Iran AP Comp

Introduction to Iran



  • Strait of Hormuz (between Persian gulf and gulf of Oman) 20% of global oil  comes through strait of hormuz

  • 70% of the population lives on 25% of the land

    • Part of country inhospitable to agriculture, desert

  • Tehran - Capital

  • Qom - where the religious seminaries/clerics are 

  • Caspian sea in the north, persian gulf & gulf of Oman in south

  • Zagros & Elborz mountains

  • 90 Mil

  • 60/65% of population persian

    • 15% Azeris (turkish ethnic group)

    • 10% Kurdish

    • 1% Arab

  • Farsi

  • Shah - focused on persian identity

  • 98% country muslim

  • judaism/christianity accepted, “People of the Book”



History 


Shi’ites vs Sunnis

Shi’ites, vast majority muslims in Iran Shi’ites

  • Leaders should be descended from prophet Muhamet

  • Martyrdom important (bc of hussein)

  • Twelvers: 12 leaders of the community, Imams

    • Hidden Imam (12th) believed he will return

  • Guardianship of Juris Prudence: In the absence of the 12th Imam the leader of the community should be a religious cleric who understands the Quran the best


Sunnis

  • Accept community chosen-leader



  1. Ali

  2. –

  3. Hussein (shi’ite)

    1. There was a battle where he died, started martyrdom


5 pillars of Islam

  1. Fasting during Ramadan

  2. Giving to the poor

  3. Declaration of belief in one true god

  4. Five times daily prayer facing Mecca

  5. A pilgrimage to mecca at least once in their life (certain time of year)




Bahá’i

  • Religion started in Iran

  • Monotheistic

  • All the prophets are successive manifestations of god, including their prophet

    • Majorly persecuted in Iran, bc they go out against shi’ite islam bc they belive in more prophets but islam sees that as blasphemy bc they belive muhhamet was the last prophet

  • V progressive, yay gays, women etc


“OH violation of the Bro Cult”


Achaemenid Empire

  • 550-330 BC, THE persian empire

    • Starts out monarchy, remains monarchy for thousands of years, until 1979

  • Cyrus the Great

  • Alexander the great

  • Zoroastrian/Avesta

    • Native religion during this time period

    • Avesta - the book of the religion

    • Monotheistic

    • Life is a struggle between good and evil, some choose good some choose evil, afterlife, good will eventually conquer evil

    • Still around today


Safavids 1501-1722

  • Tribe take control, start dynasty, put person as king

  • Shah-in-shah, king of kinds (authoritarian)

  • ottoman empire (sunnis), Uzbeks, Afghans rival of iran

  • Forced conversion to Shi’ism (safavids did it to Iran)

  • People of the book (jewish, cristian, zoroastrian)

  • Isvahan capital

  • No centralized bureaucracy

  • Ends w afghan invasion


Qajars 1794- 1925

  • Turkish tripe comes out of afghan invasion and CW

  • Shiite - made official religion

  • Capital moved to tehran

  • 1800s peak od european imperialism (russia and britain really involved in Iran at this time)

  • “A bunch of corrupt incompetent rulers” - big

    • Give up territory & economic concessions to russia in exchange for money, oil and communication control given to GB

  • Concessions led to constitutional revolution


Constitutional Revolution 1905-1906

  • Bazzaris pissed bc the quajars mess up economy

  • Ulemma, very religious, angry Qajars not religious enough

  • King promised things but did not really follow through

    • Majles - parliament/legislative branch

    • Bill of rights, separation of powers, Clerical courts, guardian council (body of religious experts, if law passed by Majles, the guardian council must agree the law is not in contradiction w islam before law can be passed

  • Famine hits, 10% population dies



OIL

  • Discovered in Iran in 1908

  • 11% 1948 to over 90 % of exports in 1970s

  • Rentier state

    • Rentier states often don't collect taxes

    • Most of income from 1 source, i.e oil

    • Can provide great stability

Positives of oil

  • Rise in GDP

  • Primary school enrollment, schools being built, literacy rate going up

  • Railway system (connects tehran to the rest of iran)

  • Medical care (hospitals, nuns?, doctors, elimination of epidemics)

  • Money coming from sale of oil can be used to keep people happy (strong military, healthcare, education, etc)

Negatives of Oil

  • Can also lead to instability

  • Resource curse

    • Oil is resource, could be curse

  • State independent of society (taxation and representation)

    • People feel separation from government

    • oil prices drop, less money, reliant on money coming from oil, less oil money, people unhappy

  • Often authoritarian regimes

  • Rent seeking behavior/Corruption - government bringing money in, often siphoned off/embezzled, everybody trying to get hands on money coming from oil

  • Income disparity

    • The ones connected to the oil getting connected, huge income disparity

  • OPEC - Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries

  • Iran founding member

  • Cartel (organization that has monopoly over something)

  • Members of OPEC combined control a lots of the worlds oil and gas

  • Can have meeting to try to increase price of oil, control supply/demand

  • “See why we kiss Saudi Arabia's ass?”

  • Can impact other aspects like grocery costs, oil prices go up, trucks need gas to transport produce, produce prices go up

Revolution

 - comes from people/massess

- change in entire system

Coup d’etat

 - typically led by military/group of military official

- military just does not like what government is doing, does not lead to change in entire political system


Pahlavis 1925-1979

  • Low ranking military officer who is not happy with things

  • Stages coup against the quajar, makes himself king

  • Colonel Reza Khan

  • HATES RELIGION - Banns Hijab, secular

  • Rules w iron fist - modernization of Iran

  • England and russia now very concerned that Reza will be nazi sympathizer and germany and hitler will gain control of country with lots of oil and strategic location

    • Britain goes to Khan and goes dude go leave, abdicates throne to son, his son takes over

  • The son - last shah of iran

    • 22yrs old

    • 3 political groups opposing him

      • Tudeh - communists

      • National Front - western educated intellectuals, dont like authoritarian king

      • Religeos - dont like bc hes secular, his father banned hijab


Mossadeq

  • Prime minister 

  • Wanted to nationalize oil (have government control all the oil)

  • Member of the National Front

  • Wants oil to not be controlled by Europeans, wants government to own oil and gas industry

  • Wants system to be changed to constitutional monarchy

  • He’s very popular, ideas popular

  • Uprising against shah, shah forced to leave for things to calm down

  • CIA Coup

    • US and west love shah

    • Peak of cold war, US hates communists, shah hates communists, besties, shah all for westernization

    • US worked w iran’s military/ shahs military, imprisoned mossadeq, Shah returned to power

  • Popularly elected person, overthrown bc US liked other guy (shah) better, more favorable for them



Reform and Consolidation of Power

  • White revolution 1963

    • Started by the Shah

    • White bc they wanted to prevent communist revolution

    • Reforms

      • Land reform

        • Government would confiscate land of some rich land owners and parcel it out to the peasants to make them happy

        • Some of the land owners who got land confiscated were religious clerics

        • Peasants got land but did not know what to do with it, so did not become richer

      • Women's rights

        • Women given the rights to vote

        • First female judge under the shah

        • Conservative religious clerics/fanatics did not like

      • Literacy Corps

        • Make literacy rate go up particularly in villages

    • Land reforms and women's rights made religious clerics very angry

    • Ayatollah Khomeini, abt Shah “wretched miserable man, infidel jew” 

    • Khomeini exiled to France 1964-1979

      • Became leader of revolution over throwing the shah

    • Savak

      • Iran's KGB, secret police

      • Savak persecuted and tortured political prisoners



  • Regime’s 3 Pillars (Shah’s Regime), who likes the Shah

  1. Military leaders bc they are well paid, shah’s military is modern

  2. Bur (government officials)

  3. Patronage (bonyad)

  • Patron- client network, patronage system, spoils system

  • Patron or patrons, government officials/those with power

  • Giving out benefits like jobs or cash

  • Wants loyalty and support in return

  • Clients, beneficiaries

    • Benefit from jobs/cash, give loyalty/support in return

  • Bonyad means foundation in farsi

  • Pahlavi (shah’s last name) foundation controlled jobs


  • Resurgence Party

  • Political party started by the Shah

  • Wanted to be able to say iran has political parties

  • One small condition - only political part, everyone must be a member, Shah’s political part


  • 2500 year celebrations

    • 1971

    • Persepolis


J - Curve theory of revolutions

  • Gap between reality and what is expected

    • Gap is tolerable

  • Something happens, oil prices drop

    • Reality drops

    • Intolerable gap leads to revolutions

  • Late 1970s, prices of oil drop, creating intolerable gap


Revolution 1979

  • Jimmy carter and shah tight

    • Jimmy carter big on human rights, shah not a big human rights guy

    • Jimmy called Iran an “island of instability”, 2 weeks later everything collapsed

  • Rex cinema

    • Fire in movie theatre in poor neighborhood

    • Doors locked from outside

    • Not known who locked the doors

  • Bloody friday

    • Shah’s army fired on protestors and killed  a bunch of people

  • Protests, marches, strikes

  • Return of Ayatollah Khomeini from Paris


1980’s - New Government

  • 79 referendum, what now? Put it to vote, 2 options on ballot (islamic republic or western democracy) “99.7%” of population voted for islamic republic

  • US Embassy in Tehran taken over

    • Khomeini, new leader, called the us embassy a “den of spies”

    • Hostage crisis lasted 444 days

    • Rescue mission

    • students/protestors supported by Khomeini

    • Worried abt repeat of mossadeq 

      • Worried us would help shah back to power

      • Return the shah (for trial and basically execution) and we’ll return the hostages

      • The minute regan was inaugurated Iran released all the hostages

  • Cultural revolution 1980-1983

  • IRP - Islamic Republic Party

    • 2 factions w/in government

      • Society of Millitant Clergy vs Association of Millitant Clergy

      • Society of Militant Clergy

        • Populists (anti-establishment, fighting for the working class, against elite

        • Conservative (socially), more likely to enforce hijab, very religious, sharia law

        • Statist (government control of economy)

        • Wants State Owned Enterprises (SOEs)

      • Association of militant clergy

        • Free markets, wants to liberalize economy

        • Wants to privatize SOEs

  • Khomeini (led revolution, became supreme leader from 79 to 89)



Political Institutions


Government Structure


  • Some elected positions

    • Assembly of experts

    • President

    • Parliament


  • Guardian council decides who can run


Supreme Leader

  • Life term

  • Not elected

  • Chosen by Assembly of Religious Experts

    • When the Supreme Leader dies, Assembly of Religious Experts have a meeting and choose the next Supreme Leader


Powers

  • Can dismiss the president at any time

  • Can not allow people to run for president

  • Commander in Chief

  • Appoints:

    • Chief judge & prosecutor

    • Commanders of the Revolutionary Guards

    • Commanders of army, navy, air force

    • 6 members of the Guardian Council (out of the 12 members)

    • ⅔ of the members of the Expediency Council

    • Heads of main religious foundations

  • Fatwa

    • As top religious figure, supreme leader can issue fatwa, which is religious order

    • Can be clarification abt what people should do, eat/not eat

    • Religious decree

    • Not law, but has moral and religious weight


  • Salman Rushdie

    • British w/Indian heritage

    • Fiction writer

    • Wrote a book called “the satanic verses” in the 1980s

      • Talked about how a lot of the verses in the quran were spoken to muhhamed through satan, satan duped muhhamet into putting those verses in the quran

    • Ayatollah Khomeini issued Fatwa that it was their duty to kill Salman Rushdie and all the publishers of the book


President

  • Pezeshkian

  • Election (voting age 18)

  • Candidate must have 50% or  more of votes to be elected

  • If no candidate gets 50%, runoff election

  • No more than 2 consecutive terms

  • No one vice president, multiple vice presidents, each in charge of something 

  • Requirements

    • Natural born

    • 25-75 yrs

    • Shiite

  • Powers:

    • Proposes laws

    • Implement laws

    • Appoint cabinet members, vice president, ambassadors, governors

    • Sign treaties

    • Proposes laws and budget

  • Bani - Sadr (1980-1981)

    • National front (party of mossadeq, western intellectual, wants more democratic system)

    • Against the hostage

    • “Dictatorship of mullatariat” dictatorship of clerics

    • Impeached

    • Shaved eyebrows and mustache and wore skirt to escape country, was going to be arrested

    • Rajai was PM for Bani-Sadr, became pres when Bani-Sadr left, was assasinated after 4 weeks by MEK (communist/religeous group turned terrorist against gov)

  • Khamenei 1981-1989

    • Replaced Bani-Sadr

    • Iran-Iraq war 1980-1988, 1mil dead just on iran side

    • Keys to heaven

    • Western support for iraq (europe sold chemical weapons used on iran)

  • Khamenei 1981-1989 was president, when Khomeini died, was selected to be supreme leader

  • Rafsamjani (president 1989-1997)

    • Association of militant clergy

    • Economic liberalization (privative economy, engage w other countries, free trade etc)

    • Wanted to privatize State-Owned-Enterprises

    • Assassination of dissidents

  • The Reformer - Khatami ‘97 to ‘05 

    • Khordad Front (name of his political party)

    • Uber-reformer

    • Moderate

    • Believed in increase in civil society (more civil liberties)

    • Proposed law to increase marriage law (quran says marriage age 9 for girls)

    • Proposes laws but none become law because institutions (guardian councils, assembly of religious experts) by nature conservative

    • Suspension of nuclear enrichment 

    • Nullified Fatwa (said no longer religious obligation to kill salman rushdi) → backlash from conservatives


  • Ahmadinejad 2005-13

    • Uber conservative

    • 2 terms

    • Won in 2005 bc

      • Lots of candidates running, was the only conservative

      • Populist (antiestablishment, fight for poor), class warfare, spoke to the lower income voters

      • Support from revolutionary guards

      • Axis of evil 

        • Bush saying Iran, iraq, north korea scheming together

        • Iranians mad abt it

        • Supported the conservative because they're anti-west

    • Very controversial (called for israel to be wiped off the map and questioned the holocaust)

    • Lowering subsidies

    • Ran for second term in 2009

    • Candidates: Moussavi, Ahmadinejad, Kharoubi

    • Debates televised

    • Predicted landslide Moussavi win

    • Clearly rigged, said moussavi only got 34%

    • Green movement protests (grees was color of moussavi’s campaign”

    • “Death to dictator”

    • Neda

      • Woman, 27

      • Had no interest in politics whatsoever

      • Music student

      • Was in car w music teach going to lesson, got stuck in protest

      • Got out of car to go check it out

      • Got shot in neck

      • Got captured on cell phone, her bleeding everywhere, video blown up on social media

      • Became symbol against brutality of regime

      • Government said it was probably CIA agent sent to get people riled up against regime

      • Government did not allow funeral or allow family to share where she was buried

    • Moussavi put under house arrest

    • Mashaei

      • Chief of staff for Ahmadinejad 

      • Wanted iran to talk to israel

      • Khamani (supreme leader) wanted president to get rid of him because of his extreme views

    • Moslehi

      • Minister of secret police

      • President fired him, supreme leader reinstated him

  • Rouhani (2013-2021)

    • Moderate

    • Phone call with obama (wow big deal bc they talked for first time in decades)

    • Nuclear program

      • 2007 stuxnet

        • Replica of exact nuclear facility in tennessee

        • USB drive that was carried into the facility and inserted into the computer and the centrifuges completely stopped working and facility shut down

        • Could not figure out it was a usb

        • Thought for a minute it was an inside job

        • Combined israel and US operation

      • 2015 JCPO  (P5+1)

        • Joint comprehensive plan of action

        • 5 permanent members of the security cancel, plus germany and EU

        • Sat down w iran and negotiated a deal to deal w nuclear program

        • 10 year period

      • 2020 robot gun stack

        • Top nuclear scientist, father of nuclear program

        • Israeli intelligence agency put a truck w machine gun remotely operated w facial recognition technology so when the nuclear guy was driving past, they killed him, wife was next to him in car, she was untouched he was immediately killed

        • Car parked next to truck exploded to destroy car/machine gun evidence

      • 2025 B2 attacks

        • Operation midnight hammer

        • One facility has its stuff very deep underground

        • No one has a bomb that can penetrate that deeply underground except US

        • 2 groups, one was sent a whole different direction as decoy

        • Decoys turned on stuff so they could steel where they are

        • Second group going to iran turned off all the stuff so they didn't show up on radar

    • Economic protests

      • Economy not good, partially due to sanctions

      • High unemployment rate

      • Inflation rlly bad

  • Raisi (2021-2024)

    • The Butcher of Tehran

      • Enforced people being killed in millimeter revolution

    • Chief Judge

    • Very conservative

    • Supported russia w/ ukraine

    • Helicopter crash


Masoud Pezeshkian 2024-

  • Cardiac surgeon

  • Not a cleric

  • Had a wife and child die in car crash, never remarried, raised the kids by himself

  • Respects women, had a very equal marriage with his wife

  • Speaks persian, farsi, turkish, arabic, kurdish, and english


Majiles

  • Legislative branch

  • 290 members

  • Elected

  • 4 yr terms

  • Mix of clerics and non clerics

  • Factions

  • Powers:

    • draft/pass Quanun (laws) 

    • Pass budget

    • Appoints 6 members of guardian council

    • Advice and consent, approve some presidential appointments

    • Oversight (can investigate executive agencies)


Guardian Council

  • 12 members

  • 6 appointed by majles

    • They get a list of names from the chief judge (who is cohen by the supreme leader)

  • 6 appointed by supreme leader

  • Conservative body

  • Have to have knowledge of quran

  • Vet candidates for any elected institution

  • Veto any laws passed by majles if they deem those laws to be against sharia law



Assembly of Religious Experts

  • Elected body

  • 88 members

  • Select supreme leader

  • Give advice to supreme leader


Expediency Council

  • Referee between guardian council and majiles

  • Check on guardian council

  • Most of the members are appointed by supreme leader

  • 32 appointed by supreme leader and other regime members automatically a part

  • Can pass legislation on their own on certain topics


Judiciary

  • Sharia law

    • Comes from the quran

    • Supreme law

    • Qanun cannot contradict sharia law

    • Sexist

      • Testimony of 2 women is equal to testimony of 1 man

      • Male gets twice as much inheritance as female

    • Seal → hands get cut off

      • Exists in sharia law, but not really enforced

    • Retribution law

      • Victims family can ask for blood money instead of punishment

  • Qanun

    • Law passed by majles

    • Secular law


  • Death Penalty

    • Iran #2

    • Lots of things qualify for death penalty

  • Chief judge head of judiciary

    • Appointed by the supreme leader for 5 year term

  • Supreme court

  • Clerical courts

    • For crimes commited by clergy

  • Revolutionary courts

    • People who commit national security crimes

    • People who oppose the regime

  • Public courts


Millitary

  • Conventional Military

    • Army

    • Navy

    • Airforce

  • Islamic Revolutionary Guards

    • Did not trust shahs military, created their own to protect the regime

    • Has its own army, navy, and airforce

    • Does more things than the regular military

    • Own Iran’s telecommunications

    • Bisij

      • Sent to break up protests

      • Go after any opposents of the regime

    • Soleimani-Quds

      • foreign operations

      • Responsible for killing of many us forces (killed by quds forces in iraq)

      • Soleimani was the head of the Quds, US killed him by trump order, seen as very aggressive move towards iran by iranians


Bureaucracy

  • Growth in number of civil servants

  • Ministries and ministers

  • Ministry of culture and islamic guidance

    • Censorship

  • Ministry of Intelligence

    • Run the secret police, prisons, political prisoners

  • Ministry of foreign of affairs

  • Reconstruction ministry

    • Making the rural areas in better shape than they used to be


Semi-Public Institutions

  • Funded by the government but get autonomy

  • Pros and cons

  • Pahlavi bonyad

    • Been replaced by the religious foundations

    • Lots of money in the religious foundations

    • Heads of the religious foundations appointed by the supreme leader

  • Foundation of the oppressed

  • Martyr foundation

    • Help people who had family killed in iran/iraq war

    • Also own newspapers and such


Subnational government - Unitary System

  • Provinces 

    • Equivalent to states

  • Districts

  • Towns

  • Villages

  • Each province led by governor

  • Governor appointed by president

  • At every level there are elected local councils