« Fact- and Law- Checking the Wall Street Journal and Alan Dershowitz, Part II: Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents, and Misapplies the LawFrom a meaningless life to a meaningless death »

Iran: Revisiting the 1979 Revolution

January 8th, 2009

Jalal Alavi

The 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution is nearing. The revolution of 1979 was not only an act against the US domination of Iranian politics, which began with the US-British coup of 1953 against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh, but also an act that was supposed to place Iran amongst the countries that made the transition to electoral democracy [1] as part of what the late Samuel Huntington and others have called the “third wave” of democratization.

Thirty years later, it seems fair to say that neither of the above objectives has been achieved to the satisfaction of the majority population in Iran, of course, for a variety of reasons, the most important of which, as of the time of the revolution, may be said to be actor-based in nature: those who promised a more sovereign Iran and a more open society decided to establish a manifestly anti-Western theocracy instead, which eventually engendered not only a more interventionist Iran policy on the part of the United States and other Western powers, but also a clerical regime that turned out to be more reactionary than the secular autocracy it replaced.

Thus the turn of events in Iran paved the way for the gradual international isolation of the country under the global hegemony of the United States, which has continued to this very day, as well as the domestic rise in corruption, poverty, and chronic repression.

Implicit in the above is the important proposition that the Iranian revolution of 1979 could have alternatively led to a more balanced state of affairs at both the domestic and international levels had those in charge of the revolution been less impulsive and thus more pragmatic in their political thinking and behavior.

To be sure, a more pragmatic approach to politics would have required not only a show of indifference on the part of the revolutionaries with regard to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s entry into the United States on medical grounds (as this eventually turned out to be a source of great tension in US-Iran relations [2]), but also firm support for the provisional government of Mehdi Bazargan, whose conciliatory approach towards the United States – under a somewhat sympathetic Carter administration – had the potential of not only improving relations between the two countries at an early stage, but also preventing the occurrence of both the hostage crisis of 1979-1981 and the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-1988.

Alas, such political realism on the part of the Islamic Republic is as much a rarity now as it was at its formation stage; hence the current situation, in which the regime is finding it hard to even manage its day-to-day activities.

The failure of the 1979 revolution to bring about a more prosperous and democratic Iran can also be blamed on the Islamic Republic’s lax attitude towards the establishment and growth of myriad special interests that have hitherto permeated Iran’s fragile, often mismanaged petroleum-based economy.

The “bonyads”, or charitable trusts often of dubious nature, and the Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose privileged and thus predatory position in the Iranian economy has not remained a secret to anyone, are to name but two of such special interests.

Added to all this, of course, is the fact that Iran’s increasingly volatile state of affairs has made it extremely difficult over the years for foreign investors to take part in Iran’s various development projects.

It may be concluded, therefore, that, short of direct action by Iran’s disgruntled citizenry, the combination of the above, along with the possibility of even more international sanctions and lower petroleum prices in world markets, is bound to have a major effect on policy decisions within the Islamic Republic. Let us hope, however, that this effect is not only benign in nature, but also imminent [3].

Notes

[1] Modern electoral democracy, rooted in Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of procedural democracy, can be found in many less developed countries and thus does not require the sort of structural changes that, say, a liberal or social democracy would require. At a minimum, competitive elections of a free, open, and fair nature must be guaranteed for a political system to be called electoral democracy.

[2] In retrospect, it seems the effort by some influential elements in or close to the Carter administration to secure the Shah’s entry into the United States might have been a shrewd way of dampening the prospects of better relations between the US and revolutionary Iran. Thus a show of indifference by Iran would have neutralized this stratagem.

[3] Tragic incidents, such as the current US-backed Israeli massacre of the Gaza population, which, according to such prominent international law experts as Richard A. Falk, is a “severe and massive violation” of the very principles of international humanitarian law as defined by the Geneva Conventions, have historically had an impeding effect on the process of democratization in Islamic countries, not least by playing into the hands of authoritarian rulers.

-###-


Jalal Alavi is a sociologist and political commentator residing in Britain.

No feedback yet

Voices

Voices

  • By World BEYOND War A new report by the global peace group World BEYOND War finds that military bases used by foreign militaries are growing in number, as are public protests and advocacy against those bases. Of 1,247 foreign military bases in the…
  • By Sally Dugman I like the citizen arrest process, although never tried it out. It means that you go up to a wrongdoer and cart him or her off to jail if you don’t fear that your head will be blown off with a gun by the perpetrator in the process … Who…
  • By World BEYOND War The global peace organization World BEYOND War has announced the awardees for its fifth annual War Abolisher Awards: Ralph Nader, Roger Waters, and Francesca Albanese. The awardees will accept their awards in an online event on July…
  • By Mark Powell They bomb children, rob the treasury, cover up Epstein's client list, and term it democracy—what they're running is a pathocracy, and it's happening today. American Pathocracy/Kleptocracy history and current news, untainted by Google,…
  • By Mark Aurelius “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another… “ It’s that time again, actually way past due, as the lists of grievances are even fatter…
  • Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic The 2018 Skripal Attack Case The current orchestrated Western policy of total Russophobia, directed by Collective West, can be recorded to start by the British Cabinet of Theresa May – the focal servant-dog to US global…
  • By Sally Dugman This proactive Palestinian Pulverizers of humans, D. Trump who is indirectly responsible for the deaths of many thousands of Palestinian people of all ages, has no standing to say something like this utterly stupid statement about Putin:…
  • Tracy Turner When the Republic Betrays, the Body Must Answer Protest is not a right—it is a judgment passed upon power. A corrupt state standing above law and beyond justice forfeits its legitimacy, and we, the people, are compelled to answer—not with…
  • Tracy Turner The Reclamation of the Republic When, in the Course of human events, it shall become absolutely necessary for the People to dissolve the political ties which have united them to a government that has betrayed its trust to obtain their…
  • Tracy Turner SMELE's (Slow-Motion-Extinction-Level-Events). Not yet common in academia, but it should be. I. Introduction: The Timebombs We Ignore "Not with a bang but a bureaucratic shrug, the world ends." - Revisionist reading of Eliot by the…
Censorship is not safety. It is authoritarianism in disguise. Bing is not just a search engine—it is an information gatekeeper. Click the red button to email MSN and Bing.com executives. This message challenges their censorship of ThePeoplesVoice.org and demands transparency, algorithmic fairness, and an end to suppression of free expression.
July 2025
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
 << <   > >>
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    

  XML Feeds

b2evo
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted articles and information about environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. This news and information is displayed without profit for educational purposes, in accordance with, Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Thepeoplesvoice.org is a non-advocacy internet web site, edited by non-affiliated U.S. citizens. editor
ozlu Sozler GereksizGercek Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi E-okul Veli Firma Rehberi