Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ors were killed in Tehran, Qom and Tabriz. The US's long-standing support began to falter
and in December the now-desperate shah appointed veteran opposition politician Shapur
Bakhtiar as prime minister. It was too late. On 16 January 1979 (now a national holiday),
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his third wife, Farah Diba, finally fled.
Khomeini's frequent broadcasts on the BBC's Persian Service had made him the spir-
itual leader of opposition. But at 76 years old, everyone expected that once the shah was
ousted he would assume a more hands-off, statesman-like role. They were wrong. On his
return to Iran on 1 February 1979, Khomeini told the exultant masses of his vision for a
new Iran, free of foreign influence and true to Islam: 'From now on it is I who will name
the government'.
The Aftermath of the Revolution
Ayatollah Khomeini soon set about proving the adage that 'after the revolution comes the
revolution'. His intention was to set up a clergy-dominated Islamic Republic, and he
achieved this with brutal efficiency.
Groups such as the People's Feda'iyin, the
Islamic People's Mojahedin, and the commun-
ist Tudah had been instrumental in undermin-
ing the shah. But once the shah was gone they
were swept aside. People disappeared, execu-
tions took place after brief and arbitrary trials,
and minor officials took the law into their own
hands. The facts - that the revolution had been
a broad-based effort - were revised and the
During the 1980s and early '90s several high-pro-
file opposition leaders were assassinated while in
exile in Europe. These included Kurdish human
rights activist Dr Kazem Rajavi, shot in Switzer-
land in 1990, and former prime minister Shapur
Bakhtiar, stabbed to death in Paris in 1991.
idea of the Islamic Revolution was born.
Following a referendum in March 1979, in which 98.2% of the population voted in fa-
vour, the world's first Islamic Republic was formed with Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme
Leader.
Almost immediately, the Islamic Republic
was viewed suspiciously and accused of adopt-
ing confrontational policies designed to pro-
mote other Islamic revolutions. In November
1979, conservative university students burst in-
to the US embassy and took 52 staff hostage,
an action later blessed by Khomeini. A US
special forces rescue mission failed when the helicopters supposed to carry them to safety
At the urging of the new Islamic government, Irani-
an women had, on average, six children each during
the 1980s; the population almost doubled in a dec-
ade.
