clarke gave little or no chance of survival for the Bakhtiar Government and urged the United States to make contact with Ayatollah Khomeini. Meanwhile, the Ayatollah refused to meet an envoy of the Shah’s Regency Council at his headquarters near Paris.

Over a million anti-Shah demonstrators marched through the streets of Tehran the following day, demanding the overthrow of Bakhtiar and urging Khomeini to form a provisional Government.

This was followed by the religious leader announcing that he will return to Iran on January 24, 1979 ending 14 years of enforced exile. The move prompted the Prime Minister to summon the National Security Council to discuss measures for the Ayatollah’s arrival after which he publicly called for an end to demonstrations against the Constitution.

Two days prior to Khomeini’s impending return to Iran, the military closed Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport while premier Bakhtiar announced he had sent a representative to Paris to negotiate with the Ayatollah, who brushed aside the Prime Minister’s appeal to delay his return to Iran.

The next day, the hierarchy of the Armed Forces backed by the elite Imperial Guards vowed their fidelity to the Shah and declared they would stay united and were ‘ready to shed their blood’ to preserve the monarchy.

January 26,1979 saw some of the worst street fighting since the start of the revolution with troops engaged in running battles with many thousands of anti-Bakhtiar demonstrators. In a controlled show of defiance, hundreds of thousands of the Ayatollah’s supporters marched peacefully through the capital and other cities the next day demanding the religious leader’s return. Meanwhile, Bakhtiar announced plans to go to Paris to meet Khomeini.

Security Arrangements

On January 28, 1979 the Prime Minister ordered the closure of all airports in Iran until further notice in a bid to delay the Ayatollah’s return. This development angered the religious leader who rejected Bakhtiar’s offer of a meeting unless the premier resigned. Bakhtiar’s move led to eruption of fresh rioting in Tehran. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister calling the demands unacceptable, cancelled plans to meet Khomeini in France.

Military administrators announced on January 30, 1979 that Tehran’s airport had reopened and that the Ayatollah was free to return and would do so in two day. However, in Paris, officials of France’s national carrier Air France confirmed that they would not fly the religious leader in a chartered aircraft until they were satisfied with the security arrangements. In a related development on the same day, the US Embassy ordered all non-essential Americans to return home.

In a massive show of strength on the eve of Khomeini’s return, Armed Forces vehicles filled with troops patrolled Tehran. About this time, the Ayatollah boarded a chartered plane in Paris for his return to Iran. An aide of Khomeini on board expressed grave concern that an attempt may be made to shoot the aircraft down in Iranian airspace.

On the morning of February 1, 1979 the aircraft glided smoothly and landed at Mehrabad Airport for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni’s triumphant return to his motherland after a decade and four years of exile. Over a million people including this writer was there to witness this moment of history. “I am going to establish a Government with your backing,” he declared, leaving no doubt that a confrontation with the Bakhtiar Government was in the offing.

Riding a wave of adulation, the Ayatollah received many thousands of his supporters at a courtyard of a school in the South of Tehran and demanded for Bakhtiar’s resignation ignoring the premier’s request for a meeting between the two.

Whilst seeking a peaceful transition, he warned Bakhtiar that he would not hesitate to wage a ‘jihad (holy war)’ unless the Prime Minister resigned and made way for the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Ayatollah also said that he would soon announce the formation of a Provisional Government to pave the way for an Islamic State. In response, Bakhtiar, whose intention also was to avoid a confrontation which would well lead to a civil war, indicated that he had no opposition to the formation of Khomeini’s shadow Government, but steadfastly refused to step down.

Striking Employees

On February 5, 1979 the Ayatollah appointed 70-year-old Moslem nationalist Mehdi Bazargan as Prime Minister of the Provisional Government while at the same time re-iterating that all those identified with the Shah’s regime including Bakhtiar, must go. While an Ayatollah aide said the next day that the danger of a military coup to re-install the Shah had apparently passed, Bakhtiar vowed to remain in office despite a march by tens of thousands of demonstrators demanding his ouster.

Meanwhile, the Ayatollah’s movement was taking control of key Governmental functions in several cities and continued to pick up support from striking employees who were crippling work at most ministries.

Eighth February saw some of the largest crowds, since the Ayatollah’s return, take to the streets when over a million of his supporters marched through the capital and other cities backing Bazargan with Bakhtiar refusing to step down. A significant change was observed when a number of armed forces personnel, mainly from the Air Force, were seen participating in these marches.

The following day, in his first major speech at the Tehran University Bazargan asserted that most of the Armed Forces wanted to toe the line, but rebuked those generals who wanted the Shah’s return. Late that same night, air cadets supporting the Ayatollah defied the Shah’s Imperial Guards and battled them for control of an air base in Eastern Tehran.

The confrontation was over a television program of the Ayatollah’s triumphant return to Iran after a long period in exile.

This minor incident was the spark that lip up a revolutionary fervour with guerilla groups and people’s militia joining the Air Force cadets. The elite troops were forced to withdraw against stiff resistance from the determined group of Khomeini supporters.

The fighting spilled over to the next day and intensified as a looming civil war engulfed the city with the rebel air cadets supported by civilians taking on the might of the Imperial Guards for control of the capital.

The revolutionaries dug in for the expected bloody battle with the Army. Although it came, it was not for the expected duration. After two days of pitched battles between the scraggy inexperienced people’s militias and the much-boasted crack troops of the Shah’s ‘global armed power’, the Army withdrew with a pledge to keep out of politics and stay neutral.

Disciplined soldiers were thrown into disarray by the people who fought with a motley collection of weapons, knives, staves and often with the solidarity of numbers.

More than thousands were reported killed or wounded in the confrontations.

As a new day dawned on February 11, 1979 it signalled a people’s victory which was greeted by wild cheering and the sounds of Allahu Akbar (God is great) resonating through the air.

It was the spiritual might of the people which propelled the Iranian Revolution from the grip of a bloody civil war into a glorious victory ending the Pahlavi Dynasty and a 2,500 year old monarchy.

In the final analysis, the process of the revolution saw a sense of unity which Iran had never known throughout its history. For the first time, all cities, provinces and tribes of the country rose in a common rebellion and a common cause.

For the first time Iran’s diverse ethnic groups found a common language. Millions would pour out on to the streets united in the name of one man and that was Khomeini; united in the name of one ideal with that being Islam; united in one desire which was to rid Iran of the monarchy and all it stood for.

A revolution of the masses that finally encompassed the Armed Forces as well, a revolution so unique in its totality.