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This concluding chapter summarizes the main thesis of the book, recapping the rise, consolidation, decay, and ultimate fall of the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties, pointing to the weak processes of instiotutionalization in both dynasties and their inability to forge meaningful ties with social classes that would enable them to survive political crises.
This chapter traces the evolution of Iran’s international relations from the oil nationalization episode until the outbreak of the 1978–1979 revolution. Iran’s oil nationalization was met with the stiff opposition of Britain and the United States, culminating in a CIA-sponsored coup that reinstalled the Shah back to power and placed Iran firmly in the Western camp. Practically every presidential administration in the United States paid special attention to Iran as a central component of its Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union, an attention which the Iranian government used to its advantage in order to receive large amounts of military hardware from United States. Seeing Iran and the United States as “natural allies,” the Shah assumed that Washington would rescue him from the tide of revolution. Long after his overthrow, the Iranian monarch felt abandoned and betrayed by his American allies.
Approximately halfway through the life of the dynasty, by the mid-1800s, the Qajars’ traditional, largely tribal, sources of legitimacy no longer sufficed to keep emerging social forces politically compliant. This resulted in the increasing political significance of a number of groups, each of which had their own constituents. When groups with corporate identities, such as clerics and merchants, mobilized within and amongst themselves, they could command considerable respect and following among the population at large. Some of the more notable of these groups included the clergy, merchants, landlords, tribal leaders, the small but growing number of reformist intellectuals, and princes, who entered into coalitions together and, with overt and subtle support from the British, sought to change the dynasty from within. The collective power of these groups to place demands on the court was considerable, ultimately resulting in a movement that resulted in the convening of a parliament and the drafting of a constitution. The movement came to be known as the Constitutional Revolution.
Chapter 1 focuses on framing research with strong grounding in theory and previous scholarship. This chapter introduces the book’s methodology and sources, as well as providing an overview of the book’s chapters and main arguments. This work claims two central arguments: first, the modern nation-state of Iran was established in 1979 with the revolution that instilled an indigenous and independent nationalism and eradicated all vestiges of foreign power, including the shah; second, the national identity created by the people during the decades preceding the revolution was the most resonant and inclusive because it infused the Shiite symbols ignored by the Pahlavi dynasty, and overused by the Islamic Republic, into populist elements of Iranian society. Despite the political turmoil of the Islamic Republic, that fusion and plurality endure. While the various chapters explore their own specific themes, these ideas run as threads throughout the work to tie the pieces together.
This chapter examines the consolidation of Pahlavi rule after the removal of Reza Shah from power, especially after 1953, when the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was reestablished following a CIA-sponsored coup. The chapter explores the tenuous beginnings of the reign of the new Shah, the increasing legislative and policy-making significance of the Majles in the 1940s, and the era of oil nationalization, from 1951 to 1953. Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq was successful in getting the powers of the monarchy to be significantly reduced, but his overthrow was followed by the restoration of absolute monarchy built on a massive army and a feared secret service called SAVAK. Ultimately, however, the Pahlavi state failed to incorporate within its orbit and its social base remained weak. As the oil revenues began to lag, and the state was forced into making “housecleaning” concessions, it began to crumble under the weight of the gathering storm.
For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Iran was the scene of competition and rivalry by the dominant global powers at the time, Britain and Russia, and later the Soviet Union. Iran managed to remain nominally independent under both the Qajars and the Pahlavis, but for long periods of time that independence was hardly meaningful. Over the course of the century that this chapter covers, from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, the country experienced prolonged periods of foreign economic domination, political subjugation, and outright military occupation. Situated in a geography of increasing strategic significance, Iran was, in fact, one of the primary areas in which the Russians and the British played out a great game of high-stakes international chess, almost always to the detriment of local peoples and leaders.
Chapter 3 shifts focus to the postrevolutionary era and how the revolutionary ideology and the national identity it inspired were used and misused by the new Islamic Republic. It also looks at how the Iranian people continued to appropriate and challenge the state’s ideology and representation. The chapter discusses the significance of the Iran–Iraq war (1980-88) in the early years after the revolution and how the war shaped contemporary Iran. While the Pahlavi’s maintained a discourse of monarchical ancient Iran and Persian supremacy, the new Islamic Republic made use of the Karbala paradigm and the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, which played especially well into the context of war and attack from an external force. Though the history and state remained the same, the opposing narratives offered by the old and new rulers speak to the nature of constructed national identities. In both cases, nationalism and Islamism have been crucial to their resistance movements. The Islamic Republic was brought to power by a revolution, whose opposition to the shah was embedded in anti-imperialist and Islamist rhetoric. Echoing Hamid Dabashi’s claim that Shiites must be perpetually engaged in resistance to oppression, the state depicts itself as continuously revolutionary and supports regional movements with analogous rhetoric.
This chapter introduces the volume, stating the central objective of the book – namely, tracing the rise, consolidation, and fall of Iran’s last two dynasties – and the political, social, and economic changes that each of the two dynasties, the Qajars and the Pahlavis, effected in Iran.