|
The Era of Settlement and the Imposed War (1979-88) |
||
|
The first decade of the Revolution was fraught with numerous events. In the early days of the post revolution ear the events used to occur before one had finished and owing to the variety of happenings, no one could understand the all-out effects inflicted by the events in that time. Yet, when the events are assessed today, one would see it as essential to admire the leader of the Revolution and the people who prospered to resist such happenings successfully. The reactions against the crises might differ today, thanks to the experiences gained, with the strategies taken in those days. Yet, it was because of the especial characteristic of the era that all the people concentrated their efforts to maintain the Revolution, which had numerous dissidents, though it was in its infancy. The Revolution could have never resisted - with all those international bodies and the domestic armed forces who were seriously trying to threaten the movement - hadnt the people trusted the leader and mobilized to tackle the problems. Out of the vast number of the events happened in the early decades of the Revolution, here, we shall refer to the most important ones: Imam Khomeini appointed engineer Mehdi Bazargan as the Prime Minister of the interim government just a few days after the Revolution. lie carried on his post after Revolution as well. He was responsible to run the country and prepare the grounds for the future government to be able to follow constitution - which was to pass later. The Council of the Revolution - members of which had been appointed by Imam - took control over the general affairs in the country. In the early days of the Revolution, the Revolution Courts were established in which some of the political and military figures that had involved in murdering the people were executed. It is taken for granted that the trial for these people in ordinary courts could take a very long time. Yet, since the people were quite angry with these people, they might have attacked to their places and killed them all, if the Revolution Court had not made a fair decision against them. The Marxists movements; however, tried to encourage an increasing chaos and violence in the society. As their first effort, they killed an Iranian employee working in the embassy of the US based in Tehran in 25 Feb. 1979, while the armed Khalgh Fadayee guerrillas were trying to occupy the building. Many of the employees working in the embassy admitted that the majority of them would been killed in the dashes, hadnt the interim government released them through Imams order. Just three days after the victory of the Revolution the anti-revolutionary groups launched an attack against a military base in Kordestan, changing this city to their main base from where they fought against the Revolution. They were also trying to separate a part of that province from Iran, but they failed to do so because of the all-out struggle of the people and the mobilized forces. Meanwhile the US tried to shake the stability of the new government, getting benefit from the forces loyal to the toppled regime. America tried to do this because they could not precisely understand the various dimensions of the Revolution. It was certain that the US had aimed at hatching out a plot. The evidence had proved it: the embassy had a very close relationship with the opposition movements, the US welcomed the main characters of the regime in America, Shah traveled to the US and the American congress issued an offensive resolution condemning Iran. The Islamic Revolution was fraught with anti-imperialistic motto, it didnt follow an aggressive relation with the US. The Islamic Revolution even deposited the income earned through the sale of oil in the American banks, yet, the US firmly stuck to its animosity against Iran. A small group of students, as a response to the American policies, the presence of the shah to its animosity against Iran. A small group of students, as a response to the American policies, the presence of Shah in that country and the US interference in the domestic affair of Iran, took to the streets. The demonstration was carried out quite peacefully and the students managed to capture the US embassy. The move by the student was backed by Imam and the people so that they continued occupying the embassy. Imam called this achievement the second Revolution. The news traveled very fast worldwide which encourage a lot of anti-Imperialists to understand the realities. The US diplomatic attempts to release the Americans was doomed in failure. Thus, as their next step the US and its European allies imposed an all-out economic sanction against Iran. The US forced Shah to leave its territory. Supported by some of the military men royal to the Americans, the US tried to launch an attack so as to release the hostages after it had failed to resolve the problem through diplomatic resolutions. Yet, the helicopter crashed down above the city of Tabas where all the American deployed forced died. Imam compared the downing of the American helicopters caused by the natural phenomenon as the attacks carried out by angels to the Abrahe army. (4) The US tried to make up for his failure by attacks launched from Nozgeh air-base in the city of Hamaden, which was doomed in failure. The hostages were later released under the approval of the parliament. The US governments failure in the crisis made Jimmy Carter, the then president of the United States lose power in the following round of the elections. The attacks by the Iraqis like the historical event happened in the US embassy, came as an outstanding occurrence which changed the course of the Revolution. Saddam Hossein, Seriously displeased by the public dissidents in his country, who was thinking of getting the leadership of the world of Arabs, asked for the three islands to be returned to the Arabs after the Revolution had won a victory. (5) The Iraqi government then bribed some Arab speaking tribes, in the province of Khozestan in Iran to take aggressive actions against the Revolution and carry out some destructive measures in the countrys oil refineries. The Iranian government called up the Iraqi ambassadors to explain for the destructive measures. Yet, not even for once did the Iraqi authorities, apologize formally for what they had done. On the other hard, after the US embassy had been occupied by the Iranians, Saddam Hossein who could guess how angry the US was with Iran, thought that he could win the American support if he attacked Iran. In his meeting with the Security Council secretary, Saddam was assured that the US would not make any problems for Iraq, if it attacked Iran. The 8-war started after Saddam had torn apart the Algerian treaty, which he had signed with Shah in 1975. Saddam thought that because of the Revolution Irans army had lost its power and could not resist against the Iraqis. In the early days of war he managed to occupy many cities in Iran; (e.g. Khoramnshahr, Sousangerd, Qhasre Shirin, Naft Shahr, Abadan, and Ahwas). That was why he was determined not to yield to the temporary cease-fire proposed by the Organization of Islamic Countries ( OIC ) and the United Nations. Gradually; however, he experienced the same lesson Americans had learned before. Soon after the war the masses of the people voluntarily took part in war and pushed the Iraqis out of Iranian territory. Just in early days of the Revolution the first president of Iran , Bani Sadr came to threaten the entity of the government when he changed his primary stances. Bani Sadr thought that he could win the support of the people against Imam He united with the Mojahedin Khalgh Organization (MKO) who had managed to attract some educated youth, thanks to their anti-regime activities before the Revolution. This brought the tensions in the streets once more. Imam warned that they needed to put an end to domestic crises to be able to defend the country against foreign threats. The parliament, consequently disqualified Bani Sadr. Imam , too, agreed with the decision. After that a new wave of terror and violence was spread all over the country. MKO brought an unwanted conflict. Many of the government officials were assassinated. In their most horrific criminal acts, the MKO attacked the Islamic Republic Party Headquarters in July 1981 and martyred nearly a hundred outstanding statesmen including Ayat-AI-Alla Beheshti, the then deputy parliament speaker. Less then 2 months after that a bomb went off in the prime ministers building in which the then president Mohammad Ali Rajayee and the then prime minister were martyred. Although 18 years has past from those horrific incidence, the Iranian community still misses those prominent features. The Iranian army was reorganized in the battle field after the disposed president had escaped the country. Iran succeeded to free a large amount of the occupied lands. After Khorramshahr was conquered the Iraqi regime thought that the country would be toppled as the result of their attacks to Iran which was originally a crazy measure to take. Iraq tried to use more violence at wan so us to force Iran to put an end to the war. They attack the cities with missiles, applied chemical bombs against the Iranian Forces, destroyed the Iranian oil tanker, and massacred lots of civilians in Halabche using chemical weapons. The US got exasperated when Iran managed to capture the Island of Fav in 1989. Worried about the future of the war, the US tried to establish some sort of relationships with Iran. Thus, McFarlin, the then National Security Council Secretary General was sent to Iran using forged documents to see whether Iran will agree to change his position. They suggested that they were ready to provide Iran with some very developed weapons against Iraq. The mission by McFarlin, too, failed and entangled the US and the government of Reagan with another political scandal, since Iran had disagreed with the suggestion. Finally, Imam felt that the war might endanger the entity of the country owing to the pressures inflicted by the US and the Security Council, the economic sanctions and the price of oil which fell down no less than 10 dollars. Therefore, Imam unwillingly agreed with the 598 resolution of the Security Council. He described the peace at that time as drinking ajar of poison. MKO, stationed inside the Iraqi territory, launched an attack against a city in the border and captured the city. They thought that they would be able to put step in the capital city of Tehran within 48 hours with the support of people and partly because of their false presupposition that there would have been a disagreement between the statesmen and Imam after he had agreed to resolve the war. However, All those soldiers who had - after the resolution - returned home hopelessly and desperately rushed to the fronts again and neutralized the attacks by the enemies. For the Iraqis this was quite unimaginative. |
||
|
[Introduction | Imposed War | Stability | Today | Culture & Art | Politics | |
||