Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [152]
EARLY 1979: THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION
Khomeini returns to Tehran on February 1, 1979. Exactly ten days later, a group of commanders of the Royal Iranian Army reach an agreement with Khomeini to put down their guns and accept a new revolutionary government, assigned by Khomeini. The Iranian revolution is victorious. Twenty-five hundred years of monarchy in Iran come to an end.
Less than two months later, in a referendum, 98.2 percent of Iranians vote for the establishment of an Islamic republic. Later in the year, an assembly writes the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution, according to which Khomeini’s concept of governance of the jurisprudent effectively becomes Iran’s form of government.
LATE 1979: HOSTAGE TAKING, SUPPRESSION OF DISSENT
On November 4, 1979, a group of radical students, with Khomeini’s blessing, raids the American embassy in Iran and takes sixty-six Americans hostage. On the surface, the hostage taking is a protest against the American government’s support of the shah’s dictatorship, but in reality, it is a way for Khomeini to fully consolidate his authority by suppressing the moderates in his government, who criticize the takeover. The hostages are freed after 444 days, but the crisis brings formal Iran-U.S. relations to an end and ignites a series of American-imposed sanctions that are still in place more than three decades later.
Khomeini is the new Iranian tyrant. He accepts no criticism of his absolute rule, and members of opposition groups, even the nonviolent ones, are thrown into jail, tortured, and executed. In turn, violent groups take arms against the regime. Within a few years, terrorist groups assassinate a president, a prime minister, a head of the judiciary, and dozens of top officials, as well as ordinary sympathizers of Khomeini’s regime. The main opposition group is the Marxist-Islamist MKO (Mujahideen Khalq Organization).
Two close confidants of Khomeini’s, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ali Khamenei, survive separate assassination attempts. Ali Khamenei’s right hand is paralyzed.
1980: THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR
A few months after the Iranian revolution, Saddam Hussein—who has been Iraq’s strongman for almost a decade—becomes the country’s president. In 1975, Saddam was forced by the shah to reluctantly accept a border settlement with Iran.
After gaining power, Khomeini promises to export the revolution and asks Muslims around the world to rise against the despots who rule them. Khomeini is surrounded by exiled Iraqis who oppose Saddam Hussein and makes a number of critical remarks about the treatment of Shias in Iraq. As the Islamic government antagonizes the West, and becomes increasingly opposed by various political groups, Saddam Hussein thinks it is an opportune time to both revisit the border dispute and end Khomeini’s rule.
Iraqi forces invade Iran in September 1980. Saddam Hussein is surprised by the solidarity of Iranians from different backgrounds in defending their country and withdraws from most of the occupied territories in less than two years. But the war gives Khomeini the perfect opportunity to tighten his grip on power and suppress the opposition. Iranian forces invade Iraqi territories, and a war of attrition continues for eight years.
1981–89: PRESIDENT ALI KHAMENEI, PRIME MINISTER MIR HOSSEIN MOUSAVI
After the impeachment of one president and the killing of another, Ali Khamenei becomes president in October 1981. A junior cleric with conservative ideas, Khamenei has been a follower of Khomeini’s since the early 1960s. In the government, he is regarded as one of the closest people to Khomeini and a member of the more moderate faction of the Islamic regime. Yet Khomeini feels closer to the more radical faction and orders Ali Khamenei to appoint Mir Hossein Mousavi, a radical young architect, as prime minister. Mousavi remains Khamenei’s prime minister for the rest of his tenure as president, until 1989. The relationship between the two men is contentious,