Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Khomeini’s Iran

For historical, cultural, literary and economic reasons, discussion of Iran is relevant to any discourse on the subcontinent. In contrast to the influence of Arabs and the British, which was regarded in the nature of aggression and unwelcome intrusion by a majority of the people, relations with Iranians were amicable and developed in a harmonious fashion.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Iran was long past its heyday. In its time she had ruled vast tracts of territory, and had dominated central Asia, Greece and much of Eastern Europe, Arabia, India and Far East. In its turn, it was ruled, pillaged and otherwise overwhelmed by Arabs, Greeks and Mongols. When Muslims took over the country, majority of the population converted to Islam-whether willingly or under coercion is another discussion. A tiny minority fled to India and was called Parsis for people from Pars, another name for Iran. The British unable and unwilling to pronounce Pars distorted it to Persia. Americans imitate and appear to take pride in this inability. (Parsis are also known as Zoroastrians after the name of the founder of the religion prophet Zoaraster and are recognized in Islam as people of the book . They played a larger part in Indian business, arts, sciences and politics than their number would warrant. They are discussed at length elsewhere.
Muslim divines, the Prophet of Islam’s family and assorted Arab academics migrated to Iran to escape Umayyad and Abbasid atrocities. Others passed through the country en route to India. Some, like my own ancestors, lived there for centuries before the riches of the sub-continent lured them. With the advent of Moghals who spoke Farsi and made it the court and official language of India, the influx was augmented many fold. North Indian culture which was a synthesis of Muslim and Hindu mores was strongly influenced by Farsi. Urdu literature owes a great deal to the language. All educated people in UP, Bihar, Dehli, Hyderabad Deccan, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan, irrespective of the creed they followed, learned Farsi and Urdu as a matter of course. My Nana could converse in the language with as much ease as he could in Urdu and quoted masters like Saadi and Hafiz frequently. The British were not able to supplant it with English till the twentieth century. It is also the language of a substantial number of Afghans.
Iran’s connection with India goes back a long time. Aryans believed originally natives to central Asia are passed through Iran to the final destination in India. The last king of Iran Reza Shah had styled himself “Arya Mehr”, the sun of Aryans, as a ludicrous mark of megalomania. It was also an attempt at obtaining legitimacy. He was a British creation and had been put on the throne by the Imperial power in place of his own father, who had risen from junior ranks to become a general and had overthrown a long established dynasty. He was “uppity” and difficult, did not do as he was told during the WWII and was packed off into exile.
During the early period of Muslim control Iran was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty and was a Sunni majority country. Later Shia Kings took over and most of the people adapted the creed of their rulers. After being over thrown by Sunnis, Fatimid rulers of Egypt had sought refuge in Kerman city/province of Iran. They were a sub-sect of the Shia creed and were lured by the British to India and played the role of agents of the colonists . The British awarded the title of prince to the head of the clan, the Agha Khan. His role in Muslim League and presenting memoranda on behalf of Muslims of India to the viceroy is discussed in another chapter.
Twenty percent of the Muslims of the subcontinent follow teachings of the Shia creed. They are a very coherent group and attend highly scholastic sermons for at least forty days a year; the period commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Husain, the prophet of Islam’s younger grandson. As a consequence, they are much more conversant with religious dogma and history than members of other sects of Islam are. They are also vehement believers in hierarchy. The fourth caliph Imam Ali, a cousin and husband of the prophet’s favorite daughter Fatima is venerated as the first Imam, his elder son Imam Hasan the second and so on. They also aver that Ali should have been the first Caliph. Unsophisticated among them call the first three caliphs usurpers, the cultured ones use fancy but equally derogatory terms. Ayatollah Khomeini styled himself a deputy to the last Imam and ruled on his behalf. This cohesion was the main reason they were able to over throw, entrenched and neo-imperialist sponsored monarchy which was supported by a brutal secret service trained and equipped by the CIA and an army which was kept segregated from the general populace and developed in the image of the American armed forces.
Shias have a very strong sense of justice and fair play and are very receptive to revolutionary movements. Among “Muslim” members of the communist party of the subcontinent both pre and post-partition, followers of the creed far out numbered Sunnis. They are very good fighters. Post expulsion of the Shah, their army had imploded on itself. Nevertheless, but for the direct intervention of Americans and in spite of the enormous aid the country gave in material, logistics and information obtained by satellites on disposition of Iranian troops, they came with in a hair’s breadth of defeating Saddam’s Iraq. They were the only mid-Eastern group, which forced Israel to sue for a cease-fire in Lebanon.
Sub-continental Shias feel very close to Iranians, and the affluent among them look for and take girls from the country justifiably acclaimed for their good looks as wives. They make frequent pilgrimages to the shrines of Imams in the country. Numerous Shia seminaries especially in the “holy” city Qom attract hundreds of students from the subcontinent. All the higher Shia clerics are graduates of Iranian seminaries. This is reminiscent of all higher-level professionals in India graduating from British universities in pre-independence days. They wield as much influence on the mind and heart of the sect as Indian barristers did on nationalist Indians during independence movement.
The British drew a line of demarcation across Baluchistan, home of Baluchis, to divide the region into British Indian and Iranian possessions. Baluchis follow the Sunni creed, speak a language very similar to Farsi and are an oppressed community on both sides of the border. Baluchi nationalism has been resurgent since India-Pakistan won independence. On Pakistani side they constitute about fifty five percent of the population of the province. Pathans account for about forty five percent . Baluchis demand provincial autonomy, and a fair share of the resources of the province, which is rich in minerals of all kinds, but the bone of special contention is the natural gas deposit in Sui district, which meets a large part of the energy needs of the country. For decades after its discovery it was piped to all parts of Pakistan, except Baluchistan. Very little proportion of the revenue earned by sale of the gas is spent on the province. Their radical leaders especially on Pakistan side have long agitated for their own state, much like Kurds of Turkey, Iran and Iraq do.
The idea, naturally, did not find favor with either country. Shah of Iran as a fellow subsidiary of neo-colonists was very close to rulers of Pakistan. He got every ruler of the country, from Ayub down, to suppress the Baluchis on Pakistan side. The never-ending insurgency has claimed numerous lives on both sides of the divide. Pakistan army has superior firepower. Baluchis are more familiar with the terrain; ambush army units from hide outs in caves and have lately taken to bombing railway tracks, electric installations and Para-military facilities. It has been a stalemate with irregular attempts at negotiations. They have never been in good faith. Both sides have used the lulls in fighting to recoup losses and regroup. Musharraf boasted in 2005 that it was not nineteen seventies and he would crush them. All he was able to accomplish was murder of Akbar Bugti, an octogenarian Baluchi Sardar, who was turned into an iconic martyr.
Pakistani Baluchis are more numerous, better educated and more organized than their Iranian compatriots. Besides gas and minerals Gas, Baluchistan has always enjoyed strategic importance. Its long warm water shoreline has, from times immemorial, been coveted by ice bound Russians. A proposed gas line would pass from central Asia, through Iran, Afghanistan and Baluchistan to the sea. In an area called Gwadar , a port is being developed with the assistance of China. USA is not too happy about further extension of Chinese influence in the region. They are up in arms against Iran too. They regard China as their only long-term strategic rival. Rumor mills would have it that the recent upsurge in fighting in Sui has been promoted by good old CIA. They are also accused of supplying arms, training and logistic advice. On their past record the speculation is far from implausible. Americans have bases ready to hand in the region. It was a windfall from 9/11.
Iran served as a kind of buffer between the Russian and British empires. The Qajar dynasty, which ruled the country, was only nominally independent and was actually beholden to both super powers. The British thwarted Russian desire of a warm water port in Baluchistan. The two powers dominated Iran in an uneasy partnership. Winds of political change blew over the region too. The Qajar dynasty was forced to grant a constitution in 1906, which envisaged a representative government under supervision of a monarch. The monarchy was weakened over time and especially during WWI, to be replaced, as noted earlier by the father of the last king. With the advent of oil, the strategic importance of the country increased further. During WWII, Anglo-American alliance and the Russians divided the country into spheres of control. Post WWII, Anglo-American alliance acquired uncontested control over the Shah.
In the early fifties a coalition of progressives and communists won the elections. The government, led by a moderate nationalist Dr Mossadeq, nationalized the oil industry. Anglo-American interests were in an uproar. They tried all kinds of threats, which did not work. The Shah fled the country into exile in Rome. Neo-imperialist agents in place, feudal supporters of the Shah, security agencies and the largely pro-shah army created a law and order situation. CIA inspired, abetted and managed coup restored the king to the throne .
The king perpetrated a reign of terror through his secret service, which went under the acronym, Sawak. In its day it was more dreaded than the Russian secret service under Stalin. Hundreds including the foreign minister Husain Fatmi were killed. Scores of thousands were jailed, and a greater number fled the country. One of them enrolled as a student into my medical school. Sawak arrested and tortured hundreds of dissidents on a daily basis, with complete impunity with out any sanction of law or courts. Nazi treatment of dissidents was humane in comparison. The brutality lasted till the Shah’s second ouster in 1979. That insurgency was led by Ayatollah Khomeini and was organized at the grass roots level by his followers.
Shah had handed over security and much of economic activity to Americans. His local functionaries came from the dissident Muslim sect called Bahais who have a particularly hedonistic faith. The other component of the security apparatus were the Jews who, though they kept their faith, were otherwise thoroughly assimilated. One could not guess their religion from their names. I met two Jewish Iranian Physicians in Brooklyn. Their original names were indistinguishable from the names of Muslims. They had, however, married local Jewish girls and had Americanized their names.
The Shah had virtually no control over oil, industry or other resources of the country. He was allowed an illusion of power and grandeur and could enact cosmetic measures such as Iranians could listen to POP music, go to clubs, drink and dance. Women could wear western clothes. Press and all kinds of dissent were kept on a tight leash. Imperialist interests kept him as a local gendarme. CIA controlled the local secret service called Sawak. All clandestine activities in mid- East and Far East were managed from Teheran. Their tentacles reached all sections of the society. Iranians were not even aware of secret installations at the Soviet border. For long after Khomeini take over they kept on discovering secret bases at the country. His army was, in the same manner, under the sway of Pentagon, trained, supplied and beholden to them. High-ranking American officers made regular visits to Iran. Iranian officers attended strategy sessions at American bases and in Pentagon.
A comprador class owing allegiance to the USA was created and served as a fifth column under nominal rule of the Shah. Great emphasis was laid on westernization of education, culture, mode and norms of behavior. The Shah later in his rule stopped paying even lip service to Islam. Neo-colonization in the most naked and pervasive form was practiced in Iran.
Iranians are generally conformist Shia Muslims. What is perhaps more important is that they have a well-defined and structured clerical system. The highest five clerics are called Ayatollah Uzma-in popular usage the Grand ayatollahs-whom under the 1906 constitution even the Shah could not imprison. Under the Grand ayatollahs are plain Ayatollahs, Hojatullhs and so on. These gentlemen were generally non-political and immersed themselves in scholarship and esoteric teaching. Majority of people in next-door Iraq are Shias too, but for a thousand years minority Sunnis have ruled the country. When the British took over the county from the Turks they elected to use Sunnis as their agents in place. Iraqis Shias are guided in religion mores by their own Ayatollahs who are trained in Iranian seminaries .
The Shah and Americans both grossly underestimated the upsurge in Khomeini’s support. Jimmy Carter, during a visit to the country, called Iran a sea of stability just a few weeks before the Shah was kicked out.
The impact of Khomeini’s revolution must not be underestimated. He dislodged an entrenched regime, which had all levers of power and patronage in its hands. It had made common cause with the more powerful and richer of the two super powers. The country was awash with oil money, which the rulers used to entice, buy, and otherwise influence the populace and suborn opposition leaders. They sent students in their thousands to expensive foreign schools and built industries, universities, hospitals, roads, and houses of pleasure. All kinds of entertainment, song, dance, wine, designer clothes, and foreign trips were available to those who toed the line. A little prosperity filtered down to the common man too.
As noted earlier the Shah had styled himself Arya Mehr, Shahenshah (SUN of Aryans, king of kings). He celebrated 3000th anniversary of Iranian monarchy by erecting a city of tents on a site reported to have been the seat of ancient and fabled Iranian kings. Every head of the state had a tent. The furnishings and supplies of the tents would shame the palace of minor royalty. The bash lasted a week; champagne flowed like water and caviar was consumed in tons. Wine, women and music were plied, in that order. The binge cost several hundred million US dollars.
Americans humored him, supplying him with the latest armaments, training and technical support. More CIA personnel reportedly worked in Teheran than did in Langley VA! He could buy influence in countries like Pakistan and dominated the scene in the mid-East. But he could not bribe his way into the hearts and minds of mainstream Iranians .
Khomeini was able to focus the unrest, make it a cohesive force and remove the Shah by sheer force of will as it were. He did not have to resort to armed insurgency. It would have been a mistake. His cohorts could not match the firepower of the Shah. Gandhi proved beyond any shadow of doubt that you can fight overwhelming force more effectively with non-violence. Khomeini’s achievement was in a way greater than Gandhi’s. He was fighting a native tyrant who could command greater allegiance than a colonial ruler could. He was successful in spite of wide infiltration of saboteurs in his own ranks. The first post revolution President of the country, Bani Sadr, fled after exposure. The foreign minister Qutub Zadeh, who had been head of Khomeini’s security detail, was executed after confessing to being in the pay of the CIA. Gandhi did not have to contend with collaborators at that level.
Khomeini’s impact influence over the third world generally and among the Muslims especially was remarkable. He had succeeded at a time when the neo-imperialists could and did have their will of third countries in Asia, Mid and Far East, Africa and Latin America. Muslims were totally disheartened and were suffering from collective depression. Pakistan had lost its more populous eastern wing. Egypt had been unable to wrest control of Palestinian lands from the hands of Israel and had had to sign an unequal peace treaty. Arab world was in disarray and disunited. The other super power, Soviet Union was fighting for control of Afghanistan and in a mortal struggle with fundamentalist Islam. An American agent was ruling Iraq. Independence and progressive movements were in retreat all over.
Khomeini was a pan-Islamist. He never talked of, wrote about or even referred to Shia-Sunni schism. He understood as few did that when you are down and out, it is not the time to quarrel with your kin. He only talked of the Holy Book and the teachings of the prophet. His life style appealed to the poor and the wretched. Islam has a deep ascetic and egalitarian tradition. The Prophet and his immediate followers eschewed luxury and ease. He ordained that one should indulge in over eating. In fact one should eat a little less than would satisfy hunger. One should not eat before making sure that neighbors have food on the table. Khomeini slept on the floor on a mat, and lived on yogurt, honey and rice.
I visited Pakistan soon after the revolution. People were euphoric. Shia and Sunni, man, woman and child, in government employ or in private enterprise, educated and illiterate, rich and poor, right or left wing, and from all corners of the country, all lauded Khomeini. Agents provocateurs, saboteurs, Wahabis and others on the lunatic religious fringe lay low. The credulous ones even talked of the Mehdi, the Muslim version of the Messiah. For the first time in over a thousand years the followers of the major sects of Islam developed a sense of belonging to one faith. Notables from both communities pledged that Shia Sunni riots which occurred with sickening regularity during the Moharram commemoration of martyrdom of Imam Husain, would not be allowed.
Blacks and Latinos, Irish in the UK and the dispossessed all over the world, saw a ray of hope. If a cleric with no arms or armies, no money or other resources, with no powerful backers or organized political party behind him, could over come the combined strength of power, science, technology and organization, they could break their shackles too. Ideas had proved their supremacy once again.
Khomeini was politically different from the average cleric. He upbraided the Shah more for mortgaging the country to the West, supporting Israel, opposing Pan Islamism, ridiculing its principles and values and infesting the country with western mores and behavior, drinking and dancing and debauching, than for his royal life style. He advocated massive upheaval, not reforms, an Islamic government not just regime change. He was vociferous, vehement and fearless and became the most popular Grand Ayatollah. People from all walks of life flocked in their scores of thousands to his Friday sermons. Once he cast doubts on the Shah’s paternity. The latter would have preferred to put Khomeini in jail or even have him killed. Thwarted by the constitution and public opinion, he could only order him to leave the country. He chose Iraq as the first stop.
Saddam had pretensions of grandeur rivaling the Shah’s. But he had not long been in the saddle. Iraq disputed ownership of some gulf Islands with Iran. Arabs in general nursed anti Iranian feelings too. The ill will was fully reciprocated. Arabs Sunnis treated the Shia creed as barely different from apostasy. They had resented Iran’s manifest cultural superiority from the time the first Arabs visited the Iranian court as emissaries of the second Caliph . Shah, ruling a much larger country and backed by American trained and equipped army, had forced Saddam to take the low road and vacate the Islands. Khomeini was a godsend and was allowed to continue his anti Shah sermons, tirades and pamphlets, audio and videocassettes were free to circulate.
The native traders in the traditional market called the Bazaar felt the economic pinch of neo-colonization the most. If you can win the Bazaar, you can defeat anyone in the country. The Bazaar in Teheran, catering to low and mid level businessmen and customers had seen its business dwindling. Global capital was marginalizing it. Some enterprises, bankrupted by the onslaught of high tech American products were forced out of existence. They chafed under the overbearing ways of the erstwhile lowly Jews and Bahai’s. They moaned the moral decadence and erosion of their traditional values.
Bazaar in Teheran had been restless, but had found no leader. They were an amorphous mess. By its very nature it is secular in practice and conventionally conformist in religion. They eschew fundamentalism, finding it too restrictive for its free wheeling style. They had been indifferent to the Tudeh. Party. Shah’s goons had exterminated the populist center, moderate and left in the country. Khomeini gave a clarion call to overthrow Satan’s agent (For Iran U.S.A. was and remains the Big Satan). The bazaar, lower and middle classes, minor state functionaries, lower level policemen, and soldiers in the army responded to the call, hesitantly at first. The campaign gathered momentum.
Shah, and to their eternal regret the Americans, did not take it seriously enough. Shah was annoyed though, and demanded that Saddam get rid of Khomeini. Saddam demurred. Shah turned to Americans. Saddam was very thick with the latter. Squeezed between the two, he ordered Khomeini out. Khomeini flew to France, which had been excluded from the area by Anglo-American interests. Frenchmen despise the British regarding them as uncouth shopkeepers. Their opinion of Americans is no different. They are particularly good at looking down their Gallic noses .
Khomeini was allowed unprecedented freedom of action and was able to develop an effective command and control center. He now had access to much better technology of communications and the international media. If the Shah had planned his downfall, he could not have gone about it in a better way. Iran was mesmerized by Khomeini’s speeches and exhortation on cassettes. Unrest was palpable. Americans were still befuddled. Carter was still calling the Shah a pillar of democracy and freedom. They should have seen the writing on the wall . Shah was routinely booed by Iranian exiles during his frequent visits to the white house. The protestors were routinely tear gassed by the police. Once whiffs of tear gas actually got into arena of the joint press conference of the Shah and the President. TV cameras caught the pair wiping their eyes, and hastening back indoors.
The Bazaar rose. General public gave it unstinted support. Khomeini, other Ayatollah’s and their disciples organized the movement. Shah tried the old repressive methods. People offered flowers to gun toting soldiers who refused to shoot. Officers defied generals. Shah was on the way out. A high-ranking American general, Commander of the central command (Cent Com), visited and tried to boost the morale of the Iranian generals. Compromises were suggested. Shah should abdicate in favor of his son. Khomeini could take over as the Regent. He would have none of it. Shah made an ignominious exit. Khomeini arrived in an Air France Jumbo jet. Millions had been waiting for him at the Teheran airport. He could not leave in the motor procession planned for him. Crowds would not give way. He had to be taken away in a helicopter.
It was not only Iranian Muslims who were in thrall of Khomeini. Ordinary followers of the faith, regardless of their nationality, race, linguistic group, geographic origin or political leanings were energized. A Muslim had challenged a stooge of neo-imperial power and had forced him to flee. They were not bothered about his antecedents, whether he was Sunni or Shia, Irani or Turani. (Turani is slang. It means any non-Iranian). We heard, (and I personally met a few), that people in Black and Arab Africa White Turks, Indonesians and Muslims of Mongol descent in central Asia, held him in equal veneration. No Muslim had caught the imagination of the believers of the creed for a millennium. In his stature and Khomeini rivaled Saladin .
Even persons of dubious character suspected to be in the pay of foreign agencies could not help admiring him. What was perhaps more remarkable was the unstinted praise progressive, and radical leftist groups gave him. In pre-Khomeini days they were, as usual, scathingly critical of all religious movements. When I teased them that it was perhaps their Shia roots which had goaded them to fall in line behind the Ayatollah, some feigned annoyance, but the more straight ones freely admitted the ingrained partiality. They were tired of inability to make any headway in the reactionary environment they lived in. They were fed up with constant failure and wanted to bask in his glow.
He did not disappoint the Ummah and gave a call to overthrow all the despots, and dictators who were agents of the infidel. He seemed to believe in the universality of the faith and latent integrity of the Ummah. For a brief while they eschewed the rabid calls of fanatics . Shia clerics to a man had fallen in line with the new concept of amity. A few leading Ayatollahs did not hold him in as much esteem, but they obviously thought that prudence was the better part of valor.
In Iran it was the Mullahs turn now. Hundreds of counter revolutionaries and agents of the Shah were arrested, and officer corps of armed forces was virtually decimated. Witch-hunts abounded. The elite had fled. Administration was denuded of experienced workers. Bankers used to interest based dealings were at a loss. Charging or paying interests was equally repugnant to Islamic code. Moral injunctions of all kinds were issued, and religious/moral police was established to enforce the rules. Summary trials, in hastily setup Islamic courts presided over by half-baked judges, were held. Equally summary judgments followed. Gallows were erected conveniently close by. Western media made much of it. But one former CIA man made a telling confession. Shah’s Sawak killed more on a slow weekend than Khomeini’s courts would do in a year.
On the domestic front, though, women lost the status they had gained under the Shah. They had to wear the Chador again. But that was the least travesty of justice. Medieval, anachronistic gender discriminating laws were reimposed. Men could marry up to four women at one time and an unlimited number as long as they got rid of one of the current crop. Women had to request a divorce and would lose the few benefits of marriage if they initiated the process. Man had just to say the word. She could not take a job or even leave the house with out the husband’s permission. Women could and did flout the strictures, at the pain of public beatings and jail. It was not as bad as the Taliban regime a decade later, but close enough.
U.S.A. had lost tremendous amount of assets, physical as well as human. It had lost face and the prime client state in Asia, which had been vital for protecting its critical interests. Iran could comply with its commands more effectively than all other subsidiaries as it had superior technological know how. It stood by Israel, the most favorite US ally, in teeth of its own public opposition . Americans were left with no base of operations in the area. They could not utilize Israel openly, as they were not yet in a position to antagonize the whole Arab public opinion. True they had satraps ruling the countries. But the agents in place were not secure enough.
In strategic terms Iran was the most important country in the region. It controlled the straits of Hormuz through which fully twenty five percent of the world’s oil supply passed. They had to activate their “sleepers”. It is a tribute to Iranian zeal, passion and persistence that they soon caught on to such a deeply embedded and entrenched agent as Bani Sadar, President of the republic. They found innumerable cells of agents and bases of operation in country and on the borders with Soviet union- listening posts which even the communist regime was not aware of.
How they learnt that the U.S. Embassy was still keeping top-secret document, is not precisely known. It may just have been suspicion. It was, however, more likely that the fact was confirmed by an agent who let the information slip, or had it extracted from him. Some SAVAK agent may have seen the light and assisted. The holy warriors laid siege to and occupied the Embassy and held the staff hostage for a long time. They held on to the hostages till Carter handed over the presidency to Reagan .
It is not disputed that Carter lost primarily due to his inability to rescue the hostages. His abortive and amateurish attempts at salvage had humiliated him further. But he did succeed in laying the foundations of the capacity to mobilize American forces in mid-East. He organized the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), the forerunner of the massive build up of US forces in the region . But what is more remarkable is that the Iranians were able to reconstitute the shredded documents. They revealed many well kept secrets, not only of CIA activities in Iran but all over Asia. It took years for CIA to reconstitute its structure and recover from the damage.
The hostage crisis is worth lingering over a bit more. America, the military and economic giant, had bases all over the world, which had surrounded its only credible foe, the Soviet Union. Its navy dominated the seven seas. Its missiles and strategic air force planes were poised to strike any corner of the earth. That the super of the super powers had its nose rubbed in the dust by a third rate military power which was actually in throes of an upheaval, was more humiliating than the exodus from Vietnam where they had a fig leaf of an excuse that the other super power had been supporting its detractors. The helpless giant was not able to do no more than make plaintive noises. They had yet to recover from the humiliation of being defeated by a peasant army in Vietnam. Their triumph in Afghanistan was in the future. Gulf I and II were yet a gleam in the eyes of Pentagon planners. Soviet union had yet to show overt signs of senescence. People the world over ridiculed the USA. Progressives reminded each other of Mao calling it a paper tiger. It is ironic that a theocratic dispensation gave a new lease of life to progressive movement the world over. But Iranians had to pay a great cost.
The USA did not have the wherewith all to intervene directly. In any event the scars of Vietnam were too fresh for public opinion to accept another adventure. They decided on a readily available and willing proxy. Saddam was straining at the bit. Political analysts give the credit of the idea of using the jackal to the redoubtable Margaret Thatcher. She wielded great influence on Ronald Reagan. He was greatly impressed by her physical and intellectual charms. His wife Nancy had already prepared the ground. He was quite used to listening to women .
Times have changed. Tony “Poodle” Blair had to hold the son Bush back from his more outlandish excesses.
After regulation ultimatums Saddam attacked. Iranian forces had, as noted earlier, imploded on themselves. The core pro Shah generals had either fled or been executed. Navy and the Air force had met the same fate. Minus leadership, planning, or organization, and shorn of spare parts, Iranian soldiers did not stand a chance. They reeled and fell back against the Iraqi onslaught. Iranian young men, out of sheer conviction and zeal held the marauders with their bodies. The nation had to rally in a hurry. The clerics had to eat crow, and invite the discredited officers who had not already left the country, back into the command structure. Most returned willingly.
It was sea saw for eight long years. When Iraqis were falling back the good old USA gave them arms and logistic support. Saboteurs helped out by blowing up the parliament building in Teheran. All the members of the cabinet, President, PM, speaker of the house and most of the parliamentarians were inside the building perished. When Iraqis seemed on the verge of a break through, Reagan was at hand supplying Iran with spare parts through Israel- the so-called Iran Contra affair. When the end was in sight- Iranians had driven the last Iraqi from their soil, had crossed the gulf and obtained a foot hold on Iraqi land- and were busy shelling the port of Basra, an American gun ship shot down a passenger flight of Iran air lines.
Khomeini who had demanded Saddams head as the price of cease-fire had to relent. A million and a half young men, in a proportion of three Iranians to two Iraqis, had died. Countless millions were injured and maimed. Saddam was able to inflict the greatest damage with the use of poison gases manufactured courtesy of American and German chemical giants. The deals were reportedly mediated by high ups in the USA administration among them Donald Remsfeld, the then White house Chief of the Staff. He was a frequent guest of Saddam. Iraq and Iran were set back by decades. Not an inch of territory was gained by Iraq.
Devastation of Iran was to have immense and far-reaching consequences. Progressive movement suffered the most. Radicals went into a decline. They were to be pushed off the precipice by the implosion of Soviet Union. Arab regimes had financed Saddam’s adventure. Even that caricature of a revolutionary leader Yasir Arafat had supported Saddam. Ingrate that he was, he forgot that revolutionary Iran had closed the Israeli Embassy in Teheran, handed over the premises to his PLO, and given him the reception due a legitimate head of a state at a time when his fellow Arabs were busy undermining him behind his back. Palestinians had been massacred in Arab Jordan and Arab Lebanon. Another Arab head of the state, Sadaat, had sold his soul and Palestinian rights in exchange for US favors and a Nobel Prize. Arab armies had once again been exposed for what they were; good enough to mow down unarmed civilians, not much else .
Saddam had bankrupted Iraq. Arab princes were not willing to bankroll the recovery. IMF, the World bank and other “aid” agencies were prepared to offer loans if he agreed to hand over the country’s assets to global corporations and let them build cities and infra structure as Saudis had done. He did not agree and met his due fate.