No More Learning

France. Unlike the United States, Great Britain, or the Soviet Union, France had no prior imperial role in Iran. In addition, the French govern- ment had granted Khomeini political asylum following his deportation from Iraq in 1978, and one might have expected Franco-Iranian ties to have
76 "Chronology," ME] 35, no. 1 (1981), 46.
77 Parsons, "Iran and Western Europe," So.
78 See MECS 1987, 413-14; and "Chronology," MEJ 41, no. 4 (1987), 6o2.
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profited from this favorable historical legacy. Yet relations between France and revolutionary Iran were still strained, despite several well-intentioned efforts to establish a cordial relationship.
Tensions between France and Iran arose from several separate issues.
France had become the preferred haven for the anti-Khomeini opposition, including former prime minister Bakhtiar, former president Bani-Sadr, Is- lamic Mujahedin leader Masoud Rajavi, and several members of the Pahlavi family. The revolutionary government accused France of providing asylum to "criminal leaders" and held it responsible for "attacks against the clergy. " A congratulatory message from President Fran\ois Mitterand following Rajai's election in 1981 was denounced as a lie, and the assassination of a number of exile leaders on French soil both angered and alarmed the French. 79 Relations were strained further when a group of Iranian exiles seized a French-built missile boat previously ordered by the shah. French of- ficials recovered the ship and transferred it to Iran but refused to tum over the hijackers despite strong Iranian protests. In Lebanon, Iran's support for radical Shiite groups clashed with France's traditional support for the Lebanese Christians; pro-Iranian factions kidnapped several French citi- zens; and a terrorist truck bomb killed fifty-eight French soldiers in the UN peacekeeping force. 80 A final issue was French military support for Iraq: in addition to selling billions of dollars of weapons to the Iraqis, France also leased them five warplanes equipped with Exocet antiship missiles, which greatly enhanced their ability to attack Iran's oil and shipping facilities. 81
France sought to normalize relations with the Islamic Republic in 1986 in an attempt to obtain the release of its Lebanese hostages. A French parlia- mentary delegation visited Tehran in January, middle-level officials ex- changed visits in May and September, and France subsequently agreed to repay $330 million of a $1 billion loan provided by the Pahlavi regime, in ex- change for the release of two French hostages. It also agreed to expel a num- ber of members of the Mujahedin as a goodwill gesture. This detente evaporated the following year, however, after the French tried to interrogate Vahid Gordji, an Iranian translator whom they suspected of participating nn a series of terrorist bombings. Gordji took refuge in the Iranian embassy, which the French promptly blockaded, leading Iran to surround the French
79 "Chronology," ME/ 36, no. 4 (1982), 72. The shah's nephew was assassinated in Paris in 1979, former prime minister Bakhtiar narrowly escaped an attack in 1980 (a subsequent at? tempt in August 1991 succeeded) and General Ghulam Ovaisi, commander-in-chief of the army under the shah, was murdered in Paris in February 1984. See Parsons, "Iran and West- ern Europe," 75; Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 267; and "Killing Off Iranian Dissenters: Bloody Trail Back to Tehran," Washington Post, November 21, 1993, A t .
80 See Hunter, Iran and the World, 150; and George Joffee, "Iran, the Southern Mediter- ranean, and Europe," in Ehteshemi and Varasteh, Iran and the International Community, 87-88. 81 See Hiro, Longest War, 82, 1 23-27; Mark Heller, The Iran-Iraq War: Implications for Third
Parties (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 1984), JCf-40; and MECS 1987, 412.
? ? ? Revolution and War
embassy in Tehran and arrest a French diplomat on various fabricated charges. France broke diplomatic relations, imposed an embargo on Iranian oil, and sent French warships to join the U. S. -led flotilla in the Persian Gu1f. s2
Gordji was finally deported in December 1987, and the end of the Iran- Iraq war paved the way for a slightly more durable detente. 83 Diplomatic re- lations were restored in June 1988 after France expelled fourteen members of the Islamic Mujahedin and agreed to repay another $300 million of the Iranian loan. The oil embargo was soon lifted, and French foreign minister Roland Dumas visited Tehran in February 1989. Khomeini's campaign against Salman Rushdie slowed the process of normalization at this point, but diplomatic ties were not cut off. Both sides seemed interested in estab- lishing a less acrimonious relationship (though the French decision to try two Iranian citizens for the murder of former prime minister Bakhtiar had cast yet another shadow over Franco-Iranian relations at the end of 1994). 84
OtherMediumPowers. IncontrasttoitsrelationswithBritainandFrance, Iran's dealings with other medium powers were fairly benign. West Ger- many joined the Western appeal for release of the U. S. hostages and sup- ported the economic embargo but did not take a strong position. The West German government served as an intermediary during the hostage crisis; Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher became the first Western leader to visit the Islamic Republic in July 1984. 85 Germany had become one of Iran's largest trading partners by 1986, and a brief rift following a West German television broadcast mocking Khomeini healed quickly. 86 Germany helped dilute UN Resolution 598 to make it more palatable to Iran, and Tehran re- turned the favor by facilitating the release of two German hostages in Lebanon in September 1988. The German government responded with un- characteristic sharpness to the death threat against Salman Rushdie, recall- ing their ambassador for "consultations" and hinting of economic sanctions, but a complete rift was avoided and German-Iranian relations resumed their generally cordial nature after Khomeini's death. Iran remained Ger- many's largest Middle Eastern trading partner, and an Iranian diplomat ad-
82 See "Chronology," ME] 42, no. 1 (1988), 94-95; MECS 1987, 412-13.
83 President Khamenei remarked that France had given up its bullying and was trying to normalize relations, while Prime Minister Musavi stated that recent progress in relations had been "very good" and he hoped "this tendency will continue and expand. " MECS 1 987, 413.
84 Evidence of this trend includes the French decision to repatriate two Iranians accused of murdering the brother of the head of the anti-Khomeini Islamic Mujahedin. See "France Sends Two Murder Suspects Back to Iran, Stirring Wide Protest," New York Times, January 4, 1994, A5.
85 Genscher reported that Iran "sought better relations with the West," a view that over- looked the divisions on this issue within Iran. See "Chronology," ME] 39, no. 1 (1985), 112.
86 Iran responded by expelling two German diplomats in February 1987. MECS 1987, 409?
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rnitted in October 1993 that the German and Iranian security agencies had engaged in "close collaboration" for several years. Germany had continued to take a softer line toward Iran than the other Western powers, but its deci- sion to place an Iranian diplomat on trial for the murder of several Kurdish
exiles introduced a discordant note in the harmony between Berlin and Tehran in 1992. 87
Relations between Iran and Japan have followed a similar pattern. Strong U. S. pressure persuaded Japan to reduce its oil purchases and impose other economic sanctions during the hostage crisis, but Japan has gone to some lengths to preserve its economic links with Iran. 88 Rafsanjani visited Japan in June 1984, and Iranian officials praised Japan's lack of an imperialist past and its achievements as a non-Western power. Minor tensions arose from Japan's refusal to complete a petrochemical project begun prior to the revo- lution, and from its oil purchases from other Arab states, but Japan has suc- ceeded in maintaining an essentially neutral position. 89
The Islamic Republic also established cordial relations with China and several less powerful states. China and Iran were brought together in part by their fear of the Soviet Union (especially after the invasion of Afgha- nistan), and Iran's difficulties in obtaining arms from the West led naturally to arms deals with China and North Korea. The Islamic Republic also culti- vated economic and political ties with several Eastern European states and a number of smaller European Community powers, suggesting that its Is- lamic ideology did not interfere with efforts to improve relations with smaller states, regardless of their internal arrangrnents or external cornrnit- rnents. 90
Iran and the Arab World
Under the shah, Iran's relations with most of the Arab world were guarded at best. In addition to inheriting the historical rivalries between Persians and Arabs and the Sunni-Shiite division within Islam, the shah was openly hostile to pan-Arabism and especially to "Arab socialists" such as Carnal Abdel Nasser of Egypt or the Baath regimes in Syria and Iraq. AI-
87 See Middle East International, no. 461 (October 22, 1993), 13, and no. 463 (November 19, 1993), 11.
:
90 Iran purchased $6oo million worth of Chinese arms in 1986 and $1 billion worth in 1987, and there were reports of negotiations for the purchase of Scud missiles from North Korea in the early 1990s. R. K. Ramazani, "Iran's Resistance to the U. S. Intervention in the Persian Gulf," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East nor West, 44-45.
88 Japan had replaced the United States as Iran's largest trading partner b y 1982. See Kam- rim Mofid, "The Political Economy of Iran's Foreign Trade since the Revolution," in Ehte- shami and Varasteh, Iran and the International Community, 15o-51; and Hunter, Iran and the World, 193-96.
89 Menashri, Iran, j65; and Hunter, Iran and the World, 162.
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though the shah and the conservative Arab monarchies shared a pro-West- em orientation and an aversion to radical political movements of any kind, the gulf states were also concerned by Iran's growing power, the shah's re- gional ambitions, and Iran's close ties with Israel. By introducing a power- ful ideological dimension into Iran's foreign policy, however, the revolution intensified mutual perceptions of threat and helped trigger a bitter and pro- tracted war with Iraq.
The Iran-Iraq War. Given that Iran and Iraq had been rivals since their emergence as independent states, and that Iran had held the upper hand since the early 1970s, it is hardly surprising that Iraq welcomed the fall of the shah at first. The Iraqi government sent a congratulatory message to
Khomeirui upon the founding of the Islamic Republic and invited Bazargan to visit Baghdad, but relations soon deteriorated and President Saddam Hussein decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Iran in September 1980. 91
The Iranian threat to Iraq sprang from several sources. Iranian control of the Shatt al-Arab threatened Iraq's only port, thereby jeopardizing Iraq's foreign trade, especially its oil exports. Moreover, the Islamic Republic had refused to withdraw from several territories it promised to vacate as part of the AlgieJrs accord in 1975 and had resumed its support for the Kurdish in- surgents within Iraq. Iraq responded in kind, sending material aid to Arab and Kurdish rebels within Iran.
Most important of all, Khomeini's universalist ideology directly chal- lenged its Arab neighbors, and especially secular regimes such as the Iraqi Baath. Shiites make up roughly 55 percent of the Iraqi population, and among them the revolution in Iran had clearly sparked greater restive- ness. 92 Under the leadership of Muhammed Baqir al-Sadr, a cleric with ties to Khomeini, a fundamentalist movement known as Al-Dawa al-Islamiya
(Islamic Call) had become increasingly active in the 196os. Iran began pro- viding rhetorical and material support to the Shiite underground in Iraq in
91 Iraq praised Iran's "independent foreign policy" after the latter withdrew from the Cen- tral Treaty Organization (CENTO) in the spring of 1979, and then-president Ahmad al-Bakr offered "best wishes for the friendly Iranian people" and called for "the closest ties of friend- ship" between Iran and the Arab states in April. See Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 58-59; Jasim M. Abdulghani, Iraq and Iran: The Years ofCrisis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 181-82; Philip Robins, "Iraq: Revolutionary Threats and Regime Responses," iJn The Iranian Revolution: Its Global Impact, ed. John L. Esposito (Miami: Florida International University Press, 1990), 83; and Efraim Karsh, "Military Power and Foreign Policy Goals: The Iran-Iraq War Revisited," International Affairs 64, no. 1 (1987-88), 87.
92 Baath concerns were nicely revealed by President Hussein's warnings in February and June 198o that Iraq might break up into separate Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish portions if pre- ventive steps were not taken. See Amazia Baram, "Mesopotamian Identity in Ba'thi Iraq," Middle Eastern Studies 19, no. 4 (1983), 445 and n. 85, and "The Impact of Khomeini's Revolu- tion on the Radical Shi'i Movement of Iraq," in Menashri, Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, 14o-43.
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? The Iranian Revolution
the fall of 1979, and Iranian officials made no secret of their desire to re- place the Baath regime in Iraq with another Islamic republic. Khomeini named Sadr head of the "Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq," and al-Sadr began to issue increasingly explicit calls for a Shiite up- rising. A group of Shiites of Iranian origin tried to assassinate Iraqi deputy premier Tariq Aziz in April 198o, and Khomeini now declared that "the people and Army of Iraq must turn their back on the Baath regime and overthrow it. "93 Iraq responded by increasing its support for Iranian dissi- dents and launching a crackdown against Al-Dawa adherents. Sadr was ar- rested and executed and over 35,000 Shiites were deported, while the government began a major campaign to improve living conditions in the remaining Shiite communities in order to reduce their receptivity to Iranian propaganda. The war of words escalated throughout 1980, with neither side attempting to conceal its hostility. 94
Iraq's decision to invade was primarily a response to its fear of Iranian fundamentalism, but it also reflected Iraq's larger ambitions within the Arab world. In addition, Iraqi officials were convinced that the revolution in Iran had created a set of unusually promising conditions: the military balance seemed to favor them, the Iranian armed forces had been weakened by purges and desertions, and the new regime faced a challenge from Kurdish insurgents and several other dissident ethnic groups. 95 The Iraqis also be- lieved that the predominantly Arab population of Khuzistan (an oil-rich province adjacent to the border) would support the invasion and turn
93 Quoted in Abdulghani, Iraq and Iran, 189. On these points see Baram, "Impact of Kho- meini's Revolution," 141-42; Hanna Batatu, "Iraq's Underground Shi'a Movements: Charac- teristics, Causes, and Prospects," ME/ 35, no. 4 (1981); Robins, "Revolutionary Threats and Regime Responses," 85-92; Zonis and Bromberg, Khomeini, Iran, Arab World, 62--67; King, Iran-Iraq War, 8-<j; and Halliday, "Iranian Foreign Policy," 95-96.
94 Iranian officials described the Baath as "fascist and racist" and as being a "bunch of athe- ists. " Iraqi leaders portrayed Khomeini's religious views as "a medieval sectarian philoso- phy" and called the Islamic Republic a backwards regime of "dwarf Persians. " Iranian foreign minister Qotzbadeh announced, "We have decided to overthrow the Ba'thist regime of Iraq," and Khomeini warned that if Iraq attacked Iran, "the Iranian Army would advance toward Baghdad to . . . overthrow the regime there. " Abdulghani, Iraq and Iran, 181-92.
95 Roughly 23,000 Iranian military officers had been executed or purged or had fled into exile by 1986. The army lost 50 percent of the officers between the ranks of major and colonel, the air force lost 50 percent of its pilots, and the regular army dropped from 285,000 men to approximately 1. 5o,ooo. See Karsh, "Military Power and Foreign Policy," 89-90, William F. Hickman, Ravaged and Reborn: The Iranian Military 1 982, Staff Paper (Washington, D. C. : Brook- ings Institution, 1982), 8-18; Sepehr Zabih, The Iranian Military in Revolution and War (London: Routledge, 1988), chap. 5; Nikola B. Schahgaldian with the assistance of Gina Barkhordarian, The Iranian Military under the Islamic Republic (Santa Monica, Calif. : Rand Corp. , 1987), 17-27; Gregory F. Rose, "The Post-Revolutionary Purge of Iran's Armed Forces: A Revisionist As- sessment," Iranian Studies 17, nos. 2-3, (1984); and Nader Entessar, "The Military and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran," in Post-Revolutionary Iran, ed. Hooshang Amirahmadi and Manoucher Parvin (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1988), esp. 61-65.
? ? Revolution and War
against the government in Tehran. This sense of optimism was encouraged by the testimony of Iranian exiles in Baghdad, including former prime min- ister Bakhtiar and several former Iranian generals. 96 The window of oppor- tunity would not last forever, and the threat would increase dramatically once the Islamic Republic began to mobilize Iran's superior resources.
Given these beliefs, the temptation to eliminate the threat through the use of force proved irresistible. At a minimum, Iraq's leaders sought to restore its former position in the Shatt al-Arab, create a buffer zone along the bor- der, and persuade Iran to halt its support for dissident Shiites in Iraq. At most, they hoped to annex Khuzistan-thereby acquiring some of Iran's most valuable oil fields-and perhaps to topple or divide the new regime as well. Any of these outcomes would reduce the threat from Iran and enhance Iraq's overall position. 97
Unfortunately for Hussein, the decision to invade was based on several profound miscalculations. The danger that the revolution in Iran would spread to Iraq turned out to be minimal, as the vast majority of Iraqi Shiites reJlal ined loyal to Baghdad; even the execution of Muhammed al-Sadr in June 1980 did not cause significant unrest. Similarly, the Arab population of Khuzistan did not rise up and welcome the Iraqi invaders, and the Iraqi Army proved to be a less potent offensive weaponthan Hussein had hoped. Far from undermining the Islamic Republic, the invasion enabled the Iran- ian clergy to invoke Iranian nationalism and traditional Arab-Persian ani- mosities as a means of rallying popular support. Like the Austro-Prussian invasion of 1792 and the Allied intervention in Russia in 1918, the Iraqi at- tack also justified extensive efforts by the revolutionary state to repress in- ternal dissent, thereby facilitating the consolidation of the clerical regime. 98
Most important of all, Hussein and his advisors misjudged the resolve and the fighting capacities of the Islamic Republic. Although Iran's military effort suffered from poor leadership, inadequate supplies, and rivalries within the revolutionary elite, the enthusiasm and commitment of the Rev-
96 See Renfrew, "Who Started the War? " 98; Hiro, Longest War, 2; King, Iran-Iraq War, 8-10; Efraim Karsh, The Iran-Iraq War: A Military Analysis, Adelphi Paper no. 220 (London: Interna- tional Institute for Strategic Studies, 1987), 11-13; and Jiman Tagavi, "The Iran-Iraq War: The F i r s t T h r e e Y e a r s , " i n R o se n , I r a n s i n c e t h e R e vo l u t i o n , 6 7 .
97 Iraqi officials denied any annexationist ambitions, but Hussein added that "if the [Khuzistanis,] Baluchis, or Azerbaijanis want their stand and decision to be different, then this will be another matter. " Another Iraqi official warned that "Arabistan [Khuzistan] oil will remain Iraqi" unless Iran agreed to negotiate, and Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz commented that "Five small Irans would be better than one big Iran. " Similarly, Hussein de- clared, "We are for [Iran's] fragmentation, weakening, destruction, and instability as long as it is anenemyoftheArabnation and Iraq. " Hiro, Longest War, 46; Hunter, Iran and the World, 106; and Abdulghani, Iraq and Iran, 205, 209.
98 Bani-Sadr remarked in October 1980: "The war is very useful for us. It consolidates our Islamic Republic. " Quoted in MECS 1979-80 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981), 27; and see also MECS 1981-82 (NewYork: Holmes and Meier, 1984), 54J.
[2. 40]
? The Iranian Revolution
olutionary Guards and regular army more than compensated for these defi- ciencies. Like the revolutionary regimes in France and Russia, the Islamic Republic was able to direct the fervor that had toppled the old regime against a foreign invader. 99 Indeed, the revolutionary government refused to consider anything less than total victory, and its refusal to compromise would keep the war going for nearly eight years. 100
The war ntself can be divided into four main phases. 101 During the first phase, Iraq seized approximately ten thousand square miles of Iranian terri- tory, capturing the city of Khorramshahr and laying siege to the refinery cen- ter at Abadan. The Iraqi advance halted at the end of November, and for the next twelve months there was little change in the adversaries' positions. Iran's military performance improved steadily throughout the year, how- ever, and by September 1981 its army had lifted the siege of Abadan and made a number of minor gains. Both sides began attacking each other's oil facilities during this phase, but neither was able to land a decisive blow. 102
The second phase began with a successful Iranian offensive in March 1982. A second advance in May retook Khorramshahr, and Hussein now or- dered a complete Iraqi withdrawal. Iran rejected an offer to return to the sta- tus quo ante and launched a counterinvasion of Iraq in July, intended "to deliver the Iraqi nation from this accursed [Baath] party. " In Khomeini's words, it was time for the Iraqi people to "rise up and install the Islamic government that you want. . . . Greet your Iranian brothers, so you can cut off the hands of the Ba'thists. "103
Iran's decision to carry the war onto Iraqi soil was based on an exagger- ated sense of its own military capabilities and ideological appeal. 104 Iran's
99 See Hickman, Ravaged and Reborn; Schahgaldian, Iranian Military; and Theda Skocpol, "Social Revolutions and Mass Military Mobilization," World Politics 40, no. 2 (1988), 164-68.
100 When the war broke out in 1980, Khomeini declared, "There was absolutely no question of peace or compromise and we shall never have any discussions with them. " Bani-Sadr pre? dieted that Iraq would lose the war "whatever they do and however much it costs us. " He also estimated the war "would last fifteen days if Iraq received no outside assistance, other- wise until the last of 36 million Iranians are dead.
" Quoted in Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 64; and MECS 1979-Bo, 21.
101 In addition to the sources cited below, this account is based on Hiro, Longest War; Shahram Chubin and Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1988); and Ephraim Karsh, The Iran-Iraq War: A Military Analysis, Adelphi Paper No. 220 (London: Inter- national Institute for Strategic Studies, 1987).
102 See Anthony H. Cordesman, The Gulfand the Searchfor Strategic Stability: Saudi Arabia, the Military Balance in the Gulf, and Trends in the Arab-Israeli Military Balance (Boulder, Colo. : West- view, 1984), 545-49?
103 See "Khomeini Urges Iraqis to Revolt," Washington Post, July 15, 1982, AI, A16.
104 At the outset of the war, Khomeini told his followers that they "should never have any fear of anything. . . . With the weapons of faith and Islam, we shall succeed and we shall win. " In 1984, Speaker Rafsanjani declared, "The faith of the Islamic troops is stronger than Iraq's superior firepower. " Prime Minister Musavi stated the following year, "The power of faith can outmanoeuvre a complicated war machine used by people bereft of sublime reli-
? ? ? Revolution and War
leaders were convinced that the invasion would trigger an uprising by the Iraq's Shiite majority and that the creation of an Islamic republic in Iraq would accelerate the spread of revolutionary Islam throughout the re- gion. 105 This belief was consistent with Khomeini's universalist ideology and was reinforced by reports of disturbances among the Iraqi Shiites and testimony from members of Al-Dawa who fled to Tehran during the war. 106
Contrary to these expectations, however, the Shiite population in Iraq did not rise up to welcome the Iranian invaders. Furthermore, Iran's gains led the gulf states and a number of Western powers to tilt toward Iraq, and the third phase of the conflict was to be a bloody war of attrition. This phase also witnessed the escalation of air attacks on oil shipments and population centers, as well as Iran's covert efforts to obtain arms from the "Great Satan" in exchange for the U. S. hostages in Lebanon.
The stalemate was broken by Iran's seizure of the Fao Peninsula in Feb- ruary 1986, but this success was Iran's last important victory. Another of- fensive in January 1987 gained additional territory, but Iran's forces suffered heavy losses and failed to destroy Iraq's ability to resist. Iran's manpower reserves were dwindling after six years of fighting, and the military balance had shifted toward Iraq as the war entered its final phase. The Iranian deci- sion to escalate the tanker war led the United States and several other pow- ers to take an even more active role, and Iran could not match the scope or effectiveness of the Iraqi missile attacks, which resumed the following year. to7
Strengthened by foreign assistance and the use of poison gas, Iraq recap- tured the Fao Peninsula in April 1988 and regained the Majnoon Islands in June. Facing growing popular discontent, a deteriorating economy, and de- clining hopes of victory, Rafsanjani and the other moderates convinced
gion. " Quoted in Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 64; Chubin, "Iran and the War," in Rezun, Iran at the Crossroads, 134; and Chubin and Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War, 42.
? 105 As early as October 1979, Ayatollah Montazeri had predicted that if the Imam Khomeini ordered the Iraqi Shiites to rebel against the Baath, "the entire Iraq nation would rise. " For- eign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report: Middle East/North Africa, October 22, 1979, R-7. In March 1! )82, President Khamenei declared: "The future government of Iraq should be an Islamic and popular one. . . . There is no difference between the two nations of Iran and Iraq in accepting the Imam as their leader. . . . The Imam is not limited by geographical fron- tiers. " And in June 1982, Khomeini announced that "if Iran and Iraq unite and link up with one another, the smaller nations of the region will join them as well. " Quoted in Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 232, 235?
? 106 See Robins, "Revolutionary Threats and Regime Responses," 8! H)3; and Hiro, Longest War, 61-62, 88.
107 In February 1987, Rafsanjani admitted, "We cannot see a bright horizon now, so far as ending the war in its present form is concerned. " Quoted in Ramazani, "Iran's Resistance," 48; and see also Wright, In the Name ofGod, 1 54-57; and Cordesman, Gulfand the West, 317-18, 422-32.
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? The Iranian Revolution
Khomeini that continuing the war might jeopardize the survival of the Is- lamic Republic itself. Calling the decision "more deadly for me than taking poison," Khomeini finally agreed to a ceasefire on July 18. 108
Like the wars of the French Revolution and the Russo-Polish war, the Iran-Iraq war was a direct consequence of the revolution itself. Both Iran and Iraq saw the other as a potential threat, and each exaggerated its ability to reduce the danger through the use of force. The Iraqi invasion was driven by its fear that the revolution might spread, together with its beliefs that Khomeini's regime was unpopular, its military forces were weak and disor- ganized, and an invasion would spark a sympathetic uprising among the Arabs of Khuzistan. All three beliefs turned out to be erroneous, and the Iraqi offensive soon ground to a halt. Khomeini and company then suc- cumbed to similar delusions, overstating their own ability to export the rev- olution and failing to realize that military success would merely cause other states to oppose them more vigorously. Instead of the swift and easy victory that both sides seem to have expected, the result was a long and bloody war of attrition. The war had helped Khomeini and his supporters consolidate their hold on power, but Khomeini's quest for total victory ultimately left both states far worse off than they had been before.
ContainingtheRevolution:ThePersianGulfandLebanon. AlthoughIran's other Arab neighbors had hoped that the Islamic Republic would be less as- sertive than its predecessor, the revolution was still a serious threat. The Per- sian Gulf states shared Iraq's concern that the revolution would spread, exacerbated by Khomeini's claims that monarchical institutions were "un- Islamic," his accusations that the conservative Arab states were corrupt puppets of the "Great Satan," and repeated Iranian statements confirming their desire to export the revolution. 109 Several gulf states were especially worried about unrest among their own Shiite populations, whom they feared would be susceptible to Khomeini's message. The Saudi royal family was also concerned that the revolution would open a door for Soviet en- croachments in the region; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and reports of growing Soviet influence within Iran did little to assuage their fears. A third
danger was the possibility of direct attack, which became increasingly real as the Iran-Iraq war escalated.
108 Khomeini emphasized that the decision "was made only on the basis of expediency," and he warned that "our nation should not consider the matter closed. " Hiro, Longest War, 243? Useful discussions of the cease-fire process include Chubin, "Iran and the War"; Wright, In the Name ofGod, 173-78, 184-91, 254-55; MECS 1988, 207-18, 476-77; Sigler, "Legacy of the Iran-Iraq War," 149-51; and Gary Sick, "Slouching Toward Settlement: The Internationaliza- tion of the Iran-Iraq War, 1987-1988," in Keddie and Gasiorowski, Neither East Nor West, 22o-22, 2)8.
109 See Jacob Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia and the Iranian Revolution," in Menashri, Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, 156-57.
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Several subsequent incidents reinforced these underlying tensions. There were serious disturbances among the Shiites in Saudi Arabia's eastern province in November 1979 and February 1980, clearly inspired by events ]n Iran and encouraged by Iranian propaganda. 110 Iran also began to use the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj) as a means of spreading the revolu- tion, which led to repeated confrontations with Saudi officials. 111 There were pro-Khomeini demonstrations in Kuwait and Bahrain in 1979; Iran attacked three Kuwaiti oil facilities in October 1981; an Iranian agent led an unsuc- cessful coup attempt in Bahrain in December; and a group of Iranian- backed Iraqi exiles conducted a series of terrorist bombings in Kuwait in
1983. 112
The gulf states responded to the threat by arresting or deporting potential
dissidents, providing greater economic benefits to their own Shiite popula- tions, trumpeting their own Islamic credentials, and stressing Arab nation- alism rather than Islamic solidarity. In addition to improving their own defense capabilities through increased arms purchases, the gulf states formed the so-called Gulf Cooperation Council in January 1981 to coordi- nate joint responses to the threat of Iranian subversion. 113 Saudi Arabia andl Kuwait overcame their earlier fears of Iraqi ascendancy and began provid- ing Baghdad with extensive financial support; aid increased as Iraq's plight worsened, and the two monarchies eventually loaned Iraq approximately $40 billion to finance its war effort. n4
Iran initiated a brief detente with Saudi Arabia in the mid-198os, in an at- tempt to persuade the Saudis to reduce their support for Iraq. Rafsanjani in- formed Riyadh that Iran "had no intention of controlling Ka'ba and Mecca,"
110 See Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia," 160, and "The Shi'i Minority in Saudi Arabia," in Shi'isrn and Social Protest, ed. Juan R. I. Cole and Nikki R. Keddie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 230, 239-44; Zonis and Bromberg, Khorneini, Iran, Arab World, 52; and David Long, "The Impact of the Iranian Revolution on the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf States," in Esposito, Iranian Revolution, 105-106.
111 ClashesbetweenIranianpilgrimsandSaudisecurityforcestookplacein1979,1980,and 1981, and Iranian officials repeatedly denounced Saudi control over the holy places in Mecca and Medina. The two states reached a partial compromise that permitted Iran to send a greater number of pilgrims after 1983, but the 1987 hajj ended in violent disturbances be- tween the Iranian pilgrims and Saudi security forces that left over four hundred dead. When the Saudis limited Iran to forty-five thousand pilgrims in 1988, Iran chose to boycott the hajj entirely. See Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia and the Iranian Revolution," 164-65; Zonis and Brom- berg, Khorneini, Iran, Arab World, 53-54; Menashri, Iran, 209-10, 252, 293, 333, 366-67; and MECS 1986 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1988), 149-51; 1987, 172-76, 41&-17; 1988, 177-85; 1989, 182-87; 1990 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview, 1992), 189-91.
112 See Zonis and Brumberg, Khorneini, Iran, Arab World, 42-50; and Hunter, Iran and the World, 115.
? 1 1 3 See Mahnaz Z. Ispahani, "Alone Together: Regional Security Arrangements in Southern Africa and the Arabian Gulf," International Security 8, no. 4 (1984); and Ramazani, The Gulf Co- operation Council: Record and Analysis (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1988).
114 See Karsh and Rautsi, "Why Saddam Hussein Invaded Kuwait," 19 and n. 3?
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and the Saudis responded by inviting Rafsanjani to visit Mecca during the hajj, Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud visited Iran in May 1985, and Iran- ian foreign minister Velayati made a return visit to Riyadh in December. But the period of detente did not last long. 115
The gulf states increased their aid to Iraq after Iran captured the Fao Peninsula in 1986, and clashes between Iranian pilgrims and Saudi security forces during the 1987 hajj led Rafsanjani to proclaim that Iran must "uproot the Saudi rulers . . . and divest the control of the holy shrines from [them]. "116 The Saudis responded by denouncing the "insane fascist regime" that had made Iran a "slaughterhouse. " Iran remained bitterly hostile to
Kuwait as well, owing to the sheikdom's support for Iraq and its reliance on U. S. and other Western backing. Kuwait expelled six Iranian diplomats after a Iranian missile attack in 1987, and the Saudis later executed sixteen Kuwaitis accused of terrorist activities "inspired by Tehran. " Neither the end of the war with Iraq nor Khomeini's death ended their mutual suspi- cions; although the smaller gulf states moved back to a more neutral posi- tion when the Iran-Iraq war ended, Iran and Saudi Arabia stayed estranged until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. 117
For the most part, Iran's initial efforts to export its revolution failed to ig- nite a wave of sympathetic uprisings in other Muslim countries. The princi- pal exception to this conclusion was the rise of Islamic fundamentalism among the Slhiite population of Lebanon, where groups such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad embraced Iran's anti-Western, pan-Islamic ideology and acknowledged Khomeini as their inspiration and leader. 118 Iran sent ap- proximately one thousand Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon in 1982, to support the Shiite fundamentalists there, and gave nearly $500 million in fi- nancial subsidies to its Shiite clients. Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad began to
? 115 See Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 96-98. There are also reports of secret Saudi-Iranian negotiations on possible scenarios for ending the Iran-Iraq war in 1984, but the talks appar- ently accomplished little. Gerd Nonneman, "The GCC and the Islamic Republic," in Ehte- shami and Varasteh, Iran and the International Community, 107.
116 Rafsanjanilaterdeclared,"IftheworldofIslamanditsscholarsdecideso,weareready to fight under any circumstances for [the] liberation of Mecca. " Quoted in MECS 1 987, 417.
117 For these incidents and quotations, see Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia and Iran," 163; MECS 1989, 366; 1990, 366-69; Nonneman, "GCC," 116-23.
118 According to Sayyid Ibrahim al-Amin, the official spokesman of Hezbollah: "We in Lebanon do not consider ourselves as separate from the revolution in Iran. . . . We consider ourselves . . . part of the army which the Imam wishes to create in order to liberate Jerusalem. We obey his orders because we do not believe in geography but in the change. " Another lead- ing Hezbollah figure, Sheikh al-Tufayli, declared that "the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the direction of all Muslims of the World," and an open letter from the leaders of Hezbollah in 1985 proclaimed, "We are sons of the nation of Hezbollah, whose vanguard God made victorious in Iran, and who reestablished the nucleus of a central Islamic state in the world. " See Martin Kramer, "Redeeming Jerusalem: The Pan-Islamic Premise of Hizballah," in Menashri, Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, 113-14; and Zonis and Brumberg, Khomeini, Iran, Arab World, 59?
? ? Revolution and War
challenge the other Shiite groups in Lebanon in the mid-198os, in what was probably the most impressive demonstration of Iran's ideological reach. 119
The impact of the revolution in Lebanon reflected several unusual cir- cumstances. First, the Lebanese Shiites were already disaffected and radi- calized by the late 1970s, and thus were more receptive to Iran's message than other Shiite communities; the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the intervention by the United States and several European countries in 1983 helped make Iran's anti-Western, anti-Israeli policies even more ap- pealing. Second, many of the Lebanese Shiites who founded Hezbollah were part of the same clerical network as the pro-Khomeini forces in Iran. 120 Third, Hezbollah also received active support from Syria during the early 198os, which sought to use the Shiite population of Lebanon to advance its own interests in the country. Finally, the protracted civil war in Lebanon had left the country without a central authority to suppress or coopt the funda- mentalists. 121 Given these conditions-which were largely absent elsewhere in the Arab world-it is not surprising that the Iranian Revolution had a greater impact in Lebanon than anywhere else.
Yet despite these uniquely favorable circumstances, Iran was no more successful in establishing a second Islamic republic in Lebanon than it was in fomenting rebellion in the Persian Gulf. The Lebanese Shiites remained
divided, and Syrian support for Hezbollah began to drop off after 1984. Moreover, Iran's ability to control its Lebanese affiliates declined steadily after the first outburst of revolutionary enthusiasm. Thus, Lebanon offers a strong demonstration of the inherent difficulty of spreading revolution: even when conditions are favorable, efforts to export an ideological move- ment in the absence of military occupation rarely succeed. 122
OtherIslamicMovements. TherevolutioninIranalsoencourageddiverse Islamic groups in Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia, with whom the Islamic Republic eventually forged a variety of links. Iran and Sudan formed a close political alignment after a military coup brought the fundamentalist Na- tional Islamic Front to power in 1989, and Rafsanjani reportedly offered the new regime economic and military aid during a visit to Khartoum in 1991. 123
119 See Augustus Richard Norton, "Lebanon: The Internal Conflict and the Iranian Connec- tion," in Esposito, Iranian Revolution, esp. 126.
? ? ? 120 Interestingly, the most senior Shiite cleric in Lebanon, Ayatollah Said Muhammed Fad- lallah, was not a disciple of Khomeini, and he rejected the latter's concept of velayet-efaqih. See Kramer, "Pan-Islamic Premise," 121-25.
121 The former Iranian ambassador to I. e. banon said in 1984 that "since the Republic of Lebanon does not have much power, there is no serious obstacle in the way" of an Islamic revolution. Quoted in Zonis and Brumberg, Khomeini, . Jran, Arab World, 61.
? 122 See Norton, "Lebanon," 13<r-33; and Hunter, Iran and the World, 126.
123 Accordingtonewsreports,RafsanjanipromisedtosupplySudanwithfreeoil,sellitarms, and send Revolutionary Guards to aid the government's efforts against the rebel movements in
? ? ? The Iranian Revolution
Iran and Sudan are believed to have aided the election campaign of the Is- lamic Salvation Front in Algeria in 1992, and National Islamic Front leader Hassan al-Turabi repeatedly referred to a global Islamic resurgence based on "the experiences of Iran in heart of Asia, Sudan in the heart of Africa, and Al- geria which is very near to the European continent. " 124 Together with the rise of fundamentalism in Egypt and Algeria, these events sparked renewed fears
of a rising Islamic tide posing an ominous threat to the West. 125
Although the growth of Islamic fundamentalism clearly merits careful at- tention from Middle Eastern governments and their foreign allies, this phe- nomenon should not be seen as the emergence of an "Islamic monolith" or as a case where a revolution was successfully exported. In the first place, most contemporary Islamic movements predate the revolution in Iran, and their growing popularity is due more to indigenous trends than to the trans- mission of revolutionary ideas from Tehran. This qualification is especially true of Sudan-the only other regime that openly espouses fundamentalist principles-where the process of Islamization was not the result of a mass
revolution. On the contrary, the Islamization campaign was begun by Jifar Nimeiri (a former general who seized power in the early 1970s) and com- pleted following his ouster by a military coup in 1989. 126 Similar obser- vations apply to North Africa as well. According to Fran\ois Burgat, "Khomeinism was . . . not responsible for the creation of the Islamist move- ment" and none of his successors "could be considered to be the conductor of an Islamic orchestra responding to his solicitations. "127 Although the
? the south. See Middle East International, no. 418 (February 7, 1992), 18-19; and "Fundamentalism Alters the Middle East's Power Relationships," New York Times, August 22, 1993, 4:1.
124 See Middle East International, no. 416 (January 10, 1992), 7-8; no. 418 (February 7, 1992), 1? 18; no. 421 (March20, 1992), 17-18; no. 465, (December 17, 1993), 13; and MECS 1991, 183-84. 125 In 1993, an unnamed U. S. official warned, "From the Iranian point of view, Sudan is strategically located: south to Africa, north and west to Egypt and North Africa. It gives the Iranians a strategic toehold, which can help promote its revolutionary cause in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan itself, and south. " Quoted in "Fundamentalism Alters the Middle East's Power Relationships. " For other examples of Western alarmism about the rise of Is- lamic fundamentalism, seeJohn L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (London: Ox-
ford University Press, 1992), chap. 6. For a predictably extreme assessment by a member of the Iranian opposition, see Mohammed Mohaddessin, Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat (Washington, D. C. : Seven Locks Press, 1993); for a critique, see Leon Hadar, "What Green Peril?