Iran

History > Islamic Republic

A council led by a longtime opponent of the shah took control of the government, but the protests continued. Shortly after the shah's departure, the ayatollah (a title given to the most distinguished scholars of Islamic law) returned to Iran. During his exile, tapes of his sermons had been smuggled into Iran from Iraq and later from France; they were heard by shortwave radio in mosques throughout Iran. Khomeini's reputation was so great that he was able to take control of the government, ruling through the Islamic Revolutionary Council. After a landslide victory in a national referendum, Khomeini proclaimed Iran an Islamic republic on April 1, 1979.

The people rallied to Khomeini in hopes of greater freedom, fairer distribution of wealth, and a type of government that conformed with the teachings of Islam. However, the broad coalition of political forces that had agreed upon the overthrow of the shah began to collapse soon after Khomeini became chief of state. In the struggle for power that followed, the peasants and urban lower classes, under the leadership of the clergy, became the dominant force. The nationalists and their leaders—including Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who had been elected president by a large majority of the Iranians—were ousted from office, and militant Islamic revolutionaries took over the country. Hundreds of Iranians were executed for political or religious reasons. A new constitution was adopted in October 1979. Among other things, it abolished the rule of a shah and established the role of a supreme leader, placed more power in the Majlis, and allowed for the election of a president. The new constitution named Islam as the official religion of Iran but allowed for several official religious minorities.

On Nov. 4, 1979, shortly after the shah was admitted into the United States for medical treatment, Iranian militants seized the United States Embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans as hostages. This action helped the ruling Iranian conservatives consolidate their power. The revolutionaries released 13 of the captives and said they would free the remaining prisoners if the United States returned the shah for trial. The United States refused the demand and imposed economic sanctions. The Iranian government had earlier condemned the shah to death.

The United States met failure in its attempt to rescue the hostages in April 1980. In July of that year, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi died while in exile in Egypt. The revolutionaries finally freed the hostages in January 1981 after the United States had agreed to a number of economic and other concessions.

In September 1980 Iraq canceled a 1975 treaty with Iran that had given both nations navigation rights through the Shatt al 'Arab waterway. In the ensuing war both Iran and Iraq suffered casualties numbering more than one million. Severe damage was sustained by petroleum installations and power stations. Major cities were bombed with missiles and chemical weapons. A cease-fire was declared in August 1988.

Not long after he ousted successor-designate Ayatollah Ali Montazeri and other moderates in 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini died on June 3, 1989. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was elected interim president, but in July Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected president and Khamenei was appointed supreme leader. During the Gulf crisis and Persian Gulf War of 1990–91 Iran opposed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait but also opposed any intervention by outside forces. An attempt at playing peacemaker failed; thereafter Iran kept out of the Gulf conflict. In the early 1990s, Iran became involved in the civil war in Lebanon. It ended its involvement with the release of Western hostages in 1991 and 1992 (see Lebanon). The releases helped warm relations with some Western governments.

After years of ultra-conservative government, in 1997 Iranian voters elected Mohammed Khatami, a 54-year-old cleric with a history of supporting moderate positions on social questions, as president. Khatami won the largely ceremonial presidential title vacated by outgoing President Rafsanjani, who was constitutionally barred from running for a third term. Among Khatami's 22 cabinet appointees, some of whom were controversial, was Massoumeh Ebtekar, the first woman to hold a ministry portfolio in Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979. In 2001 Khatami was elected to a second term as president. Population (2002), 65,457,000.