Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [150]
1953: CIA-BACKED COUP
After two years of embargo, Iranians are poorer, less secure, and disenchanted with Mossadegh’s government. Meanwhile, the communists are becoming more vocal and increasing their activities. The British secretly convince the new American administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, which comes to power in January 1953, to help remove Mossadegh. On August 19, 1953, a coup plotted by the Central Intelligence Agency and a British spy network in Iran is executed by Iranian army officers. Mossadegh is put on trial, and within the next few years dozens of Iranian communists are incarcerated and executed.
1963: KHOMEINI’S FIRST UPRISING
After the 1953 coup, the shah, with American help, expands his authority; like his father, he eventually becomes a tyrant. He continues to industrialize Iran, and has the same contempt for his critics and the mullahs. He calls himself the Shadow of God and tries to change the country through a series of decrees. In 1961, the shah grants women the right to vote and distributes large tracts of land among the farmers. These changes, among others intended to modernize Iran, later become known as the White Revolution.
The large landowners have been the main benefactors of the clerical establishment, and the majority of mullahs regard women as second-class citizens. In October 1962, in a letter to the shah, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a high-ranking seminarian at the time, expresses his concern about the shah’s reforms and calls them un-Islamic.
The shah refers to his religious critics as “black reactionaries,” and he claims they are working with the communists to undermine Iran and take it back to the Dark Ages. In June 1963, after Khomeini is arrested, his followers rebel against the shah, and the shah’s army kills dozens of people in clashes all over the country.
In November 1964, after months under house arrest and in prison, Khomeini is sent into exile. He eventually settles in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, the bastion of Shia Islam. In exile, Khomeini communicates with his followers inside Iran through letters, leaflets, and, eventually, audiocassettes.
In Najaf, Khomeini publishes his theory of velayat-e faqih, or the governance of the jurisprudent, a collection of his teachings about the necessity of establishing a system of government in which a high-ranking cleric is in charge of the affairs of the state until the reappearance of Imam Mahdi, the twelfth saint of Shias. The book is a theological text with many references to the teachings of traditional Shia theologians and interpretations of the Koran. Many nonreligious opponents of the shah, among them socialists, nationalists, and communists, support Khomeini’s anti-shah struggle but don’t read his book on governance. They dismiss it as a complicated, esoteric text like thousands of books on Shia theology before it. Years later, they regret following Khomeini’s path without having understood his philosophy.
1970S: THE SHARP RISE AND FALL OF THE SHAH
The 1973 oil crisis, triggered by many factors, including an embargo of the West by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and an earlier stock market crash, benefits Iran immensely. The increasing oil prices mean that the shah has more money with which to buy arms and new technology from the West. Consequently, he becomes even more ambitious—some claim that he is delusional—in his plans to modernize Iran. He believes that by the end of the twentieth century, Iran can be among the five most advanced nations in the world. In the early 1970s, the shah is diagnosed with cancer, but for many years he keeps his illness secret from most people, including his wife. Many observers contend that the shah’s insistence on the fast pace of change stems from his feeling that he is fighting against time.
Much of the progress in Iran happens in its major cities, and many villagers from traditional religious communities move to the