History of Iran

The Iran has one of the oldest ages of the world. The history of Iran covers thousands of years, since ancient civilizations of the Iranian plate, the civilization of Mannéens in Azerbaïdjan, Shahr-i Sokhteh (“burned City”) in Sistan, and old the Civilization of Jiroft, followed kingdom of Élam, empire Achéménide, Parthes, Sassanides until current the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Prehistory

Paleolithic

The current territory of Iran delivered vestiges of human occupation and vestiges cultural dating from the Paléolithique. instruments of stone of the Paléolithique inferior were found in the Iranian Balouchistan. It is in this area of Iran that was put at the day a great quantity of tools out of stones which are among the oldest overdrafts in Iran, having an age estimated at: 800000 years. Close to Tabriz the vestiges of a camping of hunters were also discovered which would go back to this period.

However, few vestiges of this time were found because of the low number of prospections and archaeological excavations carried out in the area. In many mountainous regions of the Central Asia, the deposit of important sedimentary layers occurred during the glaciations of the higher Pléistocène (end of Paleolithic) also contributed to make disappear from many sites.

Caves occupied during the Paleolithic means, as of the vestiges Moustérien S were also discovered. Evidence of an occupation moustérienne was indeed found in the Western basin of the river Helmand, and the archeologists hope to discover of them others in this area which extends until in Afghanistan. These vestiges belong to a continuum of occupation of Moustérien as well as physical vestiges Néandertal oïdes extending since the chain from the Tian Shan through the Central Asia and the Middle East, the south of Russia, Eastern and Western Europe as well as the north of Africa to the Atlantic.

During the Paleolithic superior, one notes a development of arts and the use of new methods of work of the stone.

Neolithic era

Protohistoire

The Age of copper, characterized by the appearance of elements of copper and ceramics painted in Susiane (South-western of Iran, on the territory of current the Khuzestan) and with Sialk (center of Iran), extends in Iran throughout thousand-year-old IVe before our era, as show it archaeological remainders among which one finds ceramics having animal or abstract forms of great quality; some of these parts had apparently a ritual use. Trade route extends at that time and of the urban installations start to emerge, in a regional process which proceed between the Anatolia, the Mésopotamie, the archaeological Complexe bactro-margien and the age of the valley of Indus.

The archeologists hardly start to know the origins of the civilizations installed on this ground as the Civilization of Jiroft going back 5000 years. It is close to the Civilization proto-élamite, centered on Anshan (Such Malyan), currently in the Fars, whose particular writing (perhaps ascribable makes some with the civilization of Jiroft) is attested with Tepe Yahya in Fars, Tepe Sialk, Tepe Ozbaki (close to Teheran), and even with Shahr-e Sokhteh in Séistan.

The Sumériens are also opposed to the kingdom of Aratta, which appears in several legends putting in scene kings d' Uruk, preceding the conflicts of the historical periods between the Élam and the kingdoms mésopotamiens.

Antiquity

Iran enters the history with the kingdom élam ite, successor of the period proto-élamite (of which the writing is still not included/understood), which attests of an incredible longevity, since it is a notable power of the end of the 3rd millenium, until the medium of the thousand-year-old 1st, when its heritage is taken again by the Persian Empire being born. The kingdom élamite is centered on the towns of Anshan (Such Malyan) in Fars, in country properly élamite, and Suse, which is with the junction between the zones élamite and mésopotamienne, and is used as bond between the two. Its sovereigns left inscriptions in the languages mésopotamiennes (sumérien and akkadien, written wedge-shaped), but they also adapted the wedge-shaped writing to their language as of the century at least. The apogee of this kingdom is the 2nd millenium, in particular with 18th and 12th centuries, when some of its kings succeed in dominating Mésopotamie temporarily (nominally or indeed). Other Iranian kingdoms are known by the mésopotamiennes sources, in addition to Aratta mentioned above: Awan, Simashki, and Zabshali, related to Élam, Hamazi in Western Zagros and Marhashi, located more at the east.

It is during the second millenium before our era (the exact date is still discussed) that arrive on the Iranian plate various people, coming from Central Asia. These Iranian people spoke a variety about dialects of the Old man-Persan , one of the Iranian Langues pertaining to the family of the Indo-European Langues, related with the vedic Avestique and the Sanscrit .

In the middle of, a group of Iranian tribes identified like the Mèdes, established in the north and the North-West of Iran, is released from the Assyrian yoke and establishes his capacity on the area. At the end of this same century, Mèdes, combined to the Babylonians, are released definitively from the Assyrian capacity by taking Ninive into 612 before J. - C. It is at the same period that the first sources appear mentioning the Perse Cyrus I {{er}}, king of Anshan, grandson of Achéménès, founder of the dynasty of the Achéménides.

It is thus another Iranian people, Persians, installed at the end of in the territory of Leave (around current the Shiraz), which gives rise to the first true Iranian empire into 559 before J. - C., that of Achéménides.

Worsen achéménide

Séleucides

Worsen sassanide

Islamic period

Islamic conquest

The dynasties Persians Moslem women

The dynasties reigning according to the Abbassides descend from wandering warlike tribes Turkish-speaking which moved since the Central Asia towards the Transoxiane since more than one millenium. The Abbasid caliphs had started to integrate these populations in their armies since the 9th century. A little later the capacity of the Abbasid caliphs decreased, to become only monk whereas truth capacity fell to the hands from the warriors. As the influence of the caliphs decreased, a whole series of independent and local dynasties made their appearance in various parts of Iran, from which some had an influence and a considerable capacity. One can quote among those the Tahirides Khorasan (820 - 872), the Saffarides with the Sistan (867 - 903) and the Samanides (875 - 1005), originating in Bukhara. Samanides started to reconquer is of Iran (Khorasan, Afghanistan, until in India) and made Samarkand, of Bukhara and Harat their capitals. The independence of the Arab capacity involves a revival of the Persan language among the elites: Iran becomes thus one of the rare areas Islamized to preserve its language. The emirs Samanides reflect with profit their economic force and soldier to make of their court of Bukhara and their regional capital (Samarkand, Balkh, Merv, Nichapour) of the hearths of intellectual life, rivals of Baghdad. In addition to the classical Arabic culture, they support the blossoming of the literature into Persan modern (in opposition to the Old man-Persan of the Achéménides and with the Means-Persan of the Sassanides and, although sunnites, grant their protection to thinkers which the ideas always did not concern orthodoxy. Among the largest well-read men protected by the Samanides one finds the poets Roudaki and Daghighi, the historian friendly Bal', the philosophical doctors Razi (Rhazès) and Ebn-E Sina (Avicenne). While being posed like a nation with its own language, and especially by installing their capital with Shiraz, the Iranian people very quickly mark their difference with regard to the other nations submitted to the Arab domination. Domination which is called in question when the Iranian dynasty Shiite of the Bouyides (or Buwayhides) seizes Baghdad in 945.

The period seldjoukide and Mongolian

In 962, a governor samanide of Turkish origin, Alptegîn, conquers Ghazna (currently in Afghanistan) and establishes a dynasty, the Ghaznévides which reigned on the Khorasan, Ghazna and the Panjâb. It is under the patronage of Mahmûd de Ghaznî, third king ghaznévide, that Ferdowsi transcribed in writing and into Persan the oral stories of Persian mythology ( Shâh Nâmâ , meaning “the book of the Kings”). Thanks to this cultural resistance to the east of the Persian , as of 913, Iran became the nation which broke the unit of the Muslim world, among the Muslim nations to be only detached from the Arab domination in all the fields.

Several samanides cities are lost with the profit of a new Turkish group arriving in the area, the Seldjoukides, which are a clan of Oghouzes living before in the north of the Oxus (current the Amou Darya). Their chief, Toghrul-Beg initially directed his warriors against the Ghaznévides of Khorasan. He moved towards the south then towards the west, conqueror, but not destroying the cities on his passage. In 1055, the caliph of Baghdad gives to Toghrul-Beg dresses, gifts and the title of King of the East . Under the reign of one of the successors of Toghrul-Beg, Malik Shah (1072 - 1092), Iran knows a cultural and scientific rebirth, largely allotted to its brilliance Iranian Vizier, Nizam Al-Mulk. It is at that time that the observatory of Ispahan is created where Omar Khayyam made the majority of its experiments to create a new calendar, introducing one leap year and measuring the length of the year as being 365,24219858156 days. Religious schools are open in all more the big cities. The leaders seljoukides made also come Al-Ghazali, one of the largest theologists of the Islam, and other intellectuals in their Baghdad capital, and encouraged and supported their work. The art of Seljoukides of Iran is a very rich artistic production at that time.

One of the internal threats most serious in Seldjoukides was that posed by a sect secret Ismaélienne having its seat with Alamut, between Rasht and Teheran. They controlled the close area during more than 150 years and sent sectateurs periodically to reinforce their power by perpetrating political assassinations; vizier Nizam Al-Malk was one their first victims. They were called the Hashishiyya (which was transformed into “Hashâchines” in Europe).

After the death of Malik Shah in 1092, Iran is still directed by small local dynasties. During this time, Gengis Khan gathers Mongolian tribes and brings them through raids devastators through China. Then, in 1219, it turns its forces of: 700000 men towards the west and devastates quickly Bukhara, Samarkand, Balkh, Merv and Nichapur. Before its death in 1227, it reached the Western Azerbaïdjan, plundering and burning the cities on its road.

The Mongolian invasion of Iran is désatreuse for the populations. Destruction many Qanat S (a traditional system of irrigation) destroyed a network of relatively continuous habitat, creating many cities Oases isolated on a ground where they were very few before. Many inhabitants, in particular the men, are killed, in 1220 and 1258; the population of Iran decreases in a brutal way.

The Mongolian sovereigns having followed Gengis Khan made little to improve the situation of Iran. The small son of Gengis, Houlagou Khan, turned to the foreign conquest, fascinating Baghdad in 1258 and killing the last caliph Abbasside. He is stopped by the forces of the Mamelouks of Egypt in Ain Jalut in Palestine. He then returns to settle in Iran, where he founds the dynasty of the Ilkhanides (its capital is in the Iranian Azerbaïdjan) to finish his life there.

A relative “respite” is brought to Iran with another Mongolian sovereign, Ghazan Khan (1295 - 1304) and its famous Iranian vizier, Aldine Rashid, which brings a short and partial economic rebirth. The Mongols lower the taxes for the craftsmen, encourage agriculture, rebuild the roads and the networks of irrigation, and improve safety of trade route, which involves a notable increase in the trade and exchanges. Objects of India, China and Iran pass easily through the Asian steppes and these contacts strongly enrich the culture by Iran. It is at this time that Iran develops a new style of painting having at the same time characteristics of painting mésopotamienne without prospect but also of the characteristics inspired for Chinese painting: the Miniature Persian. After the death of the nephew of Ghazan, Abu Saïd in 1335, Iran still falls under the capacity from several small local and independent dynasties, of which the Muzaffarides and the Jalayirides.

Timourides and Safavides

The conqueror following to take the title of emperor was Tamerlan, of Turkish or Mongolian origin according to the sources. He conquers initially the Transoxiane, made Samarkand his capital in 1369 and becomes finally emperor of all Iran in 1381. Its conquests were slower than its Mongolian predecessors, but quite as wild: Shiraz and Ispahan was almost shaven with its passage. The reign of Tamerlan then of its dynasty of the Timurides is characterized by the incorporation of Iranians at administrative stations and by the patronage of these sovereigns in architecture and arts; the period is so rich from the cultural point of view that it is called the Renaissance timouride. Timourides, mined not interior fights, see their empire disintegrating in 1507, when the Uzbek of the dynasty Chaybanides take Samarkand. At the same time, the Safavides, originating in Ardabil, (in the Iranian Azerbaïdjan) seize the power in the west of Iran and reconquer a good part of the Iranian territory such as it was in the time of the Sassanides.

The Safavides are the first Iranian independent dynasty (of origin turkmene however) to reign on Iran since nearly 1000 years. Safavides are members of an religious order Soufi militant, the Qizilbash. They take Tabriz in 1501 and make their capital of it.

It is under the impulse of Ismail I {{er}}, first sovereign safavide, that the conversion of Iran to the Chiisme is decided. This conversion results from a will to continue vis-a-vis the domination of the Othoman S sunnites and to create a specific Iranian identity.

The main issue of Safavides was to create a unified State, a task which was difficult taking into account the ethnic diversity of the country. Indeed, they had to make cohabit their Turkish-speaking partisans with the Iranians, their traditions of combat with the Iranian bureaucracy and their Messianic ideology with the administrative requirements of a territorial State.

Safavides also had to face external threats, in particular those of the Uzbeks, which attacked them on the north-eastern border and made raids on the Khorasan; and of the Othoman , with which they fought in the the Caucasus and in Anatolia.

The defeat of the Iranians against the Othomans with Chaldoran in the 1524 then occupation of the Safavide capital, Tabriz, mark a turning in the history of the dynasty: the Shah cannot be regarded as a semi-divine figure any more, and its influence decrease on a certain number of the chiefs Qizilbash. The battles continue in the the Caucasus and in Iraq until 1639, year during which was signed the treaty of Qasr-e Shirin, which established borders between the two powers which remained almost unchanged until the beginning of the 20th century.

The apogee of Safavides is reached under Shah Abbas I {{er}} Large the (1587-1629): it succeeds in demolishing external threats by signing treaties, balances the capacity of the troops armed Qizilbash by creating a body with Armenians and from Géorgiens which are honest for him, the territory managed by its State extends and centralizes even more the administration. It also supported the religious institutions by building mosques and madresehs (religious schools); however, one notes under his reign a gradual separation of the religious institutions and State, in a movement towards an independent religious hierarchy.

Its reign is also a golden age for the trade and arts. It accommodates the foreign tradesmen (British, Dutch, French and different) after having driven out the Portuguese who occupied the strait of Ormuz.

The level of the arts sponsored by the Shah is visible with Ispahan, its new capital, where it builds palates and mosques of any beauty: Place Naghsh-e Jahan, and Ali Qapu, Mosque of the Shah, Mosque of Sheikh Lutfallah, Palate of Chehel Sotoun, etc, and gives a great importance to the miniatures and the fine arts. This patronage gives rise to one called artistic period Art safavide.

The decline of Safavides starts truly after the death of Abbas Shah. This decline results from several factors: weak sovereigns, interference of the policy of the harem with the policy of State, bad administration of the grounds of the State and excessive taxes like increasing weakness of the armies (at the same time the Qizilbash army and the army of the Shah). It is this decline which makes it possible Afghan tribes to gain a series of victories on the Western border in 1722, quickly carrying out them to the capital and putting a term at the dynasty of Safavides.

End of the medieval period and the beginning of the modern era in Iran

De Nâdir Shâh in Karim Khan Zand

Afghan supremacy was rather short. Tahmasp Quli, a chief of Afshar tribe, is put at the head of an army in the name of the descendants of Safavides, drives out the Afghans of the Iranian territory, then in 1736 seizes the power under the name of Nâdir Shâh. It reconquers all the Iranian territory since the Georgia and the Arménie until the Afghanistan and organizes military campaigns which carry out it until Delhi in 1739, qu' it puts at bag and of which it brings back fabulous treasures, the such Trône of the Peacock. Even if it succeeds in reunifying Iran politically, its ceaseless military campaigns and the important taxes that they require make it strongly unpopular. He is assassinated in 1747 by chiefs of his own Afshar tribe, which gives its name to the dynasty of the Afsharides which succeeds to him.

One period of anarchy follows the death of Nadîr Shâh and the country is the prey of fights between tribes which seek to seize the power: the Afshar, the Afghans, the Qajar S and the Zand S. It is finally Karim Khan Zand which seizes the power in 1750; it succeeds in reunifying all the country almost, except the Khorasan, which remains more independent of the central capacity. Karim Khan Zand refuses to take the title of Shah and prefers to name Vakil rear-Ra' aayaa , “Regent of the peasants”. There remained known in Iran for a moderate and beneficial reign for the country.

With its death in 1779, another fight for the capacity takes place between tribal Zands, Qajars and other groups which still plunges the country in anarchy. It is finally Mohammad Shah Qajar which seizes the power by beating the last Shah of the Zand dynasty, Lotf Ali Khan with Kerman in 1794 and is made thus main of the country, establishing the dynasty of the Qajar S in 1795 which lasts until in 1925.

Qajars

Under the reigns of Fath Ali Shah (1797 - 1834), Mohammad Shah (1835 - 1848) and Nasseredin Shah (1848 - 1896), the country finds the order, stability and the unit. The Qajar S revived then the concept of the Shah as a shade of God on the ground and exerted an absolute power on the country. They named princes of blood at the provincial posts of governor, and increased their capacity compared to that of the tribal chiefs, who provided their troops to the national army, throughout the 19th century; however, in spite of their efforts, they did not succeed in transforming this army based on troops of tribal origin into organized and trained army European style. Under Qajars, the merchants ( bazaris ) and the Ouléma S (religious leaders) remained important members of the community.

Starting from the beginning of the 19th century, the entire Qajar S and Iran started to undergo pressures on behalf of two world great powers: the Russia and the the United Kingdom. The interest of the British for Iran was due to a need for protecting trade route towards the India whereas the interest of the Russians was the expansion starting from the north of the Iranian territory. After the wars Russo-Iranian women (1804-1813) and two treaties (Golestan (1812) and Turkmanchai (1828)) very unfavourable for Persians, Iran loses all its territories of the the Caucasus in the north of the Araks; then at the time of second half of the 19th century, Iran is obliged to give up its territories in Central Asia. During this time, the United Kingdom sent troops in Iran to prevent them from recovering Herat and the other territories of Afghanistan which had been lost since the Safavides; the loss of Herat is ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1857.

The two great powers dominated thereafter the trade of Iran and interfered in the internal businesses of the country. Indeed, the central authority was rather weak, the relatively corrupted leading class, the people exploited by his leaders and the colonial powers could benefit from this situation thanks to their military and technological superiority.

The first Iranian attempts at modernization of the country started under the reign of Nasseredin Shah, thanks to its Prime Minister Amir Kabir, who reformed the system tax, reinforced control central on the administration, encouraged the trade and industry and reduces the influence of the clergy Chiite and the foreign powers. It is him which founds Dar-ol Fonoun, first establishment of higher education in Iran. He was assassinated on order of certain members of the court who feared for their privileges. In 1871, under the influence of Mirza Hosein Khan Moshir od-Dowleh, new Prime Minister for the Shah, sets up a government of European style, thus marking the beginning of the movement of reform in Iran.

The following sovereigns qajars even more will make increase popular anger and the request for reforms. They are rather weak, inclined sovereigns to listen to the requests of the foreign powers (attribution of concessions and monopolies), and extravagant, emptying the cases of the State which are then filled by these same foreign powers and paying only the court and the official ones. The situation worsens and request populates it to have an assembly. In January 1906, 10.000 people take refuge with the British embassy and the Shah is forced to sign in August a decree promising the establishment of a constitution. In October 1906 is founded the Majles, “Parliament”. According to the academic Ass K.S. Lambton, the constitutional revolution mark end of the medieval period in Iran.

The constitutional revolution has difficulties in achieve its goals because of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 which divides the country in two spheres of influence, north with the Russians and the south with the British.

The constitutional monarchy remains still fragile: Mohammad Ali Shah makes bombard the Majles in June 1908 by the Brigade cossack Persian directed by Russian officers, then made close the assembly. That revives resistance to the Shah in cities like Tabriz, Rasht, Ispahan and elsewhere. The constitutional forces go since Rasht and Ispahan on Teheran, deposit the Shah, exiled in Russia, and position back the constitution. This victory of the constitutional forces is of short duration since the Shah takes again his throne in 1910 thanks to the Russian support.

The First World War is one period seeing growing the influence of the British who are interested more and more by the country after the oil discovery in the Khuzestan in 1908. They try to impose the anglo-Persan agreement in 1919, which is refused by the Parliament. Little time after, the officer of the brigade of the cossacks Reza Khan seizes the power in Teheran and becomes later four years Reza Shah Pahlavi, inserting Iran in a new phase of its history.

Contemporary period

The time of Reza Shah

In 1921, a young officer of the unit of the cossacks, the general Reza Khan Mir Panj, carries out a military coup d'etat with the assistance of Seyyed Zia' eddin Tabatabai, becomes chief of the army and takes the name of Reza Khan Sardar Sepah . It takes then to the station of Prime Minister until in 1925. It initially planned to make of Iran a republic, following in that the model of Atatürk in Turkey but gives up it vis-a-vis the opposition of the Clergé. December 12th, 1925, the Majles, joined together as a constituent Assembly, names Reza Khan Sardar Sepah new Shah of Iran. It is crowned on April 25th, 1926 under the name of Reza Shah Pahlavi .

Reza Shah had ambitious plans to modernize Iran. These plans included the development of heavy industries, of major projects of infrastructures, the construction of a national railroad, the Trans-Iranian, the creation of a national system of education public, the reform of justice hitherto a41dernier $c-b1, e,10 $c-b26 ce $c-b16 $c-b43, bn,84 controlled by the Shiite clergy by the creation of the Iranian Civil code, and the improvement of hygiene and the health system. It needed for that a centralized and strong government, as well as of more than independence compared to Great Britain and in Russia, which it obtains by cancelling the special rights granted the abroads during the time Qajar.

The March 21st 1935, it officially requires of the international community not to use the term Perse more to make use of the name Iran to indicate its country (which is the name in local language since always) and orders the same year the prohibition of the port of the veil for the women and the obligation to wear a dress “to Western” for the men.

In spite of the projections which it makes make with the country, its style of dictatorial government and its combat for the modernization of Iran in spite of the positions of the clergy are worth great resentments to him among the population.

Second world war

The bringings together of Reza Shah with the Germany which contributed much to the industry of the country worry the British. Reza Shah, having declared the neutrality of Iran, refuses to be subjected at the requests of assistance or assistance of the allies, which pushes Great Britain and the USSR to invade Iran the August 25th 1941. Reza Shah is forced to abdicate in favor of his/her son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and it is sent in exile until its death in 1944. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi becomes Shah of Iran.

The occupation of Iran was of vital importance for the allies and made it possible to bring Iran closer to the western powers. Iran signs a tripartite treaty with Great Britain and the Soviet Union by which the country agrees to bring a not-soldier help to the effort of war while the two others allied guarantee to respect the territorial integrity of Iran and to withdraw their troops to the maximum six months after the end of the war. In September 1943, Iran declares the war with the Germany, which enables him to become member of the the United Nations. In November of the same year is held the Conférence of Teheran during which Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin reaffirms their engagement in connection with the independence of Iran.

The effects of the war were destabilizing for Iran: shortage of food and other commodities the basic, strong inflation, deterioration of the living conditions for middle-classes and low whereas some made fortune while speculating in the products difficult to find, assembled feelings nationalist because of the presence of the foreign troops, and increase in the rural migration. The country being released since the end of the reign of Reza Shah, the political activity and of the press flowered; particularly the activity of the Communist party Tudeh which organized the workmen.

This activity of the Tudeh party added to the presence of the Soviet Union in the country destabilized the country even more. In September 1944, the Americans and the Soviets try to negotiate oil concessions in Iran; what brings a strong Soviet propaganda in the provinces with a majority Azeri.

The immediate one after war: the crisis irano-Soviet

At the end of the Second world war, the main issue relates to the evacuation of the foreign troops: a tripartite treaty between the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR provided that their departure would be carried out maximum 6 months after the end of the war, that is to say on March 2nd, 1946. An anticipated evacuation, required on May 19th, 1945 by the Iranian government was accepted partially by the British: those left Teheran and reflect fine with certain capacities (controls on the radio or the censure), but remained in the oil zone of the south. Contrary, Soviet kept their forces in substituent of the thousands of civilians to the soldiers in Teheran. In August 1945, the party procommunist Tudeh (become the Democratic party of Azerbaïdjan in December 1945), carried out by Jafar Pishevari, senior member of the Comintern, started a revolt and made occupy of the public buildings in order to claim the constitution of a State Nation Azerbaijani. The Russian forces prevented any intervention on behalf of the Iranian gendarmerie then. Ernest Bevin, chief of the Foreign Office, recognized the joint presence of the Russian troops in Azerbaidjan and the English troops in the south by a letter of September 19th, 1945. Soviet kept in fact control on all the zones which they occupied since 1941, and sent even reinforcements to it. In November, the Azerbaijani Democratic party claimed a total autonomy and organized elections: an National Assembly ends up proclaiming on December 12th the creation of a Republic autonomous of Azerbaidjan bearing the name of Gouvernement of the people of Azerbaïdjan and supported by the USSR. At the same time, the Kurdish Democratic party, movement separatist, creates the République of Mahabad to the Iranian Kurdistan, detached from Azerbaidjan. Qazi Mohammed was elected by it President of the Republic on April 23rd, 1946. These two autonomous republics profit from the support of the USSR, signing between them a military treaty of alliance and friendship, on April 23rd, 1946. The Soviet troops occupy of the parts of the Khorasan, of the Gorgan, the Mazandaran and the Gilan.

Soviet refusing to evacuate, asserting rights that a treaty of February 26th, 1921 conferred to them, Iran then carried the problem in front of the Safety advice of the United Nations of UNO which got rid of the question by suggesting direct relationships between Iran and the Soviet Union. This failure caused the resignation later three days Iranian Prime Minister, Hakim, which was followed nomination of its successor, Ghavam bone-Saltaneh, regarded as partisan of Tudeh. The new Prime Minister, in spite of a voyage to Moscow from February to March, did not manage to find agreement. At the date of evacuation envisaged, on March 2nd, 1946, only the troops English and American evacuated, and not the Soviet troops. Irritated by this gesture, Iran, the United Kingdom and the United States again carried the question to the Safety advice of UNO. March 26th, the USSR proposed to evacuate the 6 following weeks in condition of the end of the discussion of the problem at the Safety advice. April 4th, 1946 took place the concluding of an Russo-Iranian agreement stipulating the departure of the Soviet troops and the creation of an oil company irano-Soviet. The statute of this oil company envisaged 51% of the capital for the USSR and 49% for Iran the first 25 years, 50/50 for the 25 following years. This statute was to then be ratified by the Majlis (Iranian Parliament).

The Crisis irano-Soviet, first of the Cold war finishes in December 1946; for the legislative elections of Majles, Ghavam bone-Saltaneh, Prime Minister, sends the Iranian army in Azerbaïdjan and with the republican Kurdistan and governments, which are not supported any more by the USSR, crumble. The new legislature, dominated by the Front National of Mossadegh makes pass a law forcing the government to exploit itself its oil resources.

The Soviet influence decreases even more in 1947, when Iran and the United States sign a bearing agreement on assistance and military council in order to involve the Iranian army. In February 1949, the Tudeh is shown of an attempted murder on the Shah and is banished of Iran. It is as from this time which the American influence in Iran begins.

The time of Mohammad Reza Shah and the American influence

In 1953, Iranian the Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, which undertakes the nationalization of oil, is far away from the capacity following a plot orchestrated by the British secret services and American, the Opération Ajax. After the fall of Mossadegh, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi gradually sets up an autocratic mode and dictatorial founded on the American support. In 1955, Iran belongs to the Pacte of Baghdad and is then in the American camp during the Cold war.

The Shah tries in years 1960 to create a more active political climate to accelerate the modernization of Iran. He creates for that a new political party, Iran Novin , “New Iran”, honest with the crown, attracting himself the support of the technocratic elite and the educated masses, in order to reinforce the administration and the economy of the country. This party gains the parliamentary elections of the 21e Majles in September 1963.

OPEC is created the September 14th 1960, at the time of the Conference of Baghdad, mainly on the initiative of the Shah of Iran and of the Venezuela for stage the fall in the price of the Baril (less than 5 dollars at the time). In the beginning, only five countries were member: the Saudi Arabia, the Iran, the Iraq, the Kuwait and the Venezuela. This action on the oil market makes it possible to the Shah as well as possible to control the incomes of oil for its country.

With the Majles, the government enjoys a comfortable majority and the opposition generally votes in the same direction as the government, with an exception. It is this exception which causes a strong resentment in the Iranian population: the law on the statute of the Forces, a measurement which granted immunity to all the American military personnel and their families on the territory and thus authorizing the Americans to being judged by the United States rather than by Iranian courts. The members of Parliament and the country repudiate this law. Khomeini, leader of the religious opposition, released of its assignment to residence since April, denounces this law before a very large assembly with Qom in November 1964. Khomeini is again stopped shortly after its sermon and is exiled in Turkey then with Najaf in 1965.

Although the economic conditions improve, the country did not recover yet a recession of 1959-1963, which had imposed very strong restrictions on the poor classes. Mansour puts forward measures of economies, but they are refused and they are the entries of currencies coming from the oil sector which make it possible to make hold the country.

With the foreign assistance, Mohammad Reza Shah was able to maintain financial stability in spite of the assassination of Mansour and an attempted murder on its person on January 21st, 1965 by a member of an Islamic radical group related to Khomeini.

In October 1967, the Shah crowns itself, as well as the Shahbanou Farah. In 1971, Iran invites foreign dignitaries with Persépolis for an extremely sumptuous celebration of 2500 years of monarchical continuity in Iran (although there were some cuts all the same). The excessive adulation returned to the person of the Shah causes unfavourable feelings in the Iranian population, feelings which are exacerbated by a speech of Khomeini on this subject. Thereafter, in 1975, the Shah even makes vote a law so that the beginning of the Persan calendar coincides with the beginning of the reign of Cyrus rather than with the beginning of the Islamic era, which is felt by certain like an insult with the religious sensitivities.

On the plan of the international relations, the Shah uses the fall of the tension between Is and Western to improve its relations with the USSR and to take a more important role in the Persian Gulf.

Iran supports the royalists during the civil war of the Yemen (1962 - 1970). It assists the sultanate of Oman in 1971 to subdue the rebellion in Dhofar and arrives at an agreement with Great Britain in connection with the independence of Bahrain, which was Iranian until there. Iran keeps all the same sovereignty on the islands Tunb and Abu Moussa by taking them of force without Great Britain reacting (always prone to dissension).

The incident of the islands of the Persian Gulf poses a problem in Iraq, which breaks the diplomatic relations with Teheran until the agreement of Algiers in 1975, agreement which settles the questions of navigation about the Chatt-el Arab and of support of Iran for the Kurdish rebellion in the north of Iraq.

In order to increase the role of Iran in the area, Nixon authorizes the Shah, as from 1972, to buy any conventional weapon in the United States; conversely, the Iranians authorize the United States to install 2 military centers to supervise the Soviet activities.

Mohammad Reza Shah modernizes Iranian industry and, thanks to the very important incomes of oil, Iran enters during one fulgurating accelerated modernization and boom. The Iranian company, upset in its roots, suffers from the lack of means of expression. Its autocratic reign , the absence of freedom of thought and the violent repression of the opponents combined with a fast occidentalization creates major dissatisfactions, for different reasons, at the same time at the clergy and among the intellectual movements of left, and prepares the ground with the Revolution.

The Iranian revolution

After popular months of protests and demonstrations against the mode of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi leaves Iran the January 16th 1979. The 1979, Rouhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after a fifteen years exile in Turkey, in Iraq then finally in France. It reverses the government of the Shah the February 11th. Although the dismissal of the Shah causes great demonstrations of joy in Iran, many dissensions exist concerning the future of the country. Whereas Khomeini is the political figure most popular, of tens of groups revolutionary seek to impose itself, each one having its own sight relating to the future of Iran. There were factions liberal, Marxist, anarchistic and laic, as well as a broad panorama of religious groups seeking to model the future of the Iranian company.

The first years see the development of a government with two centers of the capacity. Mehdi Bazargan becomes Prime Minister for the provisional government, and the movement for freedom works in order to establish a laic liberal government. The monks carried out by Khomeini form a separate center of the capacity, the Islamic Republican party, which is majority in the revolutionary Conseil , a body of the capacity during the revolution, in the absence of temporary government. These groups try to cooperate, but the tensions grow between the two factions.

They are the theologists who are the first to restore the order in the country, the revolutionary cells becoming of the local committees ( komiteh in Persan). Known under the name of Guards of the Revolution as from May 1979, these groups quickly seized the power in the local governments in all Iran.

Finally, a referendum is organized which sets up the Islamic Republic such as Khomeini conceives it, directed by a supreme guide.

The new government is extremely preserving. It nationalizes industry, in particular oil, and restores the Islamic traditions in the culture and the law. The Western influence is banished and the pro-Western elite is forced to follow the Shah in exile. Many frictions between the various religious factions take place and brutal repression makes it possible to eliminate all the opponents in the Islamic Republic.

An atypical revolution This Revolution, massive and constant at the same time of the interior and outside, is atypical, because it intervenes at one time when Iran lived what the historians retrospectively regard as a golden age .

Indeed, the country was with its apogee:

military power : (5th army of the world, which will be the first target of the revolutionists, who will decapitate it);
economic power : a prosperity ever equalized (low level of unemployment, students Iranian envoys in the Western universities, oil crises moderated by the Shah); however because of this considerable growth, the social differences between the poor and the rich person were accentuated, involving a social fracture between the Iranian middle-class and the aristocracy which grew rich considerably;
political power regional and international: the Shah was then regarded as the “gendarme of the Gulf” and had taken part in slides in the payment of the conflict israélo-Egyptian;
cultural radiation : grace in particular to the imposing celebrations of Persépolis in 1971 in the presence of many Heads of State or government foreigners. This sumptuous ceremony had a world repercussion, but upset many Iranian (the last historical size returned to a situation presents more difficult);
social situation : participation of the workmen in their company, land reform with the profit of the peasants (the white Revolution), absolute and total equality of rights between the men and the women instituted by the Shah in 1963, elimination of illiteracy of mass assured even in the villages most moved back thanks to the institution a body of young mixed voluntary conscripts (men and women) the Army of the knowledge .

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The Islamic Republic

Khomeini charged the provisional government with making a draft of constitution. The first stage is the behavior of a referendum March 30th and 31st 1979, the purpose of which is to determine the new political system to establish. Khomeini refuses the applications of the various political groups to offer a broad choice to the voters: the only form to be appeared on the bulletin is the Islamic Republic, and votes it is not done with secret bulletin. The government brings back a crushing majority of 98% in favor of the Islamic Republic, who is proclaimed on April 1st, 1979.

The mode of Khomeini presents a constitution on June 18th, 1979. Separately the establishment of a strong presidential regime on the model gaullist, the constitution does not differ in a way marked of the constitution of 1906 and does not grant to the clergy a big role in the new structure. Khomeini was ready to submit this constitution project to the referendum of the people or a council of 40 representatives who could give councils but not modify the document. Ironically, in fact the left parties rejected it. A Assemblée of the experts is created on August 18th, 1979 in order to examine the new constitution; the clergy and the members of the republican Islamic party dominate this assembly, and it is them which modify the constitution in order to establish a State dominated by the clergy Chiite.

In October 1979, when it become clear that the new constitution would institutionalize the domination of the clergy on the State, the Prime Minister Bazargan and the members of its government try to persuade Khomeini to dissolve the Parliament of the experts, but Khomeini refuses. Feeling without capacities and in dissension with the direction which the country took, Mehdi Bazargan resigns in November.

The revolutionary Council takes the functions of Prime Minister, while waiting for the presidential and legislative elections. The presidential elections are held in January 1980, three candidates are in string: Jalal od DIN Farsi (Islamic Republican party), Abolhassan Banished Sadr, associated with Khomeini, and the admiral Ahmad Madani, ordering the Iranian Navy then. Bani Sadr is elected with 76% of the votes in January 1980.

Supported by the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, of the militant Iranian students take by storm the embassy of the the United States to Teheran the November 4th 1979 and occupy it until the January 20th 1981. (see Iranian Crisis of the hostages). The administration Carter freezes the diplomatic relations with Iran, imposes economic sanctions the April 7th 1980 and tries without success an aid operation a little later in the month. The May 24th, the the International Court of Justice calls with the release of the hostages. Finally, Ronald Reagan puts an end to the crisis the day of its taking up the duties, practically accepting all the Iranian terms.

In 1981, the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq explode bombs in the main office of the party of the Islamic Republic and with the office of the Prime Minister, killing 70 official of high ranking, of which the ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti (Minister for justice), Mohammad Ali Rajai (president), and Mohammad Javad Bahonar (Prime Minister).

The Iran-Iraq war

The September 22nd 1980, the Iraq invades Iran. The official policy of the United States seeks to isolate Iran. The western powers, worry about the appearance of the Iranian Islamic Republic, saw in Iraq a country which could evolve to secularity and the modernism, out of counterweight in Iran. This is why they are not opposed initially to the Iran-Iraq war, going until supporting it then. It is in particular the case of the USSR, France and the United States. Ironically, of the members of the Reagan administration secretly sell weapons and spare parts in Iran in what is known under the name of Affaire Iran-Countered. However, in spite of the military power of Iraq, the conflict enlise quickly. At the beginning of 1981, the Iranians counter-attack and manage to release the essence of the Iranian territory at the beginning of 1982. In June of this same year, Iraq issues a cease-fire, but sees its territory invaded the next month.

The original proclamation of war of Iran is radicalized: it is a question from now on of reducing the power of Iraq, of relieving Saddam Hussein and of replacing it by an Islamic regime.

Before the war, Iran and Iraq counted on their oil incomes to provide for their military needs: 3,5 million barrels per day exported for Iraq and 1,6 million for Iran. At the beginning of 1980, the two countries exported nothing any more but 600.000 barrels. Because of this considerable reduction, Iraq had to resort using Saudi Arabia, inter alia.

In 1984 the systematic attacks of oil installations and tankers started with the two camps.

In January 1987, Iran launches two great offensives: Kerbala 5, in the east of Al Basra, where Teheran wanted to establish a provisional government of the Iraqi Islamic Republic, made up of the chiefs of the Iraqi opponents Chiite S refugees in Iran; Kerbala 6, with 150 kilometers in the north of Baghdad in direction of dam of Euphrate. The losses are enormous on both sides but the Iranian forces are finally blocked.

In July 1987, Iran undertakes to control sea transport in the gulf. The Kuwaiti ships are then placed under house of the United States.

The frontline stabilizes with the common border, and in spite of many offensives on both sides, there is no major opening. Finally, in 1988, the Iraqi army takes again the top. Iran finally agrees to respect the cease-fire required by resolution 598 of the safety advice of UNO (July 20th 1987).

Severe combat take place of 1979 with the beginning of the year 1990, and continue even sometimes now, on a quite less scale, between the Nationaliste S Kurdish and the communist forces on the one hand and the Iranian army on the other hand, until making lose the control of broad parts of the Iranian Kurdistan by the Iranian government.

Since the death of Khomeini

After the death of Khomeini the June 3rd 1989, the Parliament of the experts, an elected body of experienced monks, chooses the outgoing president, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Supreme guide.

During the War of the Gulf in 1991, the country remains neutral, limiting its action to the judgment of the United States and making it possible Iraqi aviation to be posed in Iran and to the Iraqi refugees to penetrate his territory.

The president Hachemi Rafsandjani is re-elected in 1993 with a weaker majority; certain Western observers badly allotted this score reduced to the disenchantment due to an economy in point. Mohammad Khatami, moderated monk, succeeds Rafsandjani in 1997. This one must carry out the country between the requirements of a government seeking the reforms and a moderated liberalization, and a very preserving clergy. This fault reaches its paroxysm in July 1999, where massive protests against the government take place in the streets of Teheran. The demonstrations last more than one week before the governmental police force and forces do not disperse crowd.

Khatami is re-elected in June 2001 and, after that, the preserving elements of the Iranian government work to destabilize the reforming movement, banishing the liberal newspapers and disqualifying the candidates with the parliamentary elections. This hand put on the opposition, combined with the failure of Khatami to reform the government, causes an apathy growing among youth.

The mayor ultra-conservative of Teheran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is elected president in 2005 in an election which saw the disqualification of more than 1000 candidates by the Conseil of the Guards.

Chronological plank

Appendices

References

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