In the early 1970s, international oil prices rose, and the wealth of oil-producing countries in the Persian Gulf increased sharply. The second generation monarch of Pahlavi dynasty hoped to buy a rapidly developing industrialized country with petrodollars. However, with the economic expansion, various potential contradictions in Iranian society have intensified unprecedentedly. Ten years before the rapid economic development was completed, an unprecedented mass movement against Pahlavi broke out in Iran.
1On October 26th, Pahlavi was forced to leave his job. The capital Tehran is crowded with people, and men, women and children flock to the streets, singing and dancing together. Cars driving on the road turned on their headlights and honked their horns to celebrate. Statues and portraits of Pahlavi's father and son, large and small, in streets and squares were pushed down, smashed and burned by the masses within a few hours. This unprecedented social unrest was later called "Islamic Revolution".
This "Islamic Revolution" movement ended the Pahlavi family's rule over Iran for half a century and was replaced by the "Islamic Republic" represented by Khomeini. The new regime hopes to transform Iran with the help of Shiite ideology of Islam: theocracy, balancing the rich and the poor, supporting the disadvantaged groups, banning western culture, and carrying out social Islamization in strict accordance with Islamic fundamentalism. The United States and Israel are listed as Iran's number one enemies.
On the other hand, the pressure and influence brought by the "Islamic Revolution" was that a large number of senior military and political officials of the old regime were imprisoned or executed, royal property was confiscated, and the rich fled in succession. Coca-Cola, KFC and McDonald's, which symbolize American culture, were swept away along with bars, cafes, cinemas, red light districts and casinos. Islamic discipline permeates every corner of society. Once fashionable Tehran women wore black veil and robes, and the streets and alleys were covered with slogans of "Down with America". But when people walk through the busiest viaduct in the city center, they can't help but think of America.
The change of system, coupled with irreconcilable differences with the United States, made Iran almost an outcast of the international community for a time. In the past 25 years, Iran, which once had a rolling oil and dreamed of becoming the fifth largest country in the world, experienced a sudden decline in its economic development, and some people even calculated that it had gone backwards for 30 years.
At the same time, the sphere of influence of the United States retreated from the Iraq-Soviet border to the south bank of the Persian Gulf, losing control of the Strait of Hormuz, the throat of the Persian Gulf oil transportation line; The United States lost an ally and gendarmerie in the Persian Gulf in the Middle East, but added an enemy. The American oil consortium was forced to withdraw from Iran, thus losing a market with great potential. This is the deep-seated reason why the United States regards Iran as an "evil" country.
The hostage incident led to the deterioration of US-Iran relations.
The fuse that directly led to the bad relationship between the United States and Iraq was the hostage case of the American Embassy in Iraq on June 5438+0979+065438+1October 4. On the same day, Iranian students stormed and occupied the American Embassy, and more than 50 American diplomats were held hostage for 444 days.
The hostage incident is considered to be the biggest international setback for the United States since the Vietnam War. To this end, then US President Carter directed a "Blu-ray" operation to carry out an air entry raid on Iranian students who besieged the embassy to rescue the detained embassy staff from returning to China. Carter paid a heavy price for the failure of the election because of the failure of the action. Finally, when 52 American hostages were released back to the United States, it was still a lingering nightmare in the eyes of the American public. During 1987, the "Iran Gate" incident occurred during Reagan's presidency, which made the later American presidents encounter little resistance when they adopted a tough policy toward Iran.
The Islamic revolution in Iran was extroverted from the beginning. The new regime is keen to export the ideology of Islamic Shiites, calling the governments of a large number of Arab countries around it "reactionary and decadent regimes", causing panic in neighboring countries.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and other Arab countries have successively severed diplomatic relations with Iran. In the second year after the Islamic Republic of Iran was founded, it went to war with neighboring Iraq for eight years. The war exhausted Iran's national strength and the international situation was very isolated.
The rise of the reform trend
The world is changing, and so is Iran. In the second half of 1990s, with the rapid development of information technology and the wave of globalization sweeping the world, Iran, as a big oil-producing country, could not stay out of it. The ancient Qom Theological Seminary in Iran uses computers and the Internet, and a new generation, accounting for 15% of Iran's population, has grown up, strongly demanding to keep up with the times and change the status quo. In this context, Khatami, a moderate and enlightened religious figure, was elected with an overwhelming majority of 1997 in the presidential election, and reformist parliamentarians who supported President Khatami occupied the majority. The political atmosphere in Iran has gradually eased.
Iran has resumed normal relations with many Arab countries. In 1980s, Iran issued a death sentence to Rushdie, a British writer who wrote Satan's poems. To this end, the European Union frozen its relationship with Iran for 65,438+00 years, which was finally thawed in the late 1990s.
1997 17 In February, Iran successfully held the Islamic Summit, at which President Khatami put forward the "dialogue among civilizations" initiative and advocated the exchange and tolerance of different civilizations in the world.
Twenty-five years ago, the Islamic revolution in Iran established a unified society with theocracy above all else, which was very ideological and politicized. Twenty-five years later, Iran had to choose between revolution and development, artillery and butter, centralization and pluralism, "export revolution" and "dialogue among civilizations".