Reza Shah also cultivated relations with the German Reich in order to counter the dominance of Britain and the Soviet Union (previously Russia), ironically because Germany did not have a history of imperialism in the region. Unsurprisingly, this led to tensions with Britain, and while Iran formally was neutral in World War II, the presence of Germans working above all in the Iranian oil industry ultimately led to the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941, following a failed German attempt to stage a coup overthrow Reza Shah, who was deposed in any case by Britain and the Soviet Union, and replaced by his son Mohammed-Reza Shah.


While the young Mohammed-Reza Shah initially took a hands off approach, allowing parliament (Majlis) to run the country in the immediate post World War II period, a run of six prime ministers between 1947 and 1951 underlined the fundamental instability (not to mention corruption) of the country’s legislature. This culminated in 1951 in what is known as the Abadan Crisis, in which the prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the British owned oil industry, leading to an economic blockade by Britain, which saw Mossadegh forced out of power briefly, only to be restored by the Shah thanks to a popular revolt, and thereafter saw the Shah forced into a very brief exile after a failed military coup. In 1953 a CIA and MI6 backed coup led by Fazlollah Zahedi forced Mossadegh from office, and saw him tried for, and convicted of treason, with the new Zahedi led government thereafter engaging in a campaign to suppress all opposition to the Shah, with the very active support of the USA. It not only joined the Baghdad Pact, via which it received economic and military aid from the USA, but also entered into agreement with an international consortium to run its oil industry, with profits split 50/50 between Iran and the consortium, though Iran was not allowed to audit the consortium.


There followed a period of very rapid growth and modernization, funded by its vast oil wealth, but as with similar previous periods, the so called ‘White Revolution’ did little to improve overall economic conditions for the vast majority of the population, while continuing to alienate Islamic political and religious groups. Amongst those speaking out against the Shah’s regime was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose arrest in 1963, after a speech criticizing the Shah and his ‘capitulations’ to American military personnel, sparked a further wave of riots. After various periods in detention, Khomeini eventually went into exile in 1964, during which he very gradually rose to prominence as the most influential leader of the opposition to the Shah, tough he was always careful to ensure that his plans for a clerical government were kept largely under wraps, particularly when reaching out to other opposition groups. Meanwhile in 1965, Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansur, seen by many as the architect of the ‘White Revolution’, was assassinated by a Shi-ite fundamentalist, and thereafter the secret police SAVAK escalated its campaign against political and religious opponents of the Shah, many of whom were tortured and in some cases executed.


7 | ADMISI - The Ghost In The Machine | November/December 2017 7 | ADMISI - The Ghost In The Machine | May/June 2018


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