Jacobin:

BY AFSHIN MATIN-ASGARI

The recent wave of protests in Iran constitutes one of the most significant developments in the history of the Islamic Republic. Although the Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout to contain the flow of information, there is clear evidence that the state security forces killed several thousand people, far in excess of the casualties during previous upsurges in 2009 or 2022–23.

For now, Donald Trump has backed away from the prospect of ordering another US attack on Iran in the hope of precipitating the fall of the regime, but that may yet change over the coming weeks and months. In order to understand the significance of the latest development for Iran’s domestic politics and its relations with the United States, we need to see them against a long-range historical backdrop, dating back to the revolution of 1979.

The Embassy Crisis

Almost half a century ago, on November 4, 1979, student followers of Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, seized control of the US embassy in Tehran and took its staff hostage, releasing them 444 days later when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated US president. Khomeini had come to power a few months before as the undisputed leader of a popular uprising that overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s shah or king, who had been installed on his throne in 1953 through a military coup orchestrated by the CIA.

The recent wave of protests in Iran constitutes one of the most significant developments in the history of the Islamic Republic.
By early winter 1979, however, Washington had given up its policy of ironclad support of the shah. President Jimmy Carter instructed his Tehran ambassador to tell the shah it was time to vacate the throne and leave the country. Within a few weeks of the shah’s departure, the monarchy fell apart while US envoys secretly negotiated with Khomeini and his closest allies in Paris and Tehran for an orderly transfer of power.

In the months between the official declaration of an Islamic Republic in March 1979 and the subsequent embassy seizure, relations between Washington and the fledgling Islamic Republic were tense but cordial. Under Khomeini’s supervision, the provisional government’s head, Mehdi Bazargan, and members of his staff continued clandestine meetings with US diplomats in Tehran.

Go to link