Conspiracy theories about the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

The Iranian Revolution of 1979, in which Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and replaced by an Islamist government led by Ruhollah Khomeini, has been the subject of conspiracy theories alleging Western involvement, in particular, that the United States and the United Kingdom secretly opposed the Shah because his White Revolution and Iran's growing independence was unfavorable to their interests in Iranian petroleum.[1] In his own memoirs, Answer to History, the Shah alleges that Western forces most prominently the United Kingdom, the United States, and Big Oil conspired against him all for their own reasons while most notably, he claims due to his manipulation of oil prices.[2]

Khomeini rejected the charges,[3] claiming it was the Shah who was a Western "agent" who had prevented the establishment of Islamic government in Iran until the revolution.[4]

Background

The US State Department drew criticism for doing little to communicate with Tehran or discourage protest and opposition to the Shah. The intelligence community within the US has also been subject due to criticism particularly for reporting to President Jimmy Carter “Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a ‘pre-revolutionary’ situation.” President Jimmy Carter was also blamed for his lack of support for the Shah while failing to deter opposition. Within Iran, the revolution is widely believed to be a British plot to overthrow the Shah. This theory would come to be known as the 1979 Iranian Revolution Conspiracy Theory. The theory was supported by the Shah of Iran who believed his increasing control over oil markets and his 1973 nationalize of Iranian oil prompted international oil companies to unseat him.[5]

The Shah held a low opinion of the Mullahs that took control of Iran and believed they could not invoke unrest in Iran without a great deal of foreign support. In 1979, Big oil contracts for Iranian oil that were due to expire, however, the oil companies did not choose to resign. The Shah perceived the withdrawal of oil companies as a threat to him. Finally, the Shah believed the British and Americans were out to remove him due to his 1973 oil price hike in order to replace him with a new non-nationalistic regime.[6]

International policies pursued by the Shah in order to increase national income by remarkable increases in the price of oil through his leading role in the Organization of the Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) have been stressed as a major cause for a shift of Western interests and priorities, and for a reduction of their support for him reflected in a critical position of Western politicians and media, especially of the administration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter regarding the question of human rights in Iran, and in strengthened economic ties between the United States of America and Saudi Arabia in the 1970s.[7]

Claims

Claimed British involvement

According to a book by F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, a conspiracy to overthrow the Shah was hatched by the British and Americans in 1978 coinciding with the Iranian Revolution in the aftermath of the collapse of negotiations to renew a twenty-five year-old agreement between the Shah's government and British Petroleum known as the Consortium Agreement of 1954.[8]

Claims by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi himself asserted that, "If you lift up Khomeini's beard, you will find MADE IN ENGLAND written under his chin," in the later days of his reign as monarch.[9] This statement by Pahlavi was an adaptation of another saying, "If you lift a mullah's beard, you will find 'Made in Britain' stamped on his chin."[10]

Engdahl quotes Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as blaming not the British but the Americans for his overthrow:

I did not know it then – perhaps I did not want to know – but it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out. Clearly this is what the human rights advocates in the State Department wanted … What was I to make of the Administration's sudden decision to call former U.S. Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on Iran? … Ball was among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and ultimately my country.[8]

1978 Ettela'at article

On 7 January 1978, the state news agency Ettela'at published an article accusing Khomeini of being a British agent and a "mad Indian poet."[11][12] The article claimed that Khomeini's Islamist faction had joined forces with communist dissidents to oppose the regime's modernization project, and that Khomeini's opposition to the Shah was prompted and paid for by British oil interests.[13]

Supporters of Khomeini, outraged by the article, organized violent demonstrations in response.[14]

Beliefs of Iranian public
Khanda, the symbol of Sikhism
"Stylized Allah" used in Iranian flag

BBC Persian journalist Hossein Shahidi has talked about "the deep-rooted belief" among Iranians "that Britain is behind every move in Iran," and in particular that the BBC radio is "credited with, or accused of, having brought about the downfall of" both Pahlavi kings, Reza Shah and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi whose thirty-seven-year rule was brought to an end by the Iranian Revolution of 1978–79.[15]

A survey of Iranian expatriates in Southern California found the leading explanation for the 1979 revolution to be foreign Western plots, as did a recent survey in Isfahan.[16][17][18]

See also

References
  1. Goodgame, Peter (11 August 2002). "The Globalists and the Islamists". Redmoonrising.
  2. Pahlavi, Mohammadreza (1980). Answer to History. Stein and Day. p. 23.
  3. Khomeini: Elite thought clerics obey U.K orders (archived link)
  4. Khomeini, Islamic Government, (1981), (p.139, also p.27-28, p.34, p.38). (Quote: "The British imperialists penetrated the countries of the East more than 300 years ago. Being knowledgeable about all aspects of these countries, they drew up elaborate plans for assuming control of them". p.139)
  5. Maloney, Suzanne (24 January 2019). "1979: Iran and America".
  6. Cooper, Andrew. "Fall of Heaven". {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  7. Andrew Scott Cooper. The Oil Kings: How the US, Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East. Simon & Schuster, 2011. ISBN 1-4391-5517-8.
  8. Schroeder, Ernst (10 March 2006). "What Really Happed to the Shah of Iran". Payvand. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011.
  9. Pipes, Daniel (15 September 1996). The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780312162542.
  10. Defying the Iranian Revolution: From a Minister to the Shah to a Leader, Manouchehr Ganji, ISBN 0-275-97187-2, page 37
  11. Muslim Networks from Hajj to Hip Hop, page 77, ISBN 0-8078-5588-X
  12. Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran, Daniel Brumberg, University of Chicago Press, 2001, page 92 ISBN 0-226-07758-6
  13. [Ettela'at January 7, 1978, 7; republished with minor punctuation changes in Shirkhani, Ali, Hamaseh-ye 19 Dey, (The Uprising of January 9 [1978]) Tehran: Entesharat-e Merkez-e Asnad-e Enqelab-e Eslami, 1998, 233-236. Quoted in Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, (2004), p.33
  14. U.S. Library of Congress Country Studies, Iran. The Coming of the Revolution. December 1987.
  15. Hossein Shahidi. 'BBC Persian Service 60 years on.' The Iranian. September 24, 2001
  16. [interviews with the families of Iran-Iraq War Casualties, according to a sermon by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, December 20, 2002, translated by BBC Worldwide Monitoring.] quoted in Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, (2004), p.13
  17. [Amuzegar, Jahangir, The Dynamics of the Iranian Revolution, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991, p.79-96
    Daneshvar, Parviz, Revolution in Iran, St. Martin's Press, 1996, p.94, 126
    Moshiri, Farrokh, The State and Social Revolution in Iran, NY, Peter Lang, 1985, p.220] quoted in Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, (2004), p.13
  18. [Hakimfar, Bahram Bob `The Downfall of Late King Muhammad Reza Pahlavi: View of the Iranian Community in Southern California` Ph. D. dissertation, U.S. International University
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