The Shah, out of his paranoia and the need for power, crushed all opposition against him. His Secret Service, the SAVAC, brutally crushed all opposition. Corruption, torture, and filling up the prisons with political prisoners were the order of the day.
The Shah of Iran
During the late 60’s and 70’s there were some sporadic armed opposition against the Shah,which mostly came out of the Universities in Tehran. Some of these small cells engaged in ferocious fights against the Shah’s forces. They used the Urban Gorilla warfare model of Castro and Che Guevara. These groups divided into two major branches, one branch was mostly communist and they themselves divided to subsections of Maoist, Castroists and followers of the Soviet Union. The second branch was the Islamic groups which had their own subdivisions. The Shah crushed these small groups without mercy. They were subjected to brutal torture, imprisonment and execution, a very little number of them survived.
The cruel method in which they were dealt was one of the main causes of the Iranian Revolution. Everyone knew about them and they were respected among people because they were mostly young students; they would step onto this dangerous path knowing that they would have a horrible death. Therefore, they were heroes for the people.
In 1979, the Iranian Revolution took over the country like a bonfire. The main objection of the people against the Shah was not religious issues, as it has been depicted in Western media. The main objection of the people against the Shah and his main supporter, the U.S., was his brutality and corruption. At that time, Carter was the U.S President but he was paying the price for the things Nixon had done.
Initial igniting of the Iranian Revolution was quite difficult. The Shah had killed all the opposition and there was no political organization to unify the people. The only person who was against the Shah, and alive, was Ayatollah Khomeini who was living in exile in Iraq.
Saddam Hussein used to use him as a pawn against the Shah. The Shah put a lot of pressure on Saddam Hussein to kick Khomeini out of Iraq, which was probably the biggest mistake he ever made. Khomeini left Iraq and with the help of his students, he landed in Paris and from there, he got access to the world media. In addition, he was able to organize the mosques and other religious organizations in Iran against the Shah.
Once the Revolution was done, and the Shah was kicked out, the residues of these small groups gained power and many people joined them. At this time, they were all well armed as they had taken a lot of arms out of the garrisons of the Shah’s Army. They were totally against the U.S. and each one had a different agenda. When Carter permitted the Shah to come to the U.S. for medical treatment, members of one of these groups who were loyal to Khomeini, took Americans in the American Embassy hostage, and created the “hostage crisis”.
Khomeini used this opportunity to get rid of his internal enemies’ .While the attention of the world was turned toward the hostages he massacred every group which was not loyal to him.
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