Shia Islam and Politics: Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon 1793621357, 9781793621351

Citation preview

Shia Islam and Politics

Shia Islam and Politics Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon Jon Armajani

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL Copyright © 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN: 978-1-7936-2135-1 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN: 978-1-7936-2136-8 (electronic) TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

To Juan E. Campo professor, teacher, advisor, and mentor

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Preface

xi

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Introduction Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990 Iraq from 1990 and Beyond Lebanon Future Prospects—Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the United States

1 23 51 89 123 151 203

Bibliography

211

Index

223

About the Author

237

vii

Acknowledgments

I express my gratitude to Maruzella Abboud, Neal Allen, Jama Alimad, Jeffrey Anderson, Barbara Armajani, Cyrus Armajani, Siah Armajani, Johnny Awwad, H.B., Arc Indexing, MaryAnn Baenninger, Habib Badr, Richard Bohr, Carol Brash, Juan E. Campo, the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut, Terence Check, Antranik Dakessian, Rachel Dols, the Faculty Development and Research Committee at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, Molly Ewing, Lili Farhang, Maximilian Felsch, Patty Ford, Peter Ford, Samer Frangie, Zhihui Sophia Geng, Shake Geotcherian Jackson, Paul Haidostian, Haigazian University, Waleed Hazbun, Richard Hecht, Sheila Hellermann, Michael Hemesath, Mary Dana Hinton, Norbert Hirschhorn, R. Stephen Humphreys, Hudda Ibrahim, Richard Ice, Abdirizak Jama, Allen C. Jergenson, Katie Johnson, Louis Johnston, Anastisia Jreidini, Joseph Kassab, Najla Kassab, Nabil Katbeh, Edmond Khoury, Hedda Klip, Norma J. Koetter, Kelly Rae Kraemer, Rita Knuesel, O.M., Abdi Mahad, Jihane H. Marroush, Eliane Masry, Barbara May, Abdo Melki, Anna Mercedes, Rene McGraw, OSB; John C. Merkle, Madhu Mitra, Cynthia Myntti, S.N., Suha Naimy, Rima Nasrallah van Saane, the Near East School of Theology, Iman Nuwayhid, Ronald Pagnucco, Manju Parikh, Kathy Parker, Imad M. Rahal, Dwight Reynolds, Monica M. Ringer, George Sabra, Elias Sahiouny, Aliya Saidi, Jennifer Schwichtenberg, Darin Seaman, Helen Samaha Nuwayhid, Andrea Shaker, Barea Sibai, Vincent Smiles, Liza Titizian, Berge J. Traboulsi, M.U., Wilbert van Saane, Stefanie Weisgram, OSB; and David Wuolu. The college of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University provided me generous grant funding which facilitated my research, and a year-long sabbatical that enabled me to complete a draft of this manuscript. I express my gratitude to James E. Lindsay for reading a draft of the book manuscript and ix

x

Acknowledgments

providing me with valuable comments, and the entire Armajani, Samaha, and Nuwayhid families for their support. My parents, Marsha and Robert B. Armajani, have been unyielding in their love and dedication to me. I am deeply appreciative to Wissam Nuwayhid, who generously offered his expertise, guidance, time, and contacts during several years, as I conducted research for this book. I thank Michael Gibson and Mikayla Mislak at Lexington Books for all their efforts and support of this volume. I am deeply grateful to Juan E. Campo, my PhD dissertation advisor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose knowledge, wisdom, advice, steadfastness, and patience made this book and my career as a professor a reality. With my admiration, this book is dedicated to him.

Preface

Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and an Islamic Republic to power, had a profound impact on Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the rest of the Middle East. It changed the power dynamics in the Middle East, and was one factor in the Sunni-Shia conflict which has engulfed the region. That Islamic Revolution, its history, ideology, and consequences since 1979 is this book’s pivot-point, illuminating Shia Islam and politics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, which have high Shia populations and are major intellectual centers for Shia Islam. I was fourteen years old and living in the United States, my birth country, when that revolution occurred. Virtually everyone on my father’s side of the family had been living in the United States for decades when that revolution took place. Almost everyone on my mother’s side of the family was living in Iran when it occurred. Some on my father’s side had left Iran because of their opposition to the government of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi who was Iran’s king from 1941 until 1979, and were empathetic to Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries. Almost everyone on my mother’s side strongly supported Muhammad Reza Shah and departed from Iran with enormous fear regarding the revolution’s consequences. Most of the members of my mother’s side settled in western countries, and were vehement in their opposition to Iran’s Islamic Revolution. None of them, who had left Iran, returned to live there. As the Islamic Revolution mobilized and succeeded in overthrowing Muhammad Reza Shah and his government, I was initially hopeful that Iran’s new Islamic Republic may right some of the wrongs of the king’s government. I hoped, mistakenly, that the new government would (1) create greater socioeconomic justice in Iran; (2) grant more freedoms and liberties to Iranians; and (3) end the despotism and corruption which Iran had experienced for much of its modern history. As the years passed, I became increasingly xi

xii

Preface

disillusioned and deeply frustrated that Iran’s Islamic Republic did little to address these problems. I began to believe that the Islamic Republic maintained a governmental system which was oppressive and corrupt. At the same time, I have been troubled by the American news media’s negative depictions of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and of the Islamic Republic. In my view, time and again the American news media has failed to adequately describe the reasons for Iran’s Islamic Revolution and that country’s policies in the decades after that revolution. Although I am of two minds about that revolution and its consequences, (understanding that revolution’s reasons while opposing many of the Islamic Republic’s policies), I am frustrated that the reasons for Iran’s revolution and that country’s policies have not been adequately explained to an American audience. As a professor who teaches undergraduate students, I have also been disappointed by the fact that I have not found a book which explains Iran’s Islamic Revolution and its aftermath, chronologically within its historical contexts, while providing a chronological history of modern Shia Islam and politics in Iraq and Lebanon, which have large Shia populations, and have been profoundly affected by Iran’s Islamic Revolution. I wrote this book not as a defense of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and its regional consequences, but as a way of explaining that revolution’s reasons in a manner which is empathetic to some of the Shia Muslim revolutionaries. I have done so because I believe that (for understandable reasons) Westerners misconstrue the motives of politically-active Shias in Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq. The empathy which this book manifests toward politically active Shias is a scholarly one. Its methodological empathy for the politically active Shias in those countries is rooted in Gerardus van der Leeuw’s idea that the exploration of another person’s worldview involves empathy and imagination. Indeed, it requires empathy so that scholar’s can feel their way into the world of those other people. In van der Leeuw’s view, empathy requires imagination so scholar’s can move away from their own commitments and freely explore the commitments of others. 1 In this spirit, this volume elucidates the grievances which Shias have expressed with respect to (1) Western countries’ policies in the Middle East, (2) various Sunnis, and (3) oppressive political leaders, while contextualizing those grievances and Shias’ religiopolitical responses to them. My hope is that whether the reader is a newcomer to the field, or a veteran student of it, this book will be useful. It is directed toward anyone who is interested in Shia Islam and politics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book attempts to present an understandable version of topics that seem complicated, yet can be comprehended within their chronological and historical contexts. Finally, my hope is that this book will clarify some of the misunderstandings about Shia Islam and politics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, while elucidating the broader frameworks for Shia political mobilization. 2

Preface

xiii

NOTES 1. Gerardus van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, trans. J. E. Turner (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986), 671–689. See also Ninian Smart’s foreword to that volume, xii. 2. Ilan Pappe suggests helpful methodological approaches to history in his Ten Myths about Israel (London, UK: Verso, 2017), ix–x, xii–xiii.

Chapter One

Introduction

Iran is one of the largest and most influential countries in the Middle East and is the only nation whose laws and government are based almost entirely on Shia Islam. In modern times, Iran’s regimes and policies have had a profound impact on the region and on the United States’ Middle East policy. With a population of almost eighty-two million, Iran is the third most populous country in the Middle East (with a slightly smaller population than Egypt and Turkey, which rank first and second respectively) and the seventeenth most populous country in the world. 1 Iran possesses the world’s second largest oil reserves (neighboring the four other countries having among the world’s five largest), and the world’s second largest natural gas reserves (with Russia containing more). Iran has over 2.8 million soldiers in active, paramilitary, and reserve units, and as such possesses one of the largest militaries in the Middle East. 2 Geopolitically, Iran is one of the most crucial countries in the region with substantial borders along several countries and waterways including, among others, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, the Caspian Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Persian Gulf, placing it at a pivotal point militarily and economically as the US military engages in active combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and as additional American military personnel have been stationed in other countries near Iran. That country is significant and a focus of this book, because it (1) is one of the most populous countries in the Middle East; (2) has one of the largest Shia populations of any country in that region; (3) is the only country that has had a successful Shia Islamic revolution, which toppled a secular government and installed a government and laws based on Shia Islam; (4) is the main religious, political, military, and financial supporter of Shia religious and political groups in the Middle East including such groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and some of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf; (5) contin1

2

Chapter 1

ues to be a powerful adversary of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States’ other allies in the region. Iran, as the only modern country with a Shia Islamic government and based on Shia Islamic laws, has been a significant factor in its enormous influence on its Shia allies throughout the Middle East. Indeed, the Iranian government has maintained its grounding in that government’s conceptions of traditional Shia principles, while continually adapting itself to modern religious, political, military, and economic changes. This flexibility with respect to Shia traditions, on the one hand, and modern realities, on the other, has enabled Iran’s government to maintain a Shia identity and laws, while convincing its Shia constituencies both within and outside Iran of its religious and political legitimacy. In this way, Iran can be modern and have a Shia Islamic government, contrary the assumptions of some non-Muslim westerners that a Shia Islamic government and modernity are irreconcilable. While 98 percent of Iran’s population is Muslim, within that framework 89 percent of its population is Shia Muslim and 9 percent of it is Sunni Muslim. 3 Yet, worldwide, Shias comprise only 10 percent of all Muslims, while Sunnis comprise approximately 90 percent. 4 Shias also constitute a minority Muslim within the Middle East as a whole, while Sunni Muslims constitute a majority in that region. Yet, Shias comprise approximately 65 percent of the population in Iraq, which shares a long border with Iran, and Shias comprise approximately 45 percent of Lebanon’s population. As a percentage of those countries’ respective populations, those three countries have particularly high Shia populations and several of the cities in those countries have constituted major centers of Shia religious and political activity in the modern era. INTENTIONS This book argues that ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which established a Shia Islamic government in Iran, that country’s religious and political leaders, virtually all of whom are Shias, have used Shia Islam as a crucial way of expanding Iran’s objectives in the Middle East and beyond. Since Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Iran’s religious and political leaders have been deeply concerned about Iran’s security in the face of what they believe to be the hostility and expansionism of the United States and other western countries, and what those Iranian leaders perceive to be ongoing threats from powerful Sunni leaders and countries. Those Sunni leaders and countries included Iraq’s former Sunni president, Saddam Hussein (who was in that office from 1979 to 2003), and include the Saud family and their political allies in Saudi Arabia (virtually all of whom are Sunnis), which is just a few miles from Iran’s coast, across the Persian Gulf. While Iran’s government

Introduction

3

has attempted to align itself with Shias in various countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon, as its religious and political allies against American and Sunni expansionism, at the same time the Iranian government has attempted to protect, educate, religiously nourish, and politically mobilize those Shias as a matter of principle, and not only because of the Iranian government’s desires to protect Iran from external threats. Iran’s religious and political leaders have a deep and empathetic commitment to strengthen their fellow Shias religiously, politically, and in other ways precisely because those Shias are fellow Shias; Iran’s religious and political leaders believe that God has given them the responsibility to protect and strengthen Shias throughout the world, including the Shias of the Middle East. This book focuses primarily on the religious and political mobilization of Shias in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon because (1) those countries have relatively high Shia populations; (2) they have strong Shia institutions; (3) they are the most significant centers of Shia religious and political activity; and (4) the members Iran’s Islamic Republic have focused their attention on the Shias in those countries. This book focuses on Shia Islam, and religious and political mobilization, from the late nineteenth until the early twenty-first centuries, chronologically and historically, concentrating on the following themes with respect to Shias in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon: (1) political repression and Western colonization; (2) Shia clerics’ roles in religious and political mobilization and the ideologies which catalyzed that mobilization; (3) Shia rituals, including ta`ziyeh, which facilitated Shia political resistance; (4) Iranian Shia clerics’ and institutions’ support of and influence on Shia religious and political mobilization in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon; and (5) conflicts between Shias and non-Shias, including Shias and Sunnis, and the historical contexts of those conflicts. At the same time, this book provides a country-by-country political history of those three nations, while analyzing the ways which Shia Islam developed religiously and politically in those contexts from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. This book is directed primarily toward college and university undergraduate students, and a general audience who may possess limited knowledge of the book’s topics. At the same time, it provides a chronological, historical country-by-country study of the role Shia Islam in religion and politics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon while giving close attention to economic, geopolitical, military, and strategic matters. It explains these realities in a manner that assumes little or no prior knowledge on the readers’ part. These characteristics distinguish this book from many other books in the field, almost all of which are written for a scholarly audience.

4

Chapter 1

SHIA AND SUNNI ISLAM Iran’s support of Shias in the Middle East and other parts of the world has religious and political dimensions, as does that country’s rivalry with Saudi Arabia. As such, a discussion of the religious similarities and differences between Shias and Sunnis is relevant. There are approximately 1.8 billion Muslims in the world and, as such, Islam is the world’s second largest religion in terms of numbers, 5 while Christianity is the world’s largest religion with approximately 2.3 billion adherents. 6 Shia and Sunni Muslims believe that the one merciful and beneficent God of the entire universe, who revealed his sacred messages to all the prophets, beginning with Adam, gave his final, perfect revelation to the Prophet Muhammad from 610 to 632 CE in a western region of what is modern-day Saudi Arabia. This revelation is recorded in the Quran, which is Islam’s most important sacred text. The Hadith, which is comprised of Shia and Sunni versions, also holds considerable authority. It contains, among other ideas, what Muslims believe to be depictions of the sayings and actions of Muhammad and his companions or close associates. The Quran and Hadith are among the texts which provide guidance for almost every aspect of Muslims’ lives religiously, politically, economically, socially, and personally. Shias and Sunnis believe in the oneness of God, the power of angels, the importance of the Jewish and Christian prophets, the sacred texts of those religions, God’s final judgment over all humans, and God’s complete sovereignty over the universe. Related to those principles, Shias and Sunnis believe in and are required to practice the Five Pillars of Islam. These Five Pillars are comprised of a public confession of faith which initiates a person into Islam (shahada), five ritual prayers per day (salat), an annual offering of a percentage of one’s assets to be paid to a mosque or Islamic charity (zakat or khums as it is also known in Shia Islam), fasting or abstaining from a range of activities (sawm) during the daylight hours of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and making the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, once in a person’s lifetime if she or he is able. The months of Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca occur during different times from year to year because the Islamic calendar is lunar, not solar like the western, Gregorian one. The term Islam comes from the Arabic word for submission. Muslims frequently say that they have an individual and communal obligation to submit to God (the Arabic word for which is Allah) and God’s commands as stated in the Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah (which is comprised of quotations and positive and negative examples set by the Prophet Muhammad), and for the Shia the teachings of the twelve Shia Imams. In this spirit, Shias and Sunnis believe that they have an obligation to find peace with God, with other humans, and the world by submitting themselves to God and his commands. For all Muslims, life is a gift that God has given to all earthly

Introduction

5

creatures, including humans. Thus, humans are obligated to live in a spirit of submission to God, peace, and respect for life. As evidence of Islam’s teachings about peace and mercy, Muslims often cite the Quran, chapter 6, verse 54 (Quran 6:54), which states, “Peace be upon you. Your Lord has decreed mercy. If anyone among you commits evil through ignorance and then repents and mends his ways, he will find God forgiving and merciful.” 7 In spite of such ideas that are expressed in passages in Islam’s sacred texts, divergences have emerged in Islam, as is the case with respect to virtually every religion that has a large number of adherents. One of the divergences in Islam relates to the separation between Shia and Sunni Muslims. The Shia and Sunni perspectives, which appear in this description, are based on typical Shia and Sunni perceptions of their sacred histories. This section of the presentation does not intend to necessarily present history as it may have really happened; rather it is presenting an understanding of each side’s typical versions of its sacred histories. Shias and Sunnis often point to strong differences of opinion regarding who the Prophet Muhammad’s successor should have been after his death as constituting a reason for the split between these two branches of Islam. 8 Muhammad is a profoundly important figure for both Shias and Sunnis for a variety of reasons including the fact that all Muslims believe God chose him to receive and transmit the Quran, which Muslims believe contains God’s actual, perfect words. God also chose Muhammad as the prophet who would express the Quran’s message confidently, accurately, widely, and energetically. For Muslims, Muhammad is the final, seal of the prophets because he was a perfect role model who embodied Islam’s highest moral and religious principles in his life, including through his words and actions. From the viewpoint of Muslims, Muhammad was a courageous leader, who stood firmly for Islam’s teachings in the face of religious, political, and military opposition. From this perspective, because God is merciful, beneficent, and has created humans, God knows what is best for them in every respect, which includes the religious, political, economic, and personal spheres. For Muslims, God has provided, through the Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah, the ultimate and most comprehensive principles for the manner in which humans should lead their lives. Because God provided to Muhammad, through the angel Gabriel who revealed the Quran to Muhammad, this absolute all-encompassing knowledge, virtually all of Muhammad’s sayings and actions constitute the best model. Related to these ideas, Muhammad’s wise actions and adroit military decisions assured the safety and thriving of himself and his fellow Muslims in the seventh century, when those Muslims were confronted by large numbers of hostile forces who attempted to kill Muhammad and all the early Muslims, while those enemies attempted to destroy Islam permanently. Because Muhammad was the perfect leader who understood, embodied, and expressed Islam’s all-encompassing message in the best possible way, and he

6

Chapter 1

established the first Islamic community (ummah) which would thrive and prosper until the Day of Judgment, Muhammad’s immediate successor and subsequent successors would be of crucial importance. Muhammad died in 632 CE, and Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr, whom they view as a close companion and associate of Muhammad, was his rightful immediate successor. At the same time, Shias believe that Muhammad’s rightful immediate successor was Ali ibn Abi Talib, also known as Ali or Imam Ali among Shias. Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr was the first Caliph and, as such, was the first of a long line of Caliphs (or leaders of the all the world’s Sunnis) until the demise of the last caliph, Abdulmejid II, in 1924. Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr was Muhammad’s rightful successor for a number of reasons including that, in their view, he was elected by trustworthy Muslim leaders, who had been Muhammad’s close companions during his life. 9 In addition, Muhammad’s choice of Abu Bakr to accompany him closely in his and the early Muslim community’s migration (hijra) from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE has been considered by Sunnis to be a central pillar on which the decision to appoint Abu Bakr as Caliph was based. This Sunni argument also states that during the last days of Muhammad’s life when he was ill, he authorized Abu Bakr to lead the prayers in the mosque, which Muhammad had previously led himself. For Sunnis, Abu Bakr’s special status was reconfirmed by Muhammad granting Abu Bakr permission to marry Muhammad’s daughter Aisha. In addition, in 631, Abu Bakr was appointed to lead the first official pilgrimage to Mecca. Sunnis consider this mission, and similar tasks entrusted to Abu Bakr, as signs of respect, which showed that he was Muhammad’s rightful successor. 10 In sharp contrast to the Sunnis’ position, the Shias believe that Abu Bakr and the other people who were responsible for his election to the caliphate unjustly seized (or usurped) the succession to Muhammad from Ali, whom Muhammad had publicly announced was to be Muhammad’s successor according to the Shias, Ali, who was Muhammad’s paternal cousin and son-inlaw (since he was married to Muhammad’s daughter Fatima), received Muhammad’s command to be his successor. According to Shias, at Ghadir alKhumm near Mecca, where Muhammad delivered a sermon in 632 CE making this declaration. 11 Sunnis interpret Muhammad’s sermon as indicating a close spiritual relationship between him and Ali, but not necessarily indicating that Muhammad wanted Ali to be his immediate successor after his death. 12 For Shias, there are other pieces of evidence which convincingly demonstrate to them that Ali was Muhammad’s rightful successor. For example, from the Shias’ perspective, soon after Muhammad received the first revelations of the Quran, and was commanded by God to invite his close relatives to become Muslims, Muhammad told them that whoever would be the first to become a Muslim would become Muhammad’s first successor. According to Shias, Ali was the first to accept this invitation and embrace

Introduction

7

Islam. Muhammad confirmed Ali’s acceptance of Islam. As a result, Muhammad fulfilled his promise and later publicly declared Ali as his successor. 13 According to Shias, Muhammad asserted that Ali was preserved from error and sin in his actions and sayings. At the same time, Shias believe that everything which Ali said and did was in perfect conformity with the teachings of Islam, and he was the most knowledgeable person in matters pertaining to Islam and its injunctions. 14 Shias state that in 622 CE, when non-Muslim Meccans intended to kill Muhammad because they were threatened by Islam’s message, Ali courageously volunteered to sleep in Muhammad’s bed in his home in Mecca, while the other Muslims prepared for the hijra, so if the aggressors had attacked, they would have killed Ali instead of Muhammad. According to Shias, Ali also served Muhammad and Muslims as a whole by fighting on the side of Muslims in several battles against the enemies of Islam during the seventh century. Shias believe that Muslims’ victories in those battles were such that if Ali had not been present, Islam’s enemies would have killed the Muslims and destroyed Islam. 15 For Shias, all of these and other events, attributes, and actions, which relate to Ali, demonstrate that Ali was Muhammad’s rightful successor after Muhammad’s death. Ali’s special virtues and the fact that Muhammad had a special platonic love for him created a situation where there were several Muslims during the seventh century who had a deep devotion to Ali, and they are considered the first Shias. At the same time, there were other people, who became jealous of Ali and his following. Some of those people became part of an anti-Ali contingent and associated themselves with what would later become the Sunni branch of Islam. In any case, the term “Shia” refers to the “shiat Ali” or “those who side with Ali,” while the term “Sunni” refers to “ahl al-sunna wa’l-jama`a” 16 or those who follow in the path of the Prophet Muhammad; although both Shias and Sunnis believe that they follow in Muhammad’s path. 17 Another of several differences between Shias and Sunnis involves the role of the twelve imams in Shia Islam, the first of whom, Ali, began to rule the Shias as an imam in 632 CE, directly after Muhammad’s death, 18 and the last of whom was Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Mahdi, who is also known as the Mahdi or the Twelfth Imam, and was born in 868. 19 The Shias view the twelve imams as the infallible spiritual, religious, and communal leaders of all Shia Muslims; those imams have continually received guidance from angels and provided Shias with perfect guidance. 20 Sunni Muslims completely reject the twelve imams in Shia Islam and believe that the idea of the twelve imams is heretical for several reasons including the Sunnis’ belief that Muhammad was the last person to whom any angel spoke and that it is impossible for any human being, who is not a prophet, to be infallible. At the same time, the Shias reject all of the Sunni caliphs, except for Ali who ruled

8

Chapter 1

as the fourth caliph from 656 to 661, because the Shias believe that those and all subsequent caliphs unjustly took leadership of the Muslim community and that this leadership rightfully belonged to the twelve imams. 21 With respect to those imams and other aspects of Shia Islam, Shias typically believe that Islam provides guidance to humans about every aspect of life. 22 For Shias, Shia Islam addresses three spheres of human affairs: first, the spiritual lives of communities and individuals; second, the physical existence of communities and individuals; and third, the societal and governmental aspects of humans’ lives. Shias believe that the twelve imams provided Shias with proper guidance in these three areas. Shias also believe that the person who possesses the function of providing guidance in these three areas must be appointed by God and by the prophet Muhammad, which was the case with the twelve imams. At the same time, Muhammad himself was appointed through God’s command. In this way, God, knowing the need for proper succession and leadership within the Shia community, provided commands indicating that first the prophet Muhammad and then the twelve imams would have the responsibility of leading Muslims with wisdom and spiritual insight. 23 IMAM HUSAYN’S MARTYRDOM The martyrdom of Shia Islam’s third imam, Husayn, plays a central role in that branch of Islam for a variety of reasons, including the fact that what Shias believe to be his heroic actions in fighting against the Sunnis, who killed him, symbolize the struggles against all forms of evil and oppression that Shias have experienced historically and in their contemporary lives. Historically, Shias have ritually reenacted the martyrdom of Husayn during the tenth day (Ashura) of the Muslim month of Muharram by flagellating themselves (and thus ritually experiencing the pain of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom) and also acting in or watching the ta`ziyeh passion play, where different Shia actors play various characters who were present in the battle where Imam Husayn was martyred in 680 CE. Time and again, throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Shias have integrated religion and politics in the ta`ziyeh ritual, casting their own contemporary religious and political adversaries, whomever they may be, as the adversaries of Imam Husayn, and casting themselves as the righteous Imam Husayn and his allies who are just and fighting against evil. These ta`ziyeh rituals, which for Shias constitute immediate mystical experiences with Husayn’s martyrdom, carry with them deep feelings of sadness or pathos which are deeply embedded throughout Shia Islam. Shias often cry with great passion at these and related rituals because Husayn’s martyrdom is real to them. 24

Introduction

9

Shias believe that Imam Husayn was the second child of Ali, who was the first Shia Imam, and his wife Fatima, who was the daughter of Muhammad and his first wife Khadijah. 25 Husayn was an imam for ten years. A Sunni caliph, who ruled during the latter portion of Husayn’s life, was Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan who was the first caliph in the Umayyad Caliphate, which governed from its capital Damascus, a city in modern-day Syria, from 661 CE until approximately 750 CE. 26 Shias believe that Imam Husayn lived under the difficult conditions of suppression and persecution during the caliphates of Muawiyah and his son Yazid, who succeeded his father as Umayyad Caliph in 680 CE after his father’s death in that year. 27 Shias believe that because Ali and members of his family such as Hasan, who was the second Shia Imam, and his younger brother Imam Husayn, were perceived by the Sunni caliphs Muawiyah and Yazid as constituting a threat to their power, those caliphs enacted harsh policies toward them and members of their families. 28 Before Muawiyah’s death, he had requested that those powerful peoples who had lived under his caliphate, give Yazid, whom Muawiyah had designated as his successor as caliph, their allegiance. 29 However, Muawiyah had not required Imam Husayn to make this vow of allegiance. In addition, Muawiyah had conveyed to Yazid, in Muawiyah’s last will and testament, that if Husayn were to refuse to vow his allegiance to Yazid, then he should silently overlook the matter, because if he did not, then negative consequences would emerge. 30 According to Shias, Yazid disregarded his father’s advice and immediately after his father’s death, ordered the governor of Medina (a city in modern-day Saudi Arabia), where Imam Husayn lived, to force a vow of allegiance from Imam Husayn to Yazid, who conveyed to Medina’s governor that he wanted Imam Husayn’s head if Husayn did not comply with this demand. After Medina’s governor informed Imam Husayn of this demand, Imam Husayn, requested a delay for providing a response, and departed from Medina, with his family, for a trip to Islam’s Grand Mosque in Mecca, which is Islam’s most sacred earthly site. Around May of 680 CE, Imam Husayn sought protection there for nearly four months, in view of the fact that the Grand Mosque is, for Muslims, a generally-accepted site for refuge and security. According to Shias, while Imam Husayn was in Medina, he received a letter from the Muslims of Kufa, which is a city in modern-day Iraq, inviting him to that city and to accept the leadership of the people there with the goal of beginning a revolution against Yazid’s oppressive and unjust leadership. Imam Husayn’s stay in Mecca continued until the period of the hajj (or great Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) in 680 CE. Shias believe that Imam Husayn had discovered that some of Yazid’s followers had entered Mecca as pilgrims with the goal of killing Imam Husayn. Having learned of this conspiracy, Imam Husayn decided to leave at the same time that his fellow Muslims in Mecca were engaging in their Islamic rituals during the

10

Chapter 1

hajj. According to Shias, before Imam Husayn’s departure from Mecca, he gave a short speech to the pilgrims there announcing that he would soon be leaving for Iraq and that he would be martyred there. Among other ideas in his speech, he encouraged the Muslims spiritually, and emphasized the importance of Muslims offering their lives to God. 31 Imam Husayn knew that he would not vow his allegiance to Yazid and he also knew that he would be killed, partly as a result of that. 32 Shias believe that Imam Husayn possessed the knowledge that his death was inevitable in the face of the Umayyad Caliphate’s enormous military power and Yazid’s desire to eliminate Shia opposition, in Yazid’s continuing effort to consolidate his power, especially given the fact that he was only the second Umayyad caliph. While Imam Husayn was on the way to Kufa and still a few days away from that city, he received news that Yazid’s uncle in Kufa had put to death two strong supporters of Imam Husayn, whose feet had been tied as they were dragged through the streets. According to Shias, Kufa and its surroundings had been placed under strict observation and large numbers of soldiers, who were members of the Umayyad military, were awaiting Imam Husayn and his family. Shias believe that Imam Husayn’s only alternative was to march toward Kufa and face death. Even if Imam Husayn had decided to go somewhere else, supporters of the Umayyads would have still killed him in view of the fact that they controlled virtually that entire region of the Middle East. In the city of Karbala, approximately fifty miles from Kufa, Yazid’s army surrounded Imam Husayn, his family, and the other members of his group. According to Shias, Husayn and his entire entourage remained in this location for eight days as the military cordon around them narrowed and as the number of soldiers, who were in the Umayyad army surrounding them, increased. Eventually, Imam Husayn and all the members of his group were encircled by an army of thirty thousand hostile soldiers. Imam Husayn wanted to know for certain which soldiers in his entourage were fully loyal to him. At night, he ordered all of his soldiers to surround him, and in a short speech he stated that the only reality that remained was death and martyrdom for those who remained loyal to Imam Husayn. He stated that because the members of the Umayyad army were largely concerned with killing Husayn, he would free his soldiers from all obligations to him so that anyone who wished to escape from his army could do so in the darkness of night and preserve his life. 33 Then, Imam Husayn ordered that the lights be extinguished and most of the members of his army who had joined it for their own advantage, and were not fully loyal to Imam Husayn, departed. A relatively small number, all of whom were Imam Husayn’s closest and most loyal companions, stayed with him. For a second time, Imam Husayn invited those who remained to depart under the safety of the night’s darkness. In response, all of the people, who

Introduction

11

had previously decided to remain loyal to Imam Husayn, reconfirmed their loyalty to him, stating that they would defend him and his family to the last drop of their blood and as long as they could carry a sword. On the ninth day of the Islamic month of Muharram, the Umayyad army made a final declaration to Imam Husayn stating that he could swear allegiance to Yazid or face a certain war. Imam Husayn requested a delay in order to worship God during a portion of the night and he made his final decision to engage in combat during the next day. On the tenth day of Muharram (a day known as Ashura), Imam Husayn gathered his small group of followers, which was comprised of less than ninety, and they all fought until their final breath. Imam Husayn and almost everyone in his group, including several members of his family, were killed. 34 From a Shia perspective, after the Umayyad army largely ended that portion of the war, they stole everything from the living members of Imam Husayn’s group and burned their tents. Soldiers in the Umayyad army decapitated the bodies of the people, who were in Imam Husayn’s group, stripped them of their clothes, and threw the bodies to the ground without burial; all of which was intended to dishonor the members of Imam Husayn’s entourage. 35 The Umayyad army took several prisoners including Ali ibn Husayn, who was a twenty-two year old son of Imam Husayn and became the fourth Shia Imam, Muhammad ibn Ali, who became the fifth Shia Imam, and Hasan Muthanna, who was the son of the second imam and the son-in-law of Imam Husayn. 36 HUSAYN’S MARTYRDOM IN SHIA HISTORY, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND RITUALS The martyrdom of Imam Husayn is of profound importance to Shias, and its significance for them is difficult to exaggerate. 37 Although Abu Bakr’s illegitimate usurpation of Ali’s right to immediately succeed Muhammad as the leader of Muslims after Muhammad’s death is the event that initiated the Shia branch of Islam and helped justify it, Imam Husayn’s martyrdom gave Shia Islam a powerful impetus and played a crucial role in embedding its ideas in the minds of Shias. The martyrdom of Imam Husayn plays a central role in Shia rituals and beliefs. It is a primary way by which they understand their political and religious identities as Shias. For Shias, the fact that Imam Husayn was righteous and suffered gives them hope that they too can endure whichever kind of suffering they may face either at the hands of Sunnis or other forces, which may seek to harm them. Identifying with Imam Husayn in Shias’ daily lives and through the ta`ziyeh ritual once per year on the tenth of Muharram can provide Shias with strength when they are confronted with hardship. 38 In particular, during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,

12

Chapter 1

Shias in various parts of the world, including Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, have understood Imam Husayn’s piety and his martyrdom at Karbala as embodying religious and political resistance to all oppressive forces during his life. In the same manner, Shias in those countries look upon Imam Husayn, both in their daily lives and in the ta`ziyeh ritual, as a role model for their own religious and political resistance to anti-Shia forces either from their own countries or other countries, as those Shias have mobilized themselves religiously and politically. For their part, Sunnis have a strong tendency to downplay or ignore the martyrdom of Imam Husayn. While Sunnis may have different opinions about the Umayyad caliphs, including Muawiyah and Yazid, Sunnis ordinarily believe that Yazid and the Umayyad army were justified in quelling what they perceive as Imam Husayn’s and his family’s rebellion, in that those actions helped consolidate Sunni power and enabled the Umayyad dynasty to maintain order in the domains which it governed. These Sunnis would argue that revolts against Sunni caliphs or rulers, who have been put into positions of power justly, could create fitna (or disorder) in majority-Sunni Muslim societies and that those Sunni rulers have a responsibility to combat that fitna, while maintaining religious and political order. 39 In contrast, Shias have had a practice of cursing the first three Sunni caliphs, who played significant roles in establishing the oppressive Sunni caliphate in the first place and who, from a Shia perspective, were responsible for generating conflict and disorder among Muslims during and after the reign of the first three Sunni caliphs. 40 In addition to Shias’ sacred rituals related to Imam Husayn’s martyrdom, the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala, Iraq, is a mosque and the burial site of Imam Husayn. That shrine stands on the site of the Mausoleum of Imam Husayn near the place where he was martyred during the Battle of Karbala. The tomb of Imam Husayn is one of the holiest places for Shias, outside of Mecca and Medina, and large numbers of Shias make pilgrimages to the site. 41 Every year, millions of pilgrims visit Karbala to observe Ashura and participate in ta`ziyeh and other rituals, which relate to the anniversary of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom. Also, millions of people participate annually in the arba`een (40) rituals that occur in Karbala forty days after the Day of Ashura; those rituals also commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Husayn. 42 THE TWELFTH IMAM Another individual in Shia Islam, who has provided a significant symbolic religious and political catalyst for Shias, is the Twelfth Imam or Mahdi (the rightly guided one). The Mahdi, whose full name is Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Mahdi, was born in Samarra, Iraq, in 868 CE. 43 After the Mahdi’s father,

Introduction

13

who was the eleventh Shia Imam, was martyred in 872 CE, the Mahdi became the Twelfth Imam, who is also known by the title of the Hidden Imam. Soon after the martyrdom of the Mahdi’s father, by God’s command, the Mahdi went into sacred hiding, which is known as occultation. This first state of hiding is known as the minor or shorter occultation, and it lasted from 872 CE until 939 CE. During that period, the Twelfth Imam only appeared to a small number of his deputies, in exceptional circumstances, usually in order to respond to questions about religious matters. The Twelfth Imam had several such deputies, who served in succession to each other, and around the time of the last one’s death, it was made known that the Twelfth Imam’s minor occultation would end, and the major occultation would begin. 44 This major occultation, or era of sacred hiding for the Twelfth Imam, will continue until the day God will grant permission to the Twelfth Imam to exit from hiding and manifest himself to Shias and the world at large. Thus, Shias believe that God has granted the Twelfth Imam the miraculous power to live a life much longer than any other mortal and that he is hiding in a secret location or locations somewhere on earth. In view of the Twelfth Imam’s birthdate of 868 CE, in the year 2000 CE, for example, he would have been approximately 1,132 years old. Shias employ numerous hadiths and teachings of the Shia Imams to support their doctrine of the future appearance of the Mahdi. These hadith and teachings state that the Twelfth Imam, like all the other Shia Imams, is a descendant of the prophet Muhammad through Ali 45 and that his appearance will enable society to reach true perfection and the full realization of spiritual life. 46 According to these sacred Shia texts, after the Mahdi’s birth, he will undergo a long period of sacred hiding and then reappear, filling the world with justice and peace; thus supplanting all of the injustice and conflict, which has corrupted the world. 47 In addition to hadiths and the teachings of the imams, Shias also base their doctrine of the Mahdi on religious and philosophical arguments. Shias believe that ever since humans have inhabited the earth, they have wished to lead lives that are filled with happiness in its truest sense and they have striven toward this goal. If such a wish were not to have an objective existence, it would never have been imprinted upon human nature, in the same way that if there were no food, there would have been no hunger. Similarly, if there were no water, there would be no thirst, and if there were to be no reproduction, there would be no sexual attraction between the sexes. Therefore, according to this argument, by reason of inner necessity and determination, the future will see a day when human societies will be abundant with justice and when all will live in peace and tranquility. This will be a time when humans will fully possess virtue and perfection. The establishment of such a condition will occur primarily through God’s nurturing of humans toward this perfect condition. For Shias, the leader of this peaceful and just

14

Chapter 1

society will be the Mahdi, who will ultimately exit from his sacred hiding and reappear to lead all humans during this perfect future epoch. 48 One way that Shias set the idea of the Mahdi in historical and religious context is by referring to similar ideas in non-Islamic religions. For instance, Shias allude to references to saviors or similar figures who will manifest themselves or appear in the future, which are embedded in the belief systems of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Judaism. Shias state that members of these and other religions express happiness about the coming of such a savior or saviors, although Shias acknowledge that there are certain differences between and among these religions related to the specific ideas about such a savior or saviors. Shias are aware of at least two arguments that are made in opposition to their ideas of the Mahdi. One of these arguments involves the question of why God has waited so long to command the Mahdi to reappear, especially given the fact that there has been so much suffering, war, and injustice in the world. A typical Shia response to this critique is that because God is allknowing, all-loving, and all-powerful, he knows what is best for humanity and knows exactly when to command the Mahdi to reappear. In line with this argument, Shias state that humans’ knowledge is finite, compared to God’s knowledge which is infinite, and that humans’ finite knowledge cannot provide them with the correct understanding of when the Mahdi should reappear. 49 Another argument, which is made about the Mahdi by opponents of Shia Islam, is that it is impossible for any human being to live more than a thousand years. Shias respond by stating that this protest is based on the unlikelihood that a person would live for such a long period of time, not its impossibility. Shias acknowledge that a lifetime as long as the Mahdi’s or a longer one are both improbable, under normal circumstances. Yet, Shias, in defense of their position about the Mahdi’s extraordinarily long life, state that the Shia hadiths and the teachings of the Shia Imams refer to the Mahdi’s life as possessing miraculous qualities. Shias believe that miracles are not impossible, nor can they be negated through scientific arguments. Along these lines, Shias state that it cannot be proved that the causes and factors that are functioning in the world are only those that humans perceive, and that there may exist other causes, such as miraculous ones, which humans do not know. 50 Thus, for Shias, it is possible that in one or more human beings there can be causes and factors which bestow upon them a long life of a thousand or several thousand years. In this regard, Shias find opposition to the idea of the Mahdi’s long life to be particularly unusual, in that the people in those religions accept miracles from God, which appear in their sacred scriptures. 51 In addition, opponents of Shia Islam state that although Shias consider the Mahdi to be necessary in order to explain Shia Islam’s teachings and to guide Shias, the sacred hiding of the Mahdi negates that very purpose, because an

Introduction

15

imam in hiding, who cannot be reached by humans, cannot be beneficial or effective. Such opponents to Shia Islam state that if God wants to bring forth an imam to reform the world, God can enable such a person to be born at the necessary moment, and God does not need to create him centuries earlier. In response, Shias state that while the responsibilities of the Twelfth Imam include formally explaining Shia Islam in its obvious or outward manifestations, he also has the responsibility of explaining the hidden, mysterious meanings of Shia Islam. In this capacity, the Twelfth Imam has the responsibility of a spiritual leader who guides Shias’ spiritual lives and their inner actions toward God. For Shias, this spiritual, non-physical guidance does not require the Imam’s physical presence. He is capable of imparting his ideas to believers in miraculous and non-physical ways. Shias believe that the Twelfth Imam watches over human beings inwardly and is in spiritual communion with the spirits (or souls) of human beings, even if he is physically hidden from their eyes. Shias believe that the Twelfth Imam’s existence is always necessary even if the time has not yet arrived for his physical reappearance with respect to humans, and the universal peace and justice which he will bring soon after he reappears. 52 THE TWELFTH IMAM IN MODERN SHIA DISCOURSE The idea of the return of the Twelfth Imam has played a crucial role in the Shia political philosophy of several modern Shia intellectuals in the modern and contemporary periods such as in the revolutionary political philosophy of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was the main catalyst of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which toppled Iran’s secularist king, Muhammad Reza Shah, and replaced Iran’s secular government with that of a Shia Islamic republic. One of Khomeini’s arguments supporting a Shia Islamic republic in Iran and other places involved the idea that Shias had the responsibility of instituting and perpetuating an Islamic government which was the best that humans could administer and embodied the highest principles of Islam, including justice, peace, and equity, until the Twelfth Imam reappeared and instituted the best form of government. For Khomeini, that societal order would be one component of the perfect age that only the Twelfth Imam could establish. 53 The members of some Shia religious and political groups in other parts of the world, including Iraq and Lebanon, for example, also believe that the work which they do, or the Shia Islamic governments which they may establish in the future, are temporary (or provisional) until the Twelfth Imam eventually reappears. 54

16

Chapter 1

SUNNIS’ CRITIQUE OF SHIA ISLAM Sunni Muslims reject virtually every aspect of the Shias’ beliefs regarding all twelve of the Shia Imams, including virtually all of the Shias’ beliefs about the Twelfth Imam, his sacred hiding, and his reappearance after many centuries. 55 According to the Sunnis’ interpretations of the Quran and Hadith, there is no basis for believing in the Twelve Imams, including such concepts that angels guided the imams and that the imams are infallible. For Sunnis, the prophets who appear in the Quran (in a prophetic lineage from Adam to Muhammad) are virtually the only humans who can be considered perfect or near-perfect. In addition, according to the Sunnis’ interpretation of the Quran and Hadith, the last human to whom any angel spoke was the Prophet Muhammad, the final seal of all the prophets. For Sunnis, it is heretical (or contrary to accepted Sunni doctrine) to believe that anyone, other than the prophets, is perfect or to believe that angels speak to anyone after Muhammad, because God provided his final, perfect, and unchangeable revelations to him, primarily as those revelations appear in the Quran. 56 Sunnis also strongly reject the idea that the Twelfth Imam has gone into hiding, that he lived for any period longer than a normal lifespan, and that he will return to inaugurate a period of peace and justice. While Sunnis believe in the idea of a Mahdi, who may appear at or near the end of time to initiate a period of peace and justice, this figure will not return from a period of sacred hiding, rather he will be born at the necessary time and will live a normal life span. 57 Indeed, some Sunnis accuse Shias of bida, which means heretical innovations or unorthodox additions to Islamic belief and practice. 58 Thus, as this book examines the histories and ideologies of Shia religious and political mobilization in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, the religious similarities and differences between Shias and Sunnis underlie significant aspects of the discourse within these branches of Islam and disputes among their adherents. SAFAVID DYNASTY (1501–1736): IRAN’S CONVERSION TO SHIA ISLAM Before the Safavid Dynasty established itself in Iran, a substantial percentage of that country’s population was Sunni, with Shias comprising a minority of its population. In March 1501, Ismail, a fifteen-year-old descendant from the house of Safavi in northern Iran declared himself “King of Kings” and the founder of a new Shia state, which is named the Safavid Dynasty. 59 Soon after Ismail became Iran’s king, he ordered that all mosques in Iran recite the Shia version of the Islamic call to prayer instead of the Sunni one. The additional phrase in the Shia version “I witness that Ali is God’s friend”

Introduction

17

(wali-Allah) demonstrated, for Shias, the legitimate authority of Imam Ali and that of his descendants. 60 Ismail also issued a royal decree that required his subjects to publicly curse Sunni Islam’s first three caliphs, and if they did not do so, they were to be beheaded. Because there were very few people in Iran who had knowledge of Shia Islam, Ismail ordered the recruitment of Shia scholars from Lebanon, northern Syria, southern Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula. 61 Although Ismail did not adhere strongly to Shia law personally, he promoted Shia Islam with enthusiasm during his reign, believing that it would consolidate his rule. 62 At the beginning of his rule, Ismail adopted strategies to convert people to Shia Islam with the goals of creating a Shia state and society. He made these efforts in an environment where, in addition to Iran’s substantial Sunni population, the Ottoman Empire to the west of Iran, the Mughal Empire to the east and south, and areas in Central Asia to the north were governed by Sunnis and had large Sunni populations. 63 In waging war against Ismail’s rivals to the east and to the west, his method of conquest involved coercing people and promoting a Shia version of Islamic law by appointing Shia clerics, who represented his government, in the conquered areas. Safavid supporters of Ismail, called denouncers, demanded that their audiences affirm the curses which they expressed against the first three Sunni caliphs, while affirming loyalty to Ali and his family. These denouncers severely punished or killed people who resisted them, and massacred tens of thousands in that process of forced conversion. 64 Ismail and his Safavid supporters benefited from the support of Shia scholars from Jabal Amil in southern Lebanon who, with their knowledge of Shia Islam, aided the Safavids in the process of indoctrinating those within the Safavid domain to Shia Islam. By utilizing these and similar strategies, Ismail enabled Iran to become a majority Shia country. 65 Ismail also promoted Persian culture as and additional means of consolidating his rule and extending Safavid power. While he supported the forced spread of Shia Islam, he viewed his own kingship as following the legacy of Iran’s pre-Islamic kings. In this vein, Ismail supported the production of brilliant illustrated copies of the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), which is a national Iranian epic, deeply embedded in the consciousness of Iranians and written by Ferdowsi (940–1020). The Shahnameh, which Ferdowsi desired to write in the purest form of Farsi, narrates a mythical and, to some extent, the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Arab conquest of Iran in the seventh century. This epic has constituted a persuasive and enduring catalyst of Iranian ethnic identity. With the importance of the Shahnameh and Iranian national identity in mind, Ismail summoned great painters to his kingly court in order to create paintings which were in the style of class Iranian miniatures. He also named three of his four sons after legendary heroes of the Shahnameh. Subsequent Safavid kings continued supporting Persian culture well into the late sixteenth century by

18

Chapter 1

encouraging Persian painting and book production. Royal painters produced exquisite illustrated manuscripts of classical Persian texts and these forms of cultural production were exported to such places as the Mughal Empire. 66 Thus, Ismail’s and the Safavid Dynasty’s consolidation of power depended on its strengthening of Shia Islam and Persian culture in the areas which they governed. Over the course of decades and centuries, from the time Iran became majority Shia, that country’s differences with respect to non-Iranians who were not Shias, such as Arab Sunnis, became ethnic, cultural, and linguistic. THE SAFAVIDS AND SHIA CLERICAL AUTHORITY Ideas about Shia clerical authority predate the Safavids, although the Safavids, particularly after the middle of the sixteenth century, played a crucial role in strengthening and expanding Shia clerical power. 67 Shias believe that Shia clerics, known as ulama in Arabic, derive that title from the Arabic word `ilm, which in this case means religious knowledge. The Shia clerics can speak authoritatively because they have the expertise to interpret God’s message. In Shia Islam, the legitimate guardians and interpreters of Islamic law are the Twelve Imams and the Prophet Muhammad’s rightful family members and descendants. The Twelve Imams’ main function was to guide and educate the Shia community, and they transferred their religious knowledge and authority to Shia clerics after the Twelfth Imam went into hiding in 874. Initially, the Shia clerics transmitted the complete and comprehensive laws which the Twelve Imams had expressed. By the fourteenth century, Shias accepted the idea of the Shia clerics’ independent reasoning (ijtihad) as the process which the Shia clerics used to attain legal decisions. This methodology was the foundation for the Shia clerics’ legal authority. Over time, the Shia clerics assumed the leadership functions, which the Twelve Imams had possessed. The concept by which the clerics could act as the general deputy of the Twelfth Imam reached maturity in the first half of the sixteenth century. Among other responsibilities, the Shia clerics led prayers, declared religiously-justified war (jihad), imposed punishments, and collected religious taxes. 68 The Shia clerics’ significant religious and political power and the deep devotion which Shias have to individual clerics, have enabled those clerics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon to mobilize their followers in order to effect change in those contexts. IRAN, IRAQ, LEBANON, AND BEYOND In the context of these and related factors, chapter 2 of this book, “Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties,” examines the nineteenth- and twen-

Introduction

19

tieth-century histories of Russian, British, and American colonial endeavors in Iran, the cooperation of Iranian political leaders with those colonial endeavors, and the sharply contrasting ways which certain forms of Shia Islam became crucial vehicles for opposing those forms of colonialism, with that opposition coming to a climax in Iran’s Shia Islamic Revolution, which manifested itself in potent and visible ways in 1979. Chapter 3, “Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath,” provides a chronological, historical, and ideological analysis of the ways which Khomeini and other Iranian Shia leaders used Shia Islam to successfully mobilize Iranian Shia Muslims to overthrow Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s regime and to institute a Shia Islamic government. The chapter describes this government, for which Khomeini provided a blueprint, and the ways which it has attempted to serve Iranians while striving to provide a bulwark against Western colonialism, which religious and political leaders in Iran’s Islamic government believe had a terribly damaging effect on Iran religiously, politically, culturally, and economically before Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Chapter 4, “Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990,” analyzes the religious and political mobilization of Shias in Iraq from the end of World War I, through the periods of British colonization, Iraqi independence in 1932, and the run-up to the Iraqi military’s invasion of Kuwait in early August 1990. Among other topics, that chapter examines (1) the history and ideologies of Iraq’s Shia Dawa Party; (2) Iraqi Shias’ complex religious and political relationships with Iraqi Sunnis, and the nuanced—and at times contradictory relationships—between Iraqi and Iranian Shias; and (3) the ways which various Iraqi Shias’ religious and political identities formed as they increasingly asserted themselves religiously and politically in Iraq during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter 5, “Iraq from 1990 and Beyond,” analyzes (1) the political strengthening of Iraqi Shias in the aftermath of the Iraqi military’s withdrawal from Kuwait in 1991; (2) the Iraqi Shias’ growing opposition to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s government; (3) al-Qaida’s attacks against targets in New York City and Washington, DC, and the impetus, which those attacks provided for the US invasion of Iraq beginning in March 2003; (4) the ensuing civil war in Iraq, which among other combatants, included Iraqi Shias and Sunnis; (5) the formation of Shia militias and political parties during that civil war; (6) Shias’ political participation in Iraq’s newly-formed democratic system; (7) the rise, within Iraq, of Sunni Islamist groups, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS); (8) Shia opposition to those groups; and (9) the significant religious and political gains which Iran has made in Iraq, partly as a result of supporting certain Shia parties and militias in that country. Chapter 6, “Lebanon,” begins with the French colonialist mandate in Lebanon beginning after World War I and the environment which it created for Lebanon’s constitution of 1926 that became a template for Lebanon’s

20

Chapter 1

constitution after independence in 1943. The chapter also explains the religious composition of Lebanon including aspects of the political relationships between Muslims and Christians in Lebanon. The chapter continues by analyzing Shia religious and political mobilization in Lebanon as well as the establishment and development of Amal and Hezbollah, which are two of Lebanon’s most influential Shia political parties, and the ways which those parties have empowered the religious and political mobilization of Shias in Lebanon. In terms of this volume’s organization, the second through sixth chapters move geographically from east to west, with Iran being the easternmost country, Lebanon the westernmost, and Iraq more or less in between. Iran is a viable place to begin that set of chapters because of the vitality of Shia Islam in that country and the influence which Shia ideas and institutions in Iran have had on Shias in Iraq, Lebanon, and other places. Chapter 7, which is the book’s conclusion and is entitled “Future Prospects: Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the United States,” examines the prospects of (1) the US relationships with Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon as well as Shias in those countries and (2) Iran protecting its own borders and its allies in the Middle East. NOTES 1. The World Factbook, “Egypt,” www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook /geos/eg.html; The World Factbook, “Turkey,” www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/tu.html; The World Factbook, “Iran,” www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/ir.html (accessed April 12, 2018). 2. James M. Griffin, A Smart Energy Policy: An Economist’s Rx for Balancing Cheap, Clean, and Secure Energy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 21; Country Comparison—Natural Gas—Proved Reserves, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-fact book/rankorder/2179rank.html; International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2010 (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2010), 251–253. 3. Jalil Roshandel with Nathan Chapman Lean, Iran, Israel, and the United States: Regime Security vs. Political Legitimacy (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2011), 15. 4. V. G. Julie Rajan, Al Qaeda’s Global Crisis: The Islamic State, Takfir, and the Genocide of Muslims (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015), 48. 5. Michael Lipka, “Muslims and Islam: Key Findings in the U.S. and Around the World,” Pew Research Center, August 9, 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09 /muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/ (accessed March 28, 2018). 6. Conrad Hackett and David McClendon, “Christians Remain World’s Largest Religious Group, but They are Declining in Europe,” Pew Research Center, April 5, 2017, http://www .pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/05/christians-remain-worlds-largest-religious-group-butthey-are-declining-in-europe/ (accessed March 28, 2018). 7. All translations of the Quran are the author’s, from the original Arabic. 8. Laurence Louë r, Sunnites et Chiites: Histoire politique d’une discorde (Paris: Seuil, 2017), 13–70. 9. Frederick Matthewson Denny, An Introduction to Islam, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1994), 83. 10. Khalil Athamina, “Abu Bakr,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, Three, eds. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Kraemer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2015), n.p.

Introduction

21

11. An English translation of a relevant portion of Muhammad’s sermon is in Ludwig W. Adamec, “Ghadir al-Khumm,” in Historical Dictionary of Islam, 3rd ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), 143–144. 12. Robert M. Gleave, “Ali b. Abi Talib,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, Three, n.p. 13. Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i, Shi`ite Islam, trans. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977), 39. 14. Ibid., 39–40. 15. Ibid. 16. F. E. Peters, Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003), 133. 17. William A. Graham, Islamic and Comparative Religious Studies: Selected Writings (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 167. 18. Moojan Momen, Shi`i Islam: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld Publications: London, UK: 2016), 24. 19. Hussein Abdul-Raof, Theological Approaches to Qur’anic Exegesis: A Practical Comparative-Contrastive Analysis (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2012), 38, n. 5. The Twelfth Imam is also known as Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Askari and Muhammad al-Muntazar. 20. Hamid Mavani, Religious Authority and Political Thought in Twelver Shi`ism: From Ali to Post-Khomeini (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013), 52. 21. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991), 486–488. The word “imam” has different meanings among Shias and Sunnis respectively. While among Shias, “imam” typically refers to the twelve infallible leaders of the Shia community, in Sunni Islam that term typically refers to a person who leads prayer, usually in a mosque. One of several titles for Shia clerics who lead prayers in mosques is mullah. 22. Tabataba’i, Shi`ite Islam, 173. 23. Ibid., 173–190. 24. Mahmoud Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura in Twelver Shi`ism (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978), 23–51. 25. Ibid., 196. 26. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, 486–487. 27. Ibid., 487. 28. Tabataba’i, Shi`ite Islam, 196. 29. Ibid., 196–197. 30. Ibid., 197. 31. Tabataba’i, Shi`ite Islam, 197–198. 32. Ibid., 198. 33. Ibid., 198–199. 34. Ibid.,199. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., 199–200. 37. Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi`i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi`ism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 32–33. 38. Ibid., 33. 39. Shemeem Burney Abbas, Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws: From Islamic Empires to the Taliban (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013), 45–46. 40. Ibid., 46. 41. Momen, An Introduction to Shi`i Islam, 33. 42. Norbert C. Brockman, “Karbala, Iraq,” in Encyclopedia of Sacred Places, 2nd ed., vol. 1, A-M, (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 270–272. 43. Tabataba’i, Shi`ite Islam, 210. 44. Ibid., 210–211. 45. Clinton Bennett, In Search of Muhammad (London, UK: Cassell, 1999), 159. 46. Tabataba’i, Shi`ite Islam, 212. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., 212.

22

Chapter 1

49. Ibid., 212–213. 50. Ibid., 213–214. 51. Ibid., 214. 52. Ibid. 53. Abbas Amanat, Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi`ism (London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 199, 221. 54. Patrick Cockburn, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq (New York: Scribner, 2008), 102–103. See also Joseph Alagha, Hizbullah’s Identity Construction (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011), 50. 55. Gabriel Warburg, Islam, Sectarianism, and Politics in Sudan since the Mahdiyya (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 22–23. 56. Mike Shuster, “The Origins of the Shiite-Sunni Split,” NPR (National Public Radio in the United States), February 12, 2007, https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2007/02/12 /7332087/the-origins-of-the-shiite-sunni-split (accessed April 12, 2018). 57. Warburg, Islam, Sectarianism, and Politics in Sudan, 22–23. 58. Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, The No-Nonsense Guide to Islam (London, UK: New Internationalist Publications / Verso, 2004), pp. 62–63. 59. Abbas Amanat, Iran: A Modern History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 33. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid., 47. 63. Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 93. 64. Amanat, Iran: A Modern History, 47–48. 65. Ibid., 48. 66. Ibid., 69. 67. Elvire Corboz, Guardians of Shi`ism: Sacred Authority and Transnational Family Networks (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 4–6. 68. Ibid.

Chapter Two

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

During and after the nineteenth century, the histories and Middle East policies of several European countries, including those of Russia, Britain, and the United States, have been tied to Iran. Significant penetrations of Western power into Iran began relatively early in the nineteenth century around the time of Iran’s Qajar dynasty which ruled from 1794 until 1925. Before, during, and after that period, there was a vigorous colonial rivalry between Britain and Russia for influence in the Middle East and Central Asia, with Iran constituting one locus of that rivalry. Because of Russia’s ongoing desire for warm-water ports and increased levels of power in the region, it was interested in having political and economic influence in the Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf, and nearby territories. At the same time, Iran itself, because of its central geographic position and natural resources, was important to Russian interests. 1 One objective of British policy in the region involved preventing Russia from having substantial influence in Iran, which in the early years of the nineteenth century, included Afghanistan. RUSSIA, BRITAIN, AND IRAN: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Within this context, ever since 1804 the Russians had pursued a campaign of expansion at Iran’s expense in the Caucasus region. In 1812, the Russians won a significant victory against the Iranians, which, among other factors, resulted in the Treaty of Golestan in 1813, which put Iran in a position where it lost five cities in the Caucasus region and surrendered its claims to Georgia and Dagestan. In return, the Russians promised to support the claims of Qajar

23

24

Chapter 2

crown prince Abbas Mirza to the throne, although Abbas Mirza never became king, largely because he predeceased his father, Fath Ali Shah. 2 In accepting the support of Russia, Abbas Mirza was inviting that country to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs; Great Britain, in its desire to wield influence in Iran and counteract Russia, joined Russia in supporting Abbas Mirza. After that, a Russian and British minister accompanied every Qajar crown prince, except the last, to Tehran when he ascended to the throne. 3 By 1826, disputes between Iran and Russia over the ambiguous appropriations of borders and territories between those two countries under the Treaty of Golestan had increased tensions and were a set of contributing factors, among others, that catalyzed Abbas Mirza into leading Iranian soldiers into combat against the Russians in the Caucasus region beginning in July 1826. Iran lost that war, and the Treaty of Turkmenchay, which Iran and Russia signed in 1828, emerged as a result of it. In accordance with that treaty, Iran lost all of its disputed territory in the Caucusus and granted economic concessions and privileges of extraterritoriality for Russian subjects and property in Iran, while it paid Russia an enormous amount of money for war reparations. 4 In this case, “privileges of extraterritoriality” means that Russian citizens in Iran were subject to the laws of Russia and not to the laws of Iran, which meant that they were immune from the jurisdiction of Iranian courts, for example. 5 These treaties also created an environment where several non-Muslim (and mostly European) states came to obtain a series of commercial and diplomatic concessions, in Iran, known as capitulations. These agreements, which were tremendously disadvantageous to most Iranians, exempted foreign merchants from high import duties, internal tariffs, travel restrictions, and the jurisdiction of local courts. These treaties, together with the opening of the Suez Canal and extension of Russian railways into the Caucasus and other parts of central Asia, played key roles in several Western countries’ penetration of and colonialist stance toward Iran. This gave rise to the idea among Iranians that foreign countries were the true conspirators in Iran, that foreign conspiracies influenced virtually all events in Iran, and that foreign countries caused almost every problem and crisis in that country. 6 Within this political atmosphere in the mid-nineteenth century, Britain largely succeeded in its military ventures for the gaining of territory in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, which were key geostrategic areas for Britain and which Iran surrendered with little resistance, resulting in the Treaty of Paris that was signed by Iran and Britain in 1857. According to that agreement, Iran agreed to evacuate Afghanistan and to a stipulation that required it to use Britain as an intermediary in any future disputes with Afghanistan, both of which were greatly to Britain’s advantage. 7

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

25

THE TOBACCO PROTEST Within this context of declining Iranian and increasing Western influence within the country, the Qajar king, Naser al-Din Shah, made numerous economic and political concessions to Western powers, including Britain. He made these concessions partly because he was a profligate spender and partly because the Qajar state was running deficits of approximately $1 million per year. Because of the Iranian state’s weakness, it was incapable of rectifying these deficits through the raising of tax revenue. 8 This circumstance led to one of the best-known concessions in Iranian history and to nation-wide resistance known as the “Tobacco Protest” of 1891 and 1892. 9 These protests constituted significant events in Iran’s early stages as a modern nation-state and created a template for future religious and political protests in the country. Iran’s prime minister, Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Soltan, negotiated a concession with Major Gerald Talbot, a British subject, which would enable Talbot to form the Imperial Tobacco Corporation. In exchange for an outright payment to the king of Iran plus a yearly rent and 25 percent of the profits, that British corporation would obtain exclusive rights for fifty years to the production, sale, and export of all tobacco in Iran. 10 Because tobacco was widely used in Iran, this concession would have effected a very large percentage of Iran’s population. 11 Muslim clerics and others in Iran, who were opposed to the concessions, wrote newspaper articles and distributed other materials, which criticized the concessions. 12 Later, public protests, which were directed against the tobacco concessions, took place in Shiraz, a city in western Iran, with merchants closing the main marketplace (or bazaar) and a Muslim cleric calling for war against the tobacco company, using an interpretation of Islam as justification for it. Similar public protests took place in other cities. 13 Later, a fatwa (that is a religious and legal opinion issued by an expert Muslim cleric), which the prominent Shia cleric Mirza Hasan Shirazi wrote and issued in Tehran, prohibited the use of tobacco. 14 This fatwa catalyzed a boycott of tobacco amid further protests, which led to Iran’s Qajar king at the time, Naser al-Din, to cancel the tobacco concessions. 15 After that cancellation, Shirazi sent a message ending the boycott. 16 The Tobacco Protest and the cancellation of the tobacco concessions, which followed from it, play a significant role in the ways which Iranians interpret and imagine the history of their country, especially in terms of the Shia clergy’s role in Islam and politics in Iran. A coalition of reformist intellectuals, merchants, and rank-and-file Iranians, which was led by a religiously and politically active Shia clergy who worked within a focused movement against a corrupt Iranian government, constituted the Tobacco Protest’s leadership. 17 These protests were vivid public manifestations of Iranians’ strong opposition to Iran’s government selling that country’s important inter-

26

Chapter 2

ests to a powerful foreign country. At the same time, those protests prefigure later protest movements in Iran in terms of composition and tactics. 18 MORE FOREIGN DEALMAKING Yet, the tobacco concessions did not constitute the last time that Iranian political leaders made agreements with foreign countries which were disadvantageous to Iran. For example, during the rule of Iran’s king Mozaffar alDin, who succeeded Naser al-Din and ruled from 1896 until 1907, one of Mozaffar al-Din’s ministers negotiated a financial loan arrangement with Russia, where a portion of the money which Russia loaned to Iran was used by Iran to pay that country’s foreign loans, with the stipulation that Iran was prohibited from borrowing from other countries for ten years. This agreement ensured Iran’s virtually complete indebtedness to Russia during that period. 19 The Iranian government would repay the loan from the revenues generated through a new customs administration in Iran, under Belgian supervision. 20 At around the same time, in 1901, King Mozaffar al-Din signed an agreement giving William Knox D’Arcy (a wealthy British-born businessman who was a founder of the oil and petrochemical industry in Iran) exclusive rights for sixty years for the use of virtually all of Iran’s gas and petroleum resources, except for the country’s five northern provinces. 21 In return D’Arcy provided £40,000 in cash and stocks plus 16 percent of future profits. At the time, this arrangement was risky for D’Arcy, and by 1905 he was almost bankrupt. 22 However, at the time, British officials were considering having that country’s navy switch from coal to oil for fuel, and helped arrange for the Burmah Oil Company (a Scottish-registered company with its head office in Glasgow) to back D’Arcy. 23 Finally, after coming close to ceasing its search for oil, this company struck oil in 1908, which led to the establishment of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909, with Britain’s government taking a controlling interest in that company in order to serve its needs with respect to World War I. 24 King Mozzafar al-Din profited personally from these arrangements and used the money he garnered for such selfish ventures as expensive trips to Europe. 25 All of these economic factors played a crucial role in creating the environment for Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, which took place between 1905 and 1911 and similar factors, later in Iran’s history, led to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. 26 The reestablishment of foreign economic endeavors had a very negative effect on the bazaaris (who were the merchants in Iran’s marketplaces), guild masters, and moneylenders, who had been at the most important centers of Iran’s economy. 27 The Iranian government granted foreigners favored customs rates with respect to imports and exports, and in doing so it created

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

27

hardships for local merchants to compete successfully. In addition, the import of relatively low-cost manufactured goods, especially textiles, had a deleterious effect on local craft industries, creating discontent. IRAN’S CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION (1905–1911) A group that was involved in coordinating Iran’s Constitutional Revolution was comprised of European-oriented Iranian reformers including intellectuals, civil servants, and military officers, who were somewhat unified in their opposition to royal corruption and foreign influence in Iran. They believed that Iran was regressing under the Qajars and that significant reforms had to be implemented in order to strengthen Iran politically, economically, and militarily. These reform-minded people believed that constitutional government was a crucial component for strengthening Iran in these and other ways. 28 Shia clerics also played a substantial role in the Constitutional Revolution. Indeed, on several occasions during that revolution, Shia clerics provided leadership in terms of offering bast (an Iranian custom of providing protection against arrest to anyone who goes to a religious building for refuge) to protestors and their allies, who may have feared retaliation at the hands of Iran’s government for their actions. 29 A segment of Iran’s Shia clerics had close connections with the bazaaris, and members of the Shia establishment suffered financially from the foreign businesses which were operating in Iran. Also, King Muzaffar al-Din’s policies of concessions and favoritism toward foreign businesses and governments for personal gain, created a social and economic environment similar to the one which played a role in catalyzing the Tobacco Protest in 1891, during which Shia clerics had criticized King Naser al-Din for contravening Islamic principles. 30 In the periods before and during Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, there were Shia clerics who were concerned about maintaining their independence from Iran’s government. They may have looked upon the Constitutional Revolution as an opportunity to protect their independence for the present and future, while believing that a constitution could possibly increase their influence in Iran. 31 The Constitutional Revolution benefited Shia clerics by means of proposed constitutional clauses, which stated that Shia Islam would be Iran’s official state religion and that a committee of Shia clerics would review all new legislation in order to vouchsafe its compliance with Islamic law. A first stage of the Constitutional Revolution started with a series of public protests in Iran in December 1905 and concluded in 1906, when King Muzaffar al-Din, confronted by large anti-government demonstrations, which were led by bazaaris, the Shia clerics, and reformers, acceded to the

28

Chapter 2

protestors’ demands and signed a declaration, which brought into existence a constitutional assembly for Iran. The first assembly met in October 1906 and composed two constitutional provisions which modified apportionments of political power in Iran. The first provision, which is commonly referred to as the “Fundamental Law,” curtailed the king’s authority by giving a parliament with elected members final decision-making power with respect to loans, concessions, treaties, and budgets. 32 King Mozzafar al-Din signed the Fundamental Laws, while on his deathbed, on December 30, 1906. 33 The second provision, entitled the Supplementary Fundamental Laws, elucidated the rights of Iranian citizens and granted Iran’s parliament additional authority, including influence with respect to the appointment and dismissal of governmental ministers. 34 King Mozzafar al-Din’s successor, King Muhammad Ali, hesitantly approved the Supplementary Fundamental Laws in the latter part of 1907. 35 At the same time, King Muhammad Ali wanted to reassert his authority and that of the Qajar dynasty. The fact that Iran’s economy was deteriorating, together with inflation and high food prices, created significant amounts of dissatisfaction with the parliamentary form of government, thus generating support for more royal power. Some supporters of monarchical rule aligned themselves with certain Shia clerics in order to castigate the supporters of Iran’s constitution as atheists in an attempt to encourage Iranians to support the king. In this turgid milieu, the British and the Russians signed an agreement in August 1907 which stated that these two countries would divide Iran into spheres of influence, which would serve the interests of those two foreign powers. Under the terms of this agreement, Britain would control the southeastern portion of Iran, Russia would control northern Iran, and a neutral zone would be established in the central part of the country. In the context of this territorial division, the royalists, who were opposed to the constitution, were in a position to proclaim that the constitutional form of government had been even less effective than the king’s in maintaining Iran’s independence from foreign countries. In the midst of increasing dissatisfaction with the government and with the situation in Iran as a whole, King Muhammad Ali led a counterrevolution in June 1908. He sent a military brigade to close Iran’s parliament, while arresting and executing leading constitutionalists and reinstituting kingly authority in Tehran. Iran entered eleven months of civil war, which ended in August 1909. 36 During the next two years, there were serious disputes in Iran’s parliament between reformers, on the one hand, and a coalition of merchants and Shia clerics on the other. The previous alliance, which had been unified in its opposition to the Qajars, fragmented with respect to such areas as (1) the relationship between the government and Shia clerics, (2) equal rights for non-Muslim minorities in Iran, and (3) the expansiveness and pace of social

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

29

reforms. The verbal disagreements in Iran’s parliament manifested themselves as armed conflicts in Tehran between and among supporters of various political ideologies. In the midst of political instability in Tehran and other parts of the country, British soldiers landed in Bushehr, Iran, which is on the Persian Gulf, in 1911, in order to protect the British sphere of influence in southeastern Iran. As the British were occupying portions of their sphere of influence in southern Iran, Russia invaded northern Iran. In November 1908, the Russians threatened to occupy Tehran unless Iran’s government accepted the Russians’ demand for the dismissal of a newly appointed American financial advisor in Iran. After Iran’s parliament rejected the Russians’ demand, Iran’s prime minister and cabinet dissolved the convening of parliament and granted the Russians their demands, thus bringing the period of Iran’s Constitutional Revolution to a close. IRAN, BRITAIN, RUSSIA, AND THE SOVIET UNION DURING AND AFTER WORLD WAR I In the run-up to World War I, which began in 1914, Iran’s parliament remained suspended and Iranian governmental ministers, who were being closely observed by British and Russian officials, governed the country. At the same time, Russia continued to have its sphere of influence in northern Iran, while Britain maintained its sphere of influence in the southern part of the country. Through Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, the country had established a constitution and reduced the authority of the Qajar kings. Yet, in the process of that revolution and in its aftermath certain divisions within the country became magnified. In this context, while the alliance of Shia clerics, merchants, and reformers became weakened during the period of the Constitutional Revolution and after it concluded, the objective which had been a unifying force among these groups, namely the reduction of foreign intervention in Iran’s affairs, had been undercut. 37 In spite of these disappointing results, there are relatively consistent patterns among the Tobacco Protest, the Constitutional Revolution, Mohammad Mosaddegh’s rise to power as Iran’s prime minister in the early 1950s (and the temporary departure of King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from Iran in 1953), and Iran’s Islamic Revolution, which began in 1979. 38 These patterns are comprised of 1. a desire to free Iran, to the extent possible from foreign, and particularly Western intervention, which relates to Iranians’ suspicions of foreign involvement in the country’s domestic and international policies;

30

Chapter 2

2. an aspiration to enable Iran to exercise its own sovereignty and independence with respect to a wide variety of areas including the political, governmental, economic, religious, and cultural spheres; 3. a hope on the part of at least some Iranians, particularly with respect to the Constitutional Revolution, Mosaddegh’s rise to power, and Iran’s Islamic Revolution that the country would become more democratic; and 4. the significant participation of Shia clerics and bazaaris in the Tobacco Protest, the Constitutional Revolution, Mosaddegh’s rise to power, and Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Events related to World War I, which lasted from 1914 until 1918, played a role in weakening the power of Iran’s government, damaging that government’s sovereignty, and weakening Iran’s economy. 39 Although the Qajar king Ahmad Shah, who succeeded the Qajar king Muhammad Ali in 1909, presided over his monarchical court in Tehran, an enormous amount of political and economic power in Iran during World War I rested in the hands of British and Russian officials. Russia’s influence was somewhat reduced as a result of the withdrawal of Russian soldiers in Iran, which was precipitated by Russia’s revolution in 1917. 40 In the period from 1918 until 1921, as Britain continued to protect its oil interests in Iran and as it responded to what it believed could be threats to its influence in that country as a result of Russia’s revolution, Britain took steps to increase its power. Britain paid large financial subsidies to Iran’s government, which played a crucial role in enabling that government to function. British officials also invested enormous amounts of time and effort into restructuring Iran’s military, which resulted in British officials’ increased influence on and knowledge of it. The British also attempted to affect political groups in Iran in such a way that would serve Britain’s interests, all to the deep frustration of large numbers of Iranians, including Shia clerics, who resented British and other foreign influence in the country. 41 In 1919, the British government issued the Anglo-Persian Agreement, stating that it would provide Iran a loan in exchange for Britain having the exclusive right to give Iran future loans, arms, governmental advisors, military advisors, and teachers (among other restrictive terms). Anti-British demonstrations took place in a number of Iranian cities to express the demonstrators’ dissatisfaction with the Iranian government, which they viewed as largely incompetent and pro-British. 42 On February 21, 1921, Reza Khan, a general in the Cossack Brigade, led a group of approximately three thousand men into Tehran, effectuating a successful coup. Reza Khan declared martial law, won the support of the local military units, and installed as Iran’s new prime minister Sayyed Ziya Tabatabai. 43 Reza Khan cancelled the AngloIranian agreement, and signed a Soviet-Iranian agreement, where the Soviets

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

31

agreed to withdraw from Iran’s northern province of Gilan and to cancel all previous (that is, czarist) loans, claims, and concessions, except the Russian fisheries in the Caspian Sea. However, the Russians reserved the right to return to Iran militarily if a third power ever invaded Iran and posed a threat to the Soviet Union. 44 During the final period of the Qajar dynasty, Reza Khan became army chief, then war minister, then premier, and after that, commander-in-chief of the armed forces. 45 In 1925, he convened a constituent assembly which in a meeting in that same year voted to give the monarchy to Reza Khan and his family. Reza Khan deposed Ahmad Shah, who was the last Qajar king, accepted the crown as the first Pahlavi king, and appointed his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as his eventual successor. He remained Iran’s king until 1941 when the British and the Soviets invaded Iran (known as the “Anglo-Soviet Invasion”), which is when Reza Khan’s son succeeded him as king. Under both of these Pahlavi kings, foreign power and influence increased enormously within Iran, creating the groundwork for later Shia and secular protests in the country. 46 REZA SHAH, WESTERNIZATION, AND SECULARIZATION After Reza Khan became Iran’s king, he was known as Reza Shah. During his time as Iran’s king, he worked to make significant changes within Iran, including the government itself, its military, cultural customs, the government’s relationship with Shia clerics, and education. 47 In the realm of governmental affairs, for example, elections to Iran’s parliament were held regularly during Reza Shah’s time as king; however, his political maneuvering, which were intended to serve his own interests, made those elections virtually meaningless. 48 He controlled the political system, and Iran’s parliament simply approved Reza Shah’s legislative proposals in lockstep with his wishes. Reza Shah reinforced his political power and extended his authority through abolishing political parties, prohibiting labor unions, and arresting and, in some cases, seeing to the killing of various officials who opposed him. He built the size of Iran’s military to one hundred thousand personnel, which included armored brigades, an air force, and a navy. As a way of enforcing his authority, Reza Shah fostered a close relationship with the military and attempted to strengthen his connections with Iran’s military officers by providing them with lucrative salaries, a luxurious club in Tehran, and the opportunity to purchase land at discounted prices. The king generated an enormous expansion in the number of administrative positions in the government, creating large groups of governmental employees, whose jobs depended on his reforms. Reza Shah obtained large amounts of land, the financial proceeds from which he used to establish hotels, casinos, and chari-

32

Chapter 2

table organizations. Through a patronage system, he gave jobs within those entities to people who supported his rule. 49 Reza Shah worked to secularize Iran’s society, and he did so, in part, by attempting to secularize Iran’s laws and court system. 50 He reduced the role of Shia clerics in Iran’s court system by putting in place a hierarchy of state courts in which secular judges and other government officials replaced Shia clerics as judges. These state judges had the power to decide which cases would go to Iran’s Islamic courts and which cases would go to the secular state courts. The Sharia itself and Iran’s Islamic law courts, which operated on the basis of Sharia, were not abolished, rather the kinds of cases on which those courts ruled related almost exclusively to family law. 51 Reza Shah also weakened the financial independence of the Shia clerics. A law, which was ratified in 1932, terminated the Shia clerics’ right to register legal documents, and in 1939 the government announced that it was seizing all religiously-owned lands, which had been specially endowed and protected and are known in Islamic law as waqf. 52 The king’s negative policies toward the Shia clerics reduced their power considerably, which became a reason for later Shia-based protests against Iran’s government. 53 Reza Shah’s policies of secularization also extended to areas of cultural practices and customs, which were offensive to some Shia sensibilities. For example, a law was approved in 1928 which required men to wear European-style clothing, and beginning in 1935, Iranians were required to wear hats. 54 In 1936, Iran banned women from wearing what Muslims often believe to be the required Islamic body coverings and Islamic headscarves or veils. When male government officials attended official governmental receptions with their wives, the Iranian government encouraged the wives to be unveiled. 55 The Iranian government also forbade segregation of women and men in public places, which violated traditional understandings of Islam. Some of the most far-reaching changes in Iranian society took place with respect to education. The Iranian government devoted more funds to education, which had a number of effects including a sharp increase in the number of students enrolled in primary schools and secondary schools. The Iranian government also established Tehran University, which was secular. In addition to that university’s work within Iran, it awarded approximately one hundred government scholarships for study in European universities. A relatively high percentage of secondary-school and university graduates became government employees and created a unique administrative group within Iran’s government, who possessed similar educational backgrounds and similar approaches toward governmental and societal reform. There were Iranian Shias who viewed the secularization of education as antithetical to Islam. 56 Consistent with those and other moves which Reza Shah made toward secularization, he attempted to create a uniform national secular culture within Iranian society as a whole, which was challenging, given Iran’s large

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

33

number of ethnolinguistic groups. Reza Shah attempted to engender this secular culture by emphasizing the history, achievements, symbols, and cultural manifestations of Iran’s ancient empires, all of which predated Islam, a religion whose early soldiers first entered Iranian territory during the Sasanian Empire in 633 CE. 57 The curricula of the public schools encouraged pro-Iranian (in contrast to pro-Islamic or pro-religious) ideas and sentiments. Movements, which were similar to the boy and girl scouts, were established in order to foster nationalistic outlooks among Iran’s young people. 58 Reza Shah attempted to ban the use of minority languages in Iran (which were languages other than Farsi or Persian that are two words for the same language and is the most widely-spoken language in the country), although that ban was largely unsuccessful in view of the fact that a relatively large number of languages, in addition to Farsi, continue to be used in the country. He also outlawed types of clothing which were specific to minority ethnic groups in Iran and he attempted to limit the number of Arabic and Turkish words, which were used in Farsi. The Iranian government also established the Society of Public Guidance in order to nurture Iranian nationalism through radio broadcasts and the distribution of pamphlets, journals, and other publications. 59 Reza Shah’s reforms fit into a broader pattern in the Middle East during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Muhammad Ali Pasha, who ruled Egypt from 1805 until 1848, enacted similar modernizing, Westernizing, and secularist reforms there, as did the Ottoman leaders in their empire through the Tanzimat reforms, which they implemented between 1839 and 1876. 60 REZA SHAH, IRAN’S ECONOMY, AND OIL Reza Shah also enacted policies which exacerbated the hardships of the economically disadvantaged in Iran. For instance, in his efforts to increase revenue from within Iran for that country’s government, he implemented indirect taxes on consumer items such as tea, sugar, and tobacco, in such a way that negatively affected the poor in Iran. He also established policies which directly fostered a situation which strengthened the positions of large landowners over their tenants and worsened the quality of life of peasants who worked on those lands. Reza Shah’s government implemented policies that allowed landowners to increase the amount of property, which they owned, to such an extent that by the mid-1930s approximately 95 percent of the rural population was landless. 61 These policies formed a crucial part of Reza Shah’s patronage system. In this effort, he tried to win the support of powerful families, who benefited from his land policies, by offering them government positions and creating conditions which would increase the likelihood of their election to Iran’s parliament. Unfortunately, Reza Shah’s

34

Chapter 2

policies toward the poor were pointedly exploitive. 62 Indeed, in the run-up to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a crucial leader of that revolution, sharply criticized the unfair manner in which Iran’s underprivileged had been treated. He promised to rectify the injustices and to significantly improve their conditions after the revolution would take place. 63 While several of Reza Shah’s policies, which were in part directed toward making Iran free from the foreign dependence, under which the Qajar kings and others had placed on Iran, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) was a foreign business, which the Shah was not able to control to the extent that he may have wished. The AIOC operated with enormous independence in Iran’s oil-rich province of Khuzestan, which is in western Iran and just north of the Persian Gulf. 64 That company had influence in Iran, in part, because, with over thirty thousand Iranians on its payroll, it was the largest industrial employer in the country. 65 After four years of negotiations between the Iranian government and the AIOC, an agreement was signed in 1933 (which modified the D’Arcy concession of 1901) that gave Iran an increase in the annual royalty payments, from 16 percent to 20 percent of the AIOC’s worldwide profits, and a guarantee of a minimum annual payment of £750,000 to Iran’s government. 66 In return, the Iranian government agreed to lengthen the concession to 1993 from its scheduled termination date of 1961. 67 Unfortunately for the Iranian government, this agreement generated small increases, at best, in terms of Iran’s revenues from oil. It also provided Iran with virtually no progress with respect to the Iranian government’s claims to sovereignty over the oil resources which were within Iran itself. The sharp differences of opinion between the Iranian government, on the one hand, and the AIOC and the British government, on the other, became a cause of hostile disagreements between Iran and Britain in the years after World War II. Also, in later years, Iranians came to deeply resent these and similar concessions, and these grievances became significant catalysts which led to the election of Mohammad Mosaddegh as Iran’s prime minister in 1951 and Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Britain’s assertion of power and virtual ownership in Iran’s oil-producing areas as well as its continuing influence in southern portions of Iran frustrated Reza Shah. He attempted to oppose this and other forms of British influence by fostering diplomatic and business relationships with Germany. In the late 1930s, Germany became Iran’s largest foreign commercial partner, and German workers engaged in various forms of labor and business in Iran. When World War II began, the Iranian government declared that country’s neutrality, but the governments of Britain and the Soviet Union viewed Iran distrustfully because members of those governments knew about Iran’s strong relationships with Germany. After the German military invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Iran became a significant arena for the geostrategic and geopolitical goals of countries directly engaged in World War II. In

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

35

order for the British and Soviets to establish the “Persian Corridor” supply route from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Union, the British and the Soviets invaded Iran in August 1941. 68 The Iranian army was defeated and the government surrendered after that invasion. 69 On September 16, 1941, Reza Shah abdicated his position as king in favor of his twenty-one year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi; Reza Shah went into exile, first to British Mauritius and then to South Africa, where he died in 1944. IRAN DURING AND AFTER WORLD WAR II During World War II, Britain and the Soviet Union divided Iran into their traditional zones of influence with the Soviets controlling much of the northern part of the country and the British occupying the southern part, which included Iran’s oil assets. 70 This was similar to the situation in Iran during the late-nineteenth century and during World War I. The two powers established a neutral zone (which included Iran’s capital Tehran) in the central part of the country which was ostensibly under the control of Iran. In 1942, the United States stationed soldiers in the country as part of the allied war effort. 71 From the perspective of the allied powers, the occupation of Iran was crucial to their goals in the war since Iran produced oil that was essential to the allies, it was close to other oil-producing nations near the Persian Gulf, and it provided vital roads, highways, and railway corridors for the transport of war materiel and other supplies from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Union. Iran was a geopolitical linchpin for the allies as they attempted to block Nazi Germany’s military and political influence in Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. The British and Soviet actions in Iran during World War II constituted significant violations of Iran’s sovereignty and national dignity. The negative emotions and memories that these events carried in the minds of Iranians have persisted throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and have played a role in catalyzing anti-Western and, subsequently, antiAmerican attitudes, which played a substantial role in generating Iran’s Islamic Revolution. 72 In 1942, the United States deployed thousands of soldiers to Iran to help maintain the Persian Corridor. In addition, American civilians and military personnel worked as advisers to Iran’s government and facilitated changes, mostly in the forms of what the Americans viewed as Westernization, modernization, and increased efficiency, in such areas as financial administration, domestic security, and military organization. Through these and other means, the United States established the foundation for what was to become its involvement in Iranian government and society after World War II. 73 In the wake of that war, the United States continued its relationship with Muhammad Reza Shah with the goals of assisting Iran in drilling, refining, and

36

Chapter 2

exporting oil, while using Iran as a military and political buffer against the possibility of Soviet expansion into the Middle East. 74 In this post–World War II context, political instability and foreign interference undermined Iran’s government and economy in the late 1940s. As this turmoil continued, one significant question, with respect to who would govern Iran was: Would Iran’s parliament, which was elected, together with that country’s cabinet govern the country or would Mohammad Reza Pahlavi perpetuate his own rule over the country as his father Reza Shah Pahlavi had done? In the context of this question, in the early 1950s, a far-reaching protest movement in Iran contested Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s rule in view of British and the US influence in Iran. This movement eventually was one of several factors which contributed to Mohammad Mosaddegh, who was an Iranian politician, parliamentarian, author, administrator, and lawyer, being elected prime minister of Iran in 1951. 75 MOHAMMAD MOSADDEGH A reason that Mosaddegh and the National Front political party, which he founded, gained significant political traction in Iran was in large part because during much of the early half of the twentieth century Iran’s sovereignty was undermined through a variety of means, including concessions which Iran granted to foreign countries, the presence of foreign soldiers in Iran, and the intervention of foreign countries in Iran’s political life. 76 There were Iranians who believed that European and other Western countries’ relationships with Iran were characterized by those countries’ cultural disrespect, economic and political assaults, as well as imperialist manipulation of Iran. 77 At the same time, there were Iranians who directed their dissatisfaction to the various Iranian kings, who had permitted foreign domination in the first place. Mohammad Mosaddegh expressed these dissatisfactions and led Iran in one of its most significant and influential nationalist movements from 1950 until 1953. By way of biographical background, Mosaddegh was born into an upper-class family and studied at universities in Paris and Switzerland, earning a doctorate in law. He began governmental service in 1915, and for a number of years served as a cabinet minister, provincial governor, and member of Iran’s parliament. During the course of his political life, Mosaddegh became known in Iran for his support of democracy and his opposition to foreign influence in the country. In the late 1930s, he was put under house arrest for his opposition to Reza Shah, and he became active again in Iran’s political life as an elected member of Iran’s parliament in 1943. 78 Throughout the 1940s, Mosaddegh’s outspoken opposition to foreign involvement in Iran and his declarations in favor of democracy and against royal autocracy consolidated far-reaching support in Iran. In 1949, several

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

37

political parties and related movements united under Mosaddegh’s leadership to form the National Front party. 79 This alliance was supported by various members of Iran’s middle class including, for instance, Shia clerics who supported a greater role for Sharia as well as Western-educated professionals who supported increased secularization in Iran’s laws, government, and society in general. Some of the factors that united, at least temporarily, these disparate components of Iranian society were Mosaddegh’s charisma and message, together with their shared opposition to foreign influence and the expansion of autocratic royal power. 80 One of the main political issues in Iran which catalyzed Mosaddegh’s and the National Front’s support was the control of the Iranian oil industry by the AIOC, which was dominated by Britain. By the late 1940s, that company had created an enormous presence in Iran, to such an extent that it operated virtually as a nation-state within that country. Along these lines, the AIOC built its own company town within the Iranian city of Abadan, the site of a large oil-refinery which is near the Persian Gulf in Khuzestan Province that Britain historically controlled. In addition, the AIOC supplied its own municipal services, built its roads and airports, and established its security arrangements with various tribes. Foreigners held management, administrative, and clerical positions within the AIOC and entities related to it, and Iranians were employed largely as manual workers. Although the AIOC was a private business, the British government owned a majority of its shares. As frustration with the AIOC’s influence increased among Iranians, in 1950 Mosaddegh demanded that the Iranian government cancel that concession, and he expressed his firm support for the nationalization of the entire oil industry in Iran. 81 While Mosaddegh and his supporters organized public demonstrations and delivered speeches in their attempts to influence public opinion in favor of their cause, a high-level Shia cleric by the name of Ayatollah Sayyed Abol Qasem Kashani, who was a major anti-imperialist figure and a member of the National Front, sought to integrate Islam with Iranian nationalism in his attempt to mobilize Iranians in favor of the nationalization of Iran’s oil resources, urging sincere Muslims and patriotic citizens to fight against the “enemies of Islam and Iran by joining the nationalization struggle.” 82 Although Ayatollah Kashani and Mosaddegh experienced tensions later in their relationship, Kashani, through his charisma, status as a Shia leader, and his persuasive use of Shia religio-political language, played a significant role in galvanizing Iranians’ support of oil nationalization. 83 In 1951, amid the support for Mosaddegh and the National Front, Iran’s parliament took two steps. First, it passed legislation nationalizing the oil industry in Iran. Second, it elected, by a majority vote, Mosaddegh as Iran’s prime minister. 84 During Mosaddegh’s term of office, which lasted from May 1951 until August 1953, in addition to devoting himself to the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry, he

38

Chapter 2

invested himself and his movement in much broader goals related to Iran’s political future. 85 In response to the ratification of the law nationalizing the oil industry in Iran, the AIOC called for an international boycott of oil which was produced in Iran. The British government reaffirmed the AIOC’s decision by declaring its support of the boycott and reinforcing its navy’s presence in the Persian Gulf, near Iran’s shores. The United States joined the boycott in 1952, thus preventing Iran from selling its oil internationally. As a result, Iran experienced a financial crisis because of the almost complete loss of revenues from oil. In spite of these distressing economic difficulties, Mosaddegh did not compromise with respect to nationalization, and in October 1952 the Iranian government cut its diplomatic relations with Britain. 86 This massive dispute between Iran and the AIOC created a domestic and international crisis. Mosaddegh was committed to ending the domination of foreign involvement in Iran while reestablishing the parliamentary and other governmental institutions which had been stipulated in Iran’s 1906 constitution. As a result, Mosaddegh became involved in a power struggle with Iran’s king Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and one of his most powerful foreign supporters, the United States. In 1952, Iran’s parliament granted Mosaddegh a special set of emergency powers, which he used as a basis for attacking the monarchy. He received a ruling from a parliamentary committee effectively giving him and Iran’s parliament more control over Iran’s military. Mosaddegh also reduced the size of Iran’s army, removed some military officers, and attempted to establish land reforms. These moves on Mosaddegh’s part were related to his goals of replacing Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s rule with that of constitutional law, making Iran’s military subject to the parliament (and prime minster) instead of the king, and redistributing land and other holdings, which had belonged to members of Iran’s upper classes, partly as a result of Reza Shah’s patronage system. 87 Even though there were Iranians who supported Mosaddegh’s and the National Front’s goals, as prime minster he did not have adequate financial resources, and he experienced difficulties in implementing the policies, which his supporter hoped that he would achieve. As Iran’s governmental revenues decreased because of the foreign boycott of oil directed against Iran, prices and the unemployment rate rose. 88 While Mosaddegh had public support for his policies, there was discontentment with the difficulties that Iran was experiencing economically and in other ways. In this environment, a small group of disaffected military officers formed a secret committee to plan Mosaddegh’s overthrow and to reinstate the king’s authority. 89 That group of military conspirators coordinated its efforts with spies from the United States and Britain, whose governments opposed Mosaddegh’s oil nationalization efforts and other policies. In addition, the American and British governments were concerned that even if Mosaddegh did not succeed in

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

39

implementing his policies, the Tudeh party, a communist party in Iran (together with possible Soviet involvement in Iranian politics) could cause Iran to align itself with the Soviet Union. The US government, in coordination with the government of Britain, sent agents from the US Central Intelligence Agency to Tehran to work with the group of Iranian military conspirators in organizing a coup d’état (or military overthrow) against Mosaddegh. King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi agreed to the coup and signed a decree appointing the leader of the secret committee, General Fazlollah Zahedi, as Iran’s prime minister. Soon after the first coup attempt failed, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left Iran for Rome, Italy. 90 However, on August 19, 1953, which was three days after his departure, the Iranian military forces who supported the king, in close coordination with the Americans and British, attempted a coup again, succeeded, captured Mosaddegh, and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi returned to Iran, reestablishing himself as monarch. 91 From 1951 until 1953, Mosaddegh had galvanized huge numbers of Iranians in a series of sweeping attempts to recover Iran’s national sovereignty and establish constitutional and parliamentary democracy in such a manner that would substantially reduce the king’s power. The coup of 1953 and the return of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as king resulted in an intensification of the United States’ significant involvement in Iran’s domestic and international affairs. 92 The coup against Mosaddegh remained deeply rooted in the memories of Iranians, as they remembered that coup as yet another example of Britain’s and the United States’ direct interference in their affairs and of American and British hypocrisy. From this perspective, one of the ways that the Americans and the British manifested hypocrisy in this situation is that they claimed to support democracy, on the one hand, while they actively supported a coup against a democratically–elected leader, namely Mosaddegh, which brought to power an autocratic and undemocratic leader, namely Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Indeed, a factor that led to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 was the potent resentment which Iranians felt primarily against the American government for its unyielding support of the coup against Mosaddegh, the return of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power, and the United States’ strong backing of him throughout his entire period as Iran’s repressive king. 93 MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI AND THE POST-MOSADDEGH PERIOD After the 1953 coup, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi undertook a variety of measures in his attempts to decrease the likelihood that the circumstances, which led to the opposition to him in the early 1950s, would not recur. At the same time , those measures became some of the factors, which led to Iran’s Islamic

40

Chapter 2

Revolution in 1979 and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s final downfall as Iran’s king. In any case, the disagreement over Iran’s oil, which was one important catalyst behind Mohammad Mosaddegh’s popularity and rise to power, was settled by an international oil agreement. Regarding this matter, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi agreed to the principle of the sharing of oil profits equally, and signed a contract with a consortium formed of British Petroleum, the former owners of AIOC, and eight other European and American oil companies. 94 This agreement played a role in the strengthening of Iran’s position in the global oil market, and it increased the revenues which entered that country’s governmental coffers. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi also worked to improve Iran’s relationships with Western countries. 95 Iran and Britain restored diplomatic relations in 1954, while the king declared his commitment to the Western alliance and against the Soviet Union and its allies. He also oriented Iran to various forms of development which emulated the models of Western countries. 96 These diplomatic relationships and Iran’s adoption of Westernstyle economic and cultural models were factors which led to Iran receiving substantial amounts of aid from the United States. For example, between 1953 and 1963, the United States gave Iran five-hundred million dollars in military aid, with the US government having at least three goals in mind regarding this and other forms of aid, which it provided Iran: 1. Americans and other Westerners wanted to continue receiving reasonably priced oil from Iran, which benefited American and Western consumers as well as petroleum companies that did business with Iran; 97 2. The US government wanted to provide Iran with military, economic, and political support which enabled American and Western companies to benefit financially from Iran’s lucrative consumer market; 98 and 3. American politicians and members of its military viewed Iran as a crucial military and geopolitical buffer against the possibility of Soviet expansion into the Middle East during the Cold War. 99 With strong support from the United States, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi consistently persecuted individuals and groups who opposed him, dismantling the National Front and imprisoning its leaders, including Mosaddegh, for instance. The king’s security forces also worked hard to destroy Iran’s communist party, exposing its secret networks, imprisoning its members, while executing and torturing most of its leaders. 100 In Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s attempts to eliminate all forms of opposition to him and his government, he formed, with the staunch support of the United States and Israel, SAVAK which was the king’s secret police force and engaged in far-reaching surveillance of Iranians and in cruel treatment of political prisoners in Iran’s penitentiaries. 101 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his government con-

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

41

trolled a so-called two-party political system to such an extent that the two parties were virtually indistinguishable in terms of their support of the king’s government. 102 A short-term challenge to the oppressive policies of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government occurred between 1960 and 1963 when Iran experienced a periodic slump in its economy. At that time, the United States pressured the king to liberalize his approach to governance and, as a result, he permitted the National Front to take part in elections. There were strikes and demonstrations against the Iranian government in the midst of the National Front’s criticism of the government, Iran’s deteriorating economic situation, and the government’s tampering with the election results. 103 One significant aspect of these protest movements involved Ayatollah Khomeini’s sermons and speeches against the Iranian government. He excoriated Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for his greed and corruption, for marginalizing the poor and underprivileged, and for undercutting Iran’s sovereignty. Khomeini also stated his belief that the king’s government violated crucial tenets of Islam by selling oil to Israel and granting economic concessions to the United States. In 1963, SAVAK arrested Khomeini for his anti-government sermons, speeches, and activities. As increasing numbers of Iranians learned of Khomeini’s arrest, they engaged in large protests against that arrest and against the Iranian government in Tehran and other major Iranian cities. Those demonstrations continued for three days before Iran’s military suppressed them with hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Iranians being killed in the process. 104 Khomeini was exiled to Turkey in 1964. A year after that, he left that country for Iraq, where he continued to write and preach until 1978, when he was forced to leave that country for France. Khomeini returned to Iran, as the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, on February 1, 1979, after Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s departure from that country on January 16, 1979. 105 The protests of 1963 were yet another vivid manifestation of the power of Iran’s Shia clergy in mobilizing large numbers of Iranians by showing the relevance of Shia teachings to the religious, political, and economic circumstances that Iranians faced. The protests also exemplified, in stark and visible ways, the deep-rooted opposition which the protestors had to foreign influence in their country, together with a heart-felt commitment to Shia Islam and its clerical leaders. 106 In the case of these protests, the criticisms were directed against an autocratic king whose interests, in the view of the protestors, were harmful to those of Iran as a whole. 107 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi believed that the protests indicated a set of circumstances in Iran which could have been harmful to his position as king. After the demonstrations ended, he gave increased attention to the institutions, which he believed, constituted the foundations of his power. These institutions included his expansive system of court patronage and appoint-

42

Chapter 2

ments to various high-level positions in Iran’s government and military. 108 He placed much emphasis on the military, because he believed that the viability of his political future depended, to a large measure, on strengthening the military, while he worked to reinforce the bonds which existed between him and that institution. 109 MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI’S POLICIES DURING THE 1960S AND 1970S Particularly during and after 1973, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi positioned Iran and himself in such a way that enabled Iran to sharply increase its oil prices, at times quadrupling those prices, particularly during the 1970s. 110 The United States encouraged the king to use the oil revenue to purchase a variety of arms for Iran’s military. This situation enabled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government to buy virtually any non-nuclear armaments from the United States that it wanted, eventually making Iran a powerful military force in the Middle East. 111 These huge purchases of military equipment necessitated the deployment, within Iran, of large numbers of foreign instructors and advisers from the United States and other Western countries. 112 The arrival in Iran of thousands of employees of American defense contractors and members of the US military with their generous salaries, access to housing, which was not necessarily plentiful for Iranians, and sometimes immodest behavior generated increased aggravation on the part of Iranians, especially those who believed that the king’s strong alliance with Western countries violated Iran’s sovereignty, and religious, ethical, and cultural norms. While Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s main priority was to buttress his political power, he also wanted to Westernize, modernize, and secularize Iranian society. Yet, these policies contained a glaring contradiction. While the king attempted to increase Iran’s productive capabilities, he brutally repressed almost any challenges to his authority. As a result, during the period of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s rule as Iran’s king, aspects of the country were transformed economically and socially, but there were virtually no commensurate changes in terms of the king’s autocratic manner of governing the country. This produced a contradictory situation between the king, who decided the specific aspects of Iranian society which would be reformed, and a large segment of Iran’s population, who wanted a much freer political system that allowed and encouraged such principles as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. 113 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s policies for reform in Iran were declared in 1963 and were entitled the “White Revolution,” which was intended to suggest reform in Iran without battles and the spilling of blood. 114 Muhammad Reza Pahlavi patterned these reforms after those of other secularizing re-

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

43

formers in the Middle East including Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who was Turkey’s president from 1923 until 1938. 115 Two of the most important components of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s policies involved the king’s attempts at land reform and the creation of a literacy corps, which was devoted to increasing literacy in the country. Unfortunately, the land reform program was enacted in a manner which generated a series of negative results. While under this program, nearly 92 percent of former sharecroppers—almost two million people—became landowners, 75 percent received parcels of land that were less than the minimum size, which they needed, to provide livelihoods for the families at a level which was higher than subsistence. People in Iran’s rural areas, who could not earn an adequate living as a result of this situation, felt increasingly alienated from the Iranian government and either (1) returned to being landless laborers in Iran’s rural areas or (2) became part of a large-scale internal migration to Iran’s cities and other urban areas. This type of internal migration was escalated as a result of broad utilization of mechanized farm equipment, which increased unemployment in Iran’s rural areas because that kind of equipment reduced the need for manual labor. 116 The enormous problems, which these policies caused, were among the reasons for Iran’s Islamic Revolution. 117 The literacy corps was part of a government policy to reduce illiteracy, primarily in Iran’s rural areas. The members of this corps, who had been drafted into the military and possessed at minimum a high school degree, worked in various schools. 118 As result of these programs, between 1963 and 1977, the literacy rate in Iran rose from 26 to 42 percent. 119 Concurrently, universities expanded fivefold, and the middle levels of education increased as much as threefold. 120 In spite of those apparently positive gains, during the same period from 1963 until 1977, 68 percent of Iran’s adults remained illiterate, while the actual number of illiterates rose from thirteen million to fifteen million. 121 At the same time, fewer than 40 percent of children completed primary school, and the teacher-student ratio in public schools deteriorated. In this context, only sixty thousand slots opened for new students on the university level for approximately 290,000 applicants. Yet, the percentage of the population with university degrees remained one of the lowest in the Middle East. On a related note, while Mohammad Reza Pahlavi attempted to improve Iran’s healthcare system, Iran had one of the worst physician-patient ratios, one of the highest child mortality rates, and one of the lowest hospital-bed-to-population ratios in the Middle East. 122 As Mohammad Reza Pahlavi wanted to legitimize his position on a basis other than his regime’s cruel use of force, he gave his policies noble-sounding names that disguised his autocratic governance, in his attempt to divert criticisms of his corrupt and repressive rule. These factors also played a role in Iran’s Islamic Revolution. 123

44

Chapter 2

Over the course of the years, the king used what he claimed to be the positive gains of the White Revolution as some of the justifications for his governance. While there were benefits to some of the king’s policies, those benefits were limited to a small number of the middle and upper class, who had established personal connections with insiders in the king’s regime. For this and related reasons, the White Revolution did not create loyalty among large numbers of Iranians to the king’s government, while it increased resentment among Iranians, including the Iranians who would, in later years, participate in Iran’s Islamic Revolution. In tandem with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s policy initiatives, he attempted to utilize the non-Islamic symbols of the Iranian nation-state to his advantage by emphasizing the idea that the Pahlavi dynasty was an inheritor of what his regime projected as the glorious pre-Islamic royal dynasties of Iran. In highlighting the accomplishments of these ancient Iranian empires and attempting to connect them to his own rule, the king largely ignored Iran’s vibrant Islamic past, thus further alienating large numbers of Iranians, the vast majority of whom were and are Muslims. In spite of the king’s efforts, he did not create an image of himself as a ruler who genuinely cared about the welfare of all Iranians. These problems were rooted, in part, in the fact that he and his family were corrupt and that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi administered his government poorly. The king and his family expropriated millions of dollars per year from Iran’s governmental finances for their personal use. At same time, the Iranians, who were part of the king’s patronage system, garnered large sums of money from foreign companies in Iran through arranging import licenses for individuals from those foreign companies and providing them with access to high-level government officials. Wide disparities in revenue distribution among Iran’s population, and the government’s active political repression, alienated large numbers of Iranians from their country’s government, while SAVAK, which received enormous support from the United States, systematically suppressed virtually any channels through which Iranians could have expressed dissent. 124 MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI AND IRAN’S SHIA INSTITUTIONS Members of the Shia clergy and Shia institutions in Iran were negatively affected by the king’s policies also. Governmental policies, such as land reform, had the potential of undercutting the Shia clergy’s livelihood by giving the Iranian government leverage to expropriate, for its own purposes, religiously endowed lands, the financial proceeds from which were crucial to the maintenance of mosques and Islamic seminaries. 125 Other policies under

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

45

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi enabled Iran’s government to insert itself into areas, which had been the exclusive domain of the Shia clergy. For instance, Iran’s literacy corps, which was established as a result of the White Revolution, provided an alternative to the Shia religious schools that, during extended periods in Iran’s history, had been the only source of education in Iran’s isolated rural areas. The Shia clergy also opposed the king’s policies which attempted to make Iranian society more fair and just for women, on the grounds that those policies contradicted Islam’s teachings. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi attempted to argue against the Shia clergy’s opposition to these and other policies by maintaining that his policies were consistent with Islam in that they would establish fairness and equality, which are highly regarded Islamic principles. The king also suggested that the Shia clergy should limit its attention to matters of personal religiosity, instead of involving itself in matters of public policy. 126 While Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s policies threatened to reduce or block flows of revenue to Shia clergy, these clerics’ opposition to the king’s policies were not catalyzed exclusively by their self-interest. These clerics strongly believed that virtually all of the king’s policies, including secularization, Westernization, and modernization, utterly violated most of Shia Islam’s most important principles, including its emphasis on social justice. While the policies and institutional structures of Iran’s government made it dangerous for Shia clerics to express their opposition to the king’s government openly, their strong and often personal connections with large numbers of Shias throughout Iran provided them with opportunities to express their opinions in mosques and through other religious channels. In 1975, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi further intensified repression within Iran, all with the financial, political, and military support of the United States, which had been his staunchest ally since the end of World War II. He eliminated the two-party system (which had operated under strict constraints) and established a single-party organization called the National Resurgence Party. This move to a one-party state magnified the regime’s autocratic character and generated a new period of heavy-handed governmental policies and actions, including arrests, censorship, and torture in Iran’s penitentiaries, which were factors that led to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. 127 REVOLUTIONARY PROSPECTS In this context, factors which led to Iran’s Islamic Revolution that will be discussed in the next chapter, include 1. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family appropriating large amounts of money for their personal use at the expense of Iranians;

46

Chapter 2

2. Enormous economic disparities in the country; 3. The use of SAVAK and similar governmental agencies to imprison, interrogate, torture, and in some cases execute Iranians, whom the Iranian government believed was opposed to it; 4. The Iranian government spending billions of dollars on arms (largely purchased from the United States) which exceeded Iran’s needs; 5. The Westernization and secularization of almost every aspect of Iranian law and culture, including attempts to substantially curb the influence and finances of Iran’s Shia clerics; 6. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s strengthening of secular courts in Iran which required judges to hold secular degrees in law while establishing a rival center of Islamic Studies at Tehran University, which would teach Islam and related topics in such a manner that would not oppose Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government; 7. The Iranian government’s interference in the certification of the Shia clergy with the intention of blocking potential clergy who would be opposed to the Iranian government; 8. The Iranian government’s harsh treatment of Shia clergy who opposed Iran’s government including restrictions or limits that were placed on their religious dress and the celebration of religious rituals which could have been used as means of protest against the government; 9. The Iranian government’s requirement that Shia seminary students, who were studying Islam for the purpose of becoming Shia clerics, serve in Iran’s military. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s policies angered a broad range of Iran’s populace including (1) pro-democracy groups whose members believed that his policies were undemocratic and autocratic, (2) communist and socialist groups who believed his policies violated basic principles of economic and political fairness, and (3) Shias who viewed his policies as violating the most important religio-political and ethical ideals of Islam. These and other forces coalesced into a broad mass movement against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, which was part and parcel of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. At the same time, the alliances between Iran’s government with Western colonialist countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the harm which these alliances caused Iranians, together with the British- and American-backed coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh, were also major factors that catalyzed the Islamic Revolution. While it has been argued that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Shia Islamic allies hijacked the revolution from the nonreligious revolutionary forces in Iranian society, that interpretation is problematic in that it does not adequately acknowledge the decades which Ayatollah Khomeini and his Shia allies invested in organizing Iran’s revolution and Khomeini’s lectures and

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

47

writings, which were written well before the revolution that described Iran’s government, if an Islamic Revolution were to succeed. In the years leading to the Islamic Revolution, Khomeini remained in frequent contact with Shia leaders inside Iran, and there was a vast on-the-ground network of Shia mullahs in Iran’s Shia mosques and other places expressing Shia revolutionary ideas, in spite of the oppressive political environment in the country. Thus, when the various religiously-committed Shias and secular forces within Iran engaged in mass demonstrations against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government beginning in1979, the Shias ,who were involved in those demonstrations, were already familiar with Khomeini’s Shia revolutionary ideals and had a vision of what a Shia government in Iran would look like, if a revolution were to succeed. As the revolution was taking place, Khomeini intentionally maneuvered himself politically and religiously in order to seek the greatest advantage for himself and his ideals in the midst of Iranian secularists, for example, who envisioned a very different government from the one Khomeini had envisioned and eventually implemented. Indeed, Khomeini and his allies were the victors in significant power struggles during the revolutionary period. Yet, in terms of larger trends in nineteenth and twentieth century Iranian history, Iran’s Islamic Revolution was a monumental event that was part of a broader pattern of political protests in Iran, including the Tobacco Protest, the Constitutional Revolution, and Mohammad Mosaddegh’s election as Iran’s prime minister, all of which had Shia religious and political participation, together with the participation of secular forces in Iranian society. NOTES 1. Madhavan K. Palat, “From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to 1918” in History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume 6, Towards the Contemporary Period: From the Mid-Nineteenth to the End of the Twentieth Century, eds. Madhavan K. Palat and Anara Tabyshalieva (Paris, France: UNESCO, 20015), 112. 2. Yahya Armajani and Thomas M. Ricks, Middle East Past and Present, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1986), 203–205. 3. Ibid., 205. 4. Elton L. Daniel, The History of Iran (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001), 104. 5. Ibid. 6. Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 36–37. 7. Armajani and Ricks, Middle East Past and Present, 207. 8. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 38. 9. Ibid. 10. Daniel, The History of Iran, 115. 11. Ibid., 115–116. 12. Ibid., 116. 13. Ibid.

48

Chapter 2

14. David S. Powers, “Fatwa, premodern” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three, Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson, eds. (Brill Reference) http:// dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_27048 (accessed September 5, 2017). 15. Daniel, The History of Iran, 116. 16. Ibid., 116. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 116–117. 19. Ibid., 118. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 119. 22. Ibid., 119. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 119. 25. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2016), 134. 26. Daniel, The History of Iran, 120; Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 134. 27. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 135. 28. Ibid. 29. Daniel, The History of Iran, 121. See also Mateo Mohammad Farzaneh, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2015), 196–197. 30. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 135. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 136. 33. Daniel, The History of Iran, 122. See also Abbas Amanat, Iran: A Modern History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 315–325. 34. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 136. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., 137. 37. Ibid. 38. Robin Wright, The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), 302. 39. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 176. 40. Ibid., 176. 41. Ibid., 176. 42. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 60–61. 43. Ibid., 63. The Persian Cossack Brigade was established by the Russians in 1879, was trained by them, and was one of the most effective units in the Qajar military. 44. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 64. 45. Ibid., 65. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., 65–96. 48. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 177. 49. Ibid., 177–178. 50. Ibid., 178. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid. A waqf is a fixed and inalienable charitable endowment under Sharia, which typically involves a person or groups donating a building, plot of land or other assets for Muslim religious or charitable purposes with no intention on the part of the donor or donors of reclaiming those assets. 53. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 178. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 179. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid.

Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties

49

58. Ibid., 179. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid., 62–67, 76–86. 61. Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 103. 62. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 180. 63. Jack R. Censer, Debating Modern Revolution: The Evolution of Revolutionary Ideas (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 161. 64. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 180. 65. Ibid., 180. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. See also Homa Katouzian, Iran: Politics, History and Literature (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013), 65–66. 68. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 181. See also Jeffrey R. Macris, The Politics and Security of the Gulf: Anglo-American Hegemony and the Shaping of a Region (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2010), 43–49. 69. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed.,181. See also Frank Brenchley, Britain and the Middle East: An Economic History, 1945–1987 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1989), 54. 70. Kristen Blake, The U.S.-Soviet Confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962: A Case in the Annals of the Cold War (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group / University Press of America, 2009), 9. 71. Ibid. 72. Wilfrid Buchta, “Iran” in Anti-Americanism in the Islamic World, ed. Sigrid Faath (London: C. Hurst and Company, 2006), 165–181. 73. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 273–275. 74. Ibid., 274. 75. Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (New York: Times Books / Henry Holt and Company, 2006), 129. 76. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 274. See also Shabnam J. Holliday, Defining Iran: Politics of Resistance (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016), 35. 77. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 275. 78. Ibid., 275. 79. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 115. 80. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 276. 81. Ibid., 276. 82. Ervand Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982), 265–266. 83. Seyed Hossein Mousavian with Shahir Shahidsaless, Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 49–50. 84. Trevor W. Harrison, “Islamic Nationalism, Imperialism, and the Middle East” in Against Orthodoxy: Studies in Nationalism, eds. Trevor W. Harrison and Slobodan Draculic (Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press [UBC Press], 2011), 276. 85. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 276. 86. Ibid., 276. 87. Ibid., 277. See also Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, 272. 88. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 277. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid., 277. See also Mansoureh Ebrahimi, The British Role in Iranian Domestic Politics, 1951–1953 (Switzerland: Springer, 2016), 93. 91. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 277. 92. Ibid., 277. 93. Ervand Abrahamian, The Coup, 1953, the CIA, and the Modern Roots of Modern U.S.— Iranian Relations (New York: The New Press, 2013), 213–217.

50

Chapter 2

94. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 278. See also Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, 419–420. 95. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 278. 96. Ibid. 97. Daniel P. Ritter, The Iron Cage of Liberalism: International Politics and Unarmed Revolutions in Middle East and North Africa (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2015), 37–38. 98. Ali Pirzadeh, Iran Revisited: Exploring the Historical Roots of Culture, Economics, and Society (Switzerland: Springer, 2016), 242–243. 99. Shireen T. Hunter, Iran’s Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era: Resisting the New International Order (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2010), 35. 100. Ibid., 278. 101. Hooshang Amirahmadi, Revolution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Experience (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 16. 102. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 278. 103. Ibid., 278 104. Ibid., 279. 105. Ali Rahnema, “Ayatollah Khomeini’s Rule of the Guardian Jurist: From Theory to Practice,” in A Critical Introduction to Khomeini, ed. Arshin Adib-Moghaddam (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 95. 106. Arang Keshavarzian, Bazaar and the State in Iran: Politics of the Tehran Marketplace (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 239. 107. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 279. 108. Ibid. 109. Anthony H. Cordesman, Iran’s Military Forces in Transition: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1999), 22. 110. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 279. 111. Ibid. 112. Ibid., 279–280. 113. Ibid., 280. 114. Ibid., 170–175. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid., 279–280. 117. Ibid., 170–175. 118. Ibid., 280. 119. Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, 446. 120. Ibid., 446–447. 121. Ibid., 447. 122. Ibid. 123. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 282. 124. Ibid. 125. Ibid., 283. 126. Ibid. 127. Ibid., 284.

Chapter Three

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

In the midst of the politically oppressive environment in Iran under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a potential avenue for Iranians to express their grievances opened in 1977 when certain Western organizations, which were focused on human rights, such as Amnesty International, made information available to the public about the Iranian regime’s violations of human rights, including its use of torture against political prisoners in Iran. After the inauguration of US president Jimmy Carter in 1977, he and his administration strongly encouraged Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to bring his government’s policies and practices into compliance with Western conceptions of human rights. 1 The king, who wanted to avoid a confrontation with his major ally, the United States, ordered a modest lessening of the use of police power, put into place relatively weak reforms for the trials of his political opponents, and called for the release of approximately three hundred political prisoners in Iran. Although these changes in policy were tepid, those slight modifications, together with the history of the king’s oppressive policies, created an environment where old political organizations, which had opposed the king, were reestablished and new ones were formed. 2 INTELLECTUAL CURRENTS Mehdi Bazargan, who was a political activist, dean of a college of science and technology, and prime minister of Iran for a brief period after Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran, believed that Iran should have a democratic government which should integrate Islamic principles within its laws and governance. 3 Bazargan was one of the founders, in 1961, of the Freedom 51

52

Chapter 3

Movement (“Nehzati Azadi-ye Iran” in Farsi, which has also been translated as the “Liberation Movement”) whose positions were constitutionalist and democratic, in such a way that the members of that movement believed were compatible with Islam. 4 Bazargan was a pious Muslim who believed in the relevance of Islam to political life and maintained that certain Islamic and democratic principles reinforced each other in positive and useful ways. 5 He also believed in the preservation and relevance of Iran’s history and culture within Iran’s political and societal realms. Bazargan believed that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had gone too far in terms of his embrace of Western culture at the expense of significant aspects of Iran’s cultural heritage. 6 Bazargan maintained that Islam itself contained compelling principles related to justice, fairness, equality, and liberty, among others, and that these and related principles could be integrated into a set of modernization policies for Iran that were Islamic, Iranian, and democratic. 7 Ali Shariati was also a prominent intellectual and activist, whose work and ideas were part of the ferment which catalyzed Iran’s Islamic Revolution, although Shariati died in 1977, two years before that revolution fully took shape and brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power in Iran. 8 Shariati was active in the Freedom Movement in its early years and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris for a doctorate, which he earned, in the field of the History of Medieval Islam, which is stated on Shariati’s official diploma. 9 The courses which he took at the Sorbonne were mostly in the fields of sociology, history, philosophy, comparative religions, and Islamic studies. 10 After Shariati’s return to Iran, he worked there as a lecturer. 11 Shariati was influenced by what he perceived to be the achievements of the Algerian and Cuban revolutions, yet he opposed the secular aspects of those revolutionary movements, believing that Shia Islam should be a crucial foundation for revolution in Iran, which he advocated. 12 Shariati supported a reformist worldview which combined features of Marxism, Christian liberation theology, Shia Islam, and Iranian cultural identity, while he expressed strong opposition to totalitarian governments. Shariati maintained that Islam, particularly Shia Islam, is a revolutionary worldview, which suffuses all aspects of life, especially politics, and calls on Muslims to oppose all forms of injustice, oppression, and exploitation. 13 According to Shariati, the prophet Muhammad wanted to establish a social order that would be united by the highest ethical standards, which would instill justice, human solidarity, the equitable distribution of wealth, and ultimately, a classless society. 14 As Shariati criticized Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s administration’s censorship, secularism, and corruption during the mid-1970s and some members of the Shia clergy for their political passivity in the face of that king’s oppressive policies, Shariati’s ideas became widely popular among secondary school and university students in Iran, in that it provided them with a set of ideas which spoke to their deepest religious and political sensibilities, as Muslims and Iranians. 15

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

53

In general, in the period directly preceding Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Iran’s Shia clergy could be divided into three ideological groups. One group believed that Shia Islam should be restricted to the realm of personal piety and that Shia Islam had little or no role to play in politics or revolutionary movements. A second group of Shia clerics, which was comprised of moderate political reformers, believed in the establishment of a constitutional and democratic form of government under a monarch. A third group, which believed in much more sweeping and transformative religious and political change in Iran, demanded a thoroughgoing shift in government by demanding the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the entire monarchy, putting in its place an Islamic state, governed by Shia clerics. This group of Shia clerics was led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, and the driving force whose clearly-articulated position and deft integration of religious and political ideologies was appealing to several different types of Iranians in the run-up to Iran’s revolution and that revolution’s early phases. 16 KHOMEINI: INTELLECTUAL ARCHITECT, AND REVOLUTIONARY LEADER Khomeini received a portion of his education at a Shia seminary in Qom, Iran, which is an important center of Shia education. 17 He strongly opposed the polices of both Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, maintaining that both of those kings wanted to substantially reduce or even eliminate the power of the Shia clerics, and that both of them wanted to secularize all of Iranian society at the expense of Islam. 18 In 1963, the government of King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi arrested Khomeini for publicly criticizing that king for establishing policies which violated Islamic principles. 19 After Khomeini was released from prison, he continued to denounce Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his government. As a result, the Iranian government arrested Khomeini again, after which he was exiled to Turkey in 1964. After a year in that country, he moved to the Shia holy city of Najaf, Iraq, where he resided until he moved to Paris, France, in 1978. 20 During Khomeini’s exile, he continued to criticize, in strident terms, Iran’s government, while he articulated his vision for Iran as an Islamic republic without a monarch. 21 Khomeini’s book-length publication entitled Vilayat-i Faqih (which means “Governance of the Islamic Jurist”) was published in 1970, and contains Khomeini’s lectures and other writings. 22 In it, he argues that in the absence of a divinely-inspired imam (which in Shia Islam is a saintly, and infallible leader) the Shia clerics (or “jurists”) should have the responsibility for governing a Shia Islamic nation-state. 23 In Khomeini’s view, these Shia clerics are entitled to govern by God, in view of the

54

Chapter 3

fact that the clerics possess the education, knowledge, and spiritual insight to interpret the Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah (depictions of the saying and actions of the prophet Muhammad) teachings of the Shia Imams, and Sharia in such a way that is true to Shia Islam and relevant to contemporary societies, such as Iran. 24 Khomeini categorically stated that the mandate (or authority) of the Shia clerics means that they must govern a country and administer it according to the provisions of Sharia. 25 Khomeini argued that the institution of a monarchy contradicted Islam, while he called for the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government through an Islamic Revolution and the establishment of a Shia Islamic government, in accordance with Khomeini’s vision. 26 Khomeini’s politically activist position stands in sharp contrast to the positions of Shia quietists, who believe that Shias should separate themselves from politics, while remaining religiously observant, until the appearance of the Twelfth Imam. 27 In the time preceding Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Khomeini did an enormous amount of work to prepare the way for it. For example, by the mid1970s Khomeini had trained approximately five hundred people, who eventually became Shia clerics and scholars, and twelve thousand students had attended his lectures preceding his exile from Iran in 1964. 28 Most of the leading Shia clerics who held the highest positions of power in Iran’s government after Iran’s Islamic Revolution were drawn from large groups who had been Khomeini’s students, virtually all of whom were inspired by his vision of an Islamic government. 29 Khomeini also facilitated Iran’s Islamic Revolution by having his message disseminated in Iran through tape recordings, leaflets, and pamphlets, which contained his pro-Islamic, prorevolutionary, antimonarchical, and anticolonialist ideas. 30 The principles contained in these modes of communication informed Iranians of Khomeini’s grievances and his vision for Iran, while inspiring them to support what would eventually become Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Khomeini’s return to Iran in 1979, and his leadership of the country until his death in 1989. 31 At the same time, others who opposed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government, some of whom supported certain secular democratic ideals, were suspicious of Khomeini’s demands for the king’s ouster or Khomeini’s vision of an Islamic government. 32 Yet, as the movement toward Iran’s Islamic Revolution gained momentum, Khomeini’s ideas generated increasing support among growing numbers of Iranians. Khomeini’s religious and political message appealed to Iranians, across generations, and was embedded in words, symbols, and ideas which appealed to Iranians’ deepest religious, political, and cultural sensibilities. 33 Among other elements, Khomeini drew on Iranians’ shared heritage of protest based, in part, on anti-imperial ideals, which had their roots in such events as Iran’s Tobacco Protest in 1891, Iran’s Constitutional Revolution between 1905 and 1911, as well as Mosaddegh’s rise to power, his period as Iran’s prime minister, and its aftermath in the

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

55

1950s. 34 As various kinds of revolutionary ideas, including those of Khomeini, were gaining popularity in Iran, in January 1978 an official government newspaper, by the name of Ettelaat, published a strident attack against him. 35 The article was a factor which prompted students and bazaar merchants in Qom, Iran, to participate in a large demonstration in January protesting Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government. 36 REVOLUTIONARY PROTESTS Iranian army units used physical force to end the demonstrations, killing several people. In Shia Islam and Iranian culture, it is customary for family members and close friends of a deceased person to gather forty days after that person’s death to commemorate that person’s passing. 37 Prominent ayatollahs and others, who were involved in the opposition to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, invited Iranians to observe the fortieth day after the people in Qom died by participating in customary Islamic religious rituals and observances in mosques throughout Iran. In this manner, the protests against the king were placed within the structures of traditional and familiar Shia rituals. During both this particular ritual observance and future ritual observances, the ayatollahs and other Shia clerics seamlessly fused Islam and protest against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. By doing so, those Shia clerics maintained their existing authority while using that authority to continue directing public protests against the king. 38 On February 18, 1978, traditional fortieth-day memorial rituals for the protestors who had died the previous month as well as largely peaceful demonstrations took place in major Iranian cities. However, the demonstrations became violent in the city of Tabriz, which is in northwestern Iran, and tanks went into that city in order to end the demonstrations. One hundred people died in those altercations. As a result, another series of Shia commemorations were held, and those demonstrations resulted in a violent government backlash. Iranian government forces killed a large number of demonstrators in those protests, and Shia Islamic commemorations were held forty days after that on May 10, 1978. This cycle of demonstrations, violent backlashes, death, and Shia Islamic commemorations were repeated as larger numbers of Iranians were becoming increasingly opposed to the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, because of both the long history of his government’s repressive practices and its brutal measures against the protestors. 39 On September 8, 1978, there were a series of massive confrontations in Tehran between protesters from different sectors of Iranian society, on the one hand, and the government’s armed forces on the other. 40 In that conflict, the military used virtually all the means which were available to it, including tanks and helicopter gunships, in order to suppress the demonstrations.

56

Chapter 3

Again, large numbers of protesters were killed. The events on this day, which came to be called Black Friday, were pivotal in Iranians’ mobilization against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In the words of historian Ervand Abrahamian, Black Friday put into place “a sea of blood” between Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the Iranian people. 41 The Iranian government’s brutal measures caused increasing numbers of Iranians to support Khomeini and positioned members of the Freedom Movement to support Khomeini’s demands for the king’s overthrow. 42 The events of Black Friday were followed by a series of strikes in such areas of Iran’s economy as oil refineries and oil fields. Labor strikes reached a high level in October and led to the temporary closure of most large industries and a substantial slowdown in Iran’s economy. A significant moment in the revolutionary movement occurred in December 1978, during ten days of Muharram, which is a time that Shia Muslims ritually commemorate the martyrdom of one of Shia Islam’s most important martyrs, Imam Husayn, who lived during the seventh century CE. The rituals during Muharram and the meanings, which are related to them, are among the most important in Shia Islam. The religious and political frameworks within which the Shia rituals were performed in December 1978 and the modes of resistance, which were embedded in those rituals and related sermons, followed a long-familiar pattern which had been followed in the years leading to Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Beginning on December 2, thousands of Shia Muslims who were simultaneously participating in the Muharram rituals and protesting Iran’s king as part of the same rituals, poured into Tehran’s streets. Wearing white shrouds of martyrdom, which symbolized their willingness to emulate the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, whom these religious participants and protestors believed had died resisting the tyranny of his time, the protestors displayed signs and banners demanding Khomeini’s return to Iran and his becoming the country’s leader. Although seven hundred protestors were killed during the first three days of Muharram, the anti-government protests continued, leading to a large anti-government procession of approximately two million people in Tehran on December 12, 1978. 43 During those Muharram demonstrations, the support of members of Iran’s military for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi weakened. Some Iranian soldiers, horrified by the killing of large numbers of unarmed Iranian civilians, deserted their units and joined the protests, while other soldiers deserted their units and did not participate in the protests at all. In this tumultuous political environment, Shapour Bakhtiar, a moderate Iranian politician, agreed to become that country’s prime minister on the condition that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi leave the country. However, Bakhtiar and his moderate political stance did not embody the kind of transformative political change which large numbers of Iranians envisioned. He was criticized by members of the Freedom Movement and Khomeini, who issued a declaration stating that any

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

57

government which had any relationship to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was illegitimate and that to serve such a government was a violation of Islamic principles. 44 On January 16, 1979, Iran’s king left the country and died a year later in exile in Egypt. On February 1 of that year, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran, to the public jubilation of millions of his supporters in Iran, welcomed by enormous groups of people throughout the country. A largely nonviolent political and religious revolution, inspired and guided by a charismatic Shia Islam leader and intellectual, had overthrown Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and ended the Pahlavi dynasty’s rule in Iran. KHOMEINI’S RETURN TO IRAN By the time Khomeini had returned to Iran, its government, military, economy, and internal security services had lost much of their strength. From 1979 until 1982, the future of Iran’s governmental structures were largely unclear in part because Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had been removed from the kingship and various groups within Iran, including Khomeini and his supporters, were vying for political power with the desire of charting Iran’s future in a manner consistent with their respective religious and political ideologies. A major question which related to this period of transition was: Would Iran’s government come under the leadership of Khomeini and other Shia clerics and become an Islamic republic, or would its governmental structure be largely secular and democratic in a manner which would reflect the priorities of members of the Freedom Movement and their allies? After a period of turmoil and conflict within the country, Khomeini and his allies, who supported the idea of Iran as an Islamic republic, prevailed. 45 Khomeini, acting in a manner consistent with his principle that any individuals who had accepted an appointment from Mohammad Reza Pahlavi were in violation of Islam, did not recognize Bakhtiar as prime minister. On February 11 and 12, 1979, armed civilians, who supported Khomeini, gained control of Iranian governmental buildings leading to a number of arrests and forcing Bakhtiar to resign as prime minister. Bakhtiar fled Iran at around the same time that several of his aides and others, who had served Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, also fled the country. 46 Khomeini then appointed Mehdi Bazargan as Iran’s prime minister. One of Bazargan’s main responsibilities was to establish administrative order and economic stability within the country. 47 He and his cabinet, which was composed of moderates, tried to encourage the creation of largely secular and democratic governing bodies. However, the authority that Khomeini had provided the Council of the Islamic Republic, which was a parallel ruling organization, placed severe constraints on the ability of Bazargan and his cabinet to formulate and enact policies, especially those which reflected their

58

Chapter 3

vision of a largely secular, democratic, and constitutional government in Iran. The Council of the Islamic Republic, which was composed mainly of Shia clerics and operated under Khomeini’s supervision, was at that time the most powerful governmental organization in Iran. That council formulated and implemented policies, laws, and decrees while possessing the power to veto policies, which were proposed by Bazargan’s government. 48 The council’s broad powers made it virtually impossible for Bazargan and his allies to implement their policy proposals, and he resigned as Iran’s prime minister on November 6, 1979, dismayed and frustrated with respect to the Shia clerics’ rejection of his policies and other actions, which some of those clerics supported, such as Iranian students’ taking of American hostages in the US Embassy in Tehran beginning on November 4, 1979. 49 ESTABLISHING A SHIA ISLAMIC REPUBLIC In this context, some of the work that led to the establishment of Iran as an Islamic republic continued with a national referendum on March 31, 1979. That referendum approved the replacement of the previous monarchy with an Islamic Republic. 50 After this referendum, the government’s draft of the country’s constitution was submitted for deliberation and debate to the popularly-elected Assembly of Experts, the majority of whom were Shia clerics. Khomeini told the Assembly of Experts that Iran’s constitution must be based “one hundred percent on Islam.” 51 In accordance with Khomeini’s directive, the Assembly of Experts worked to create a constitution which required all of Iran’s laws to be founded on Islamic principles. This Islamically-based constitution played an essential role on the road toward Iran becoming an Islamic republic. 52 The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was approved in a national referendum which took place on December 2 and 3, 1979, and portions of that constitution were revised in 1989. 53 A distinctly Shia component of that constitution is its conception of the vilayat-i faqih. Although that specific term is not used in the 1979 version of the constitution, principles related to that concept and the responsibilities of the vilayat-i faqih are described in that constitution. 54 With respect to that office, which was entrusted to Khomeini until his death in 1989, the constitution states that until the reappearance of the twelfth Shia Imam the vilayat-i faqih will possess the most significant religious and political powers of the state. 55 According to Shias, the Twelfth Imam (who is also known as the Mahdi or the Hidden Imam) is an infallible, saintly figure who was born in approximately 868 CE, has gone into hiding, and will reappear in the future to lead the Shias in an apocalyptic battle against the forces of evil, purify Islam, and restore peace and justice to the world. 56

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

59

CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATIONS According to Khomeini’s writings and Iran’s 1979 and 1989 constitutions, Shia Muslims, all of whom are awaiting the return of the Twelfth Imam, have the responsibility to govern themselves in accordance with the Islamic law, which includes having the vilayat-i faqih at the head of government, until the Twelfth Imam returns. 57 Article 5 of Iran’s 1989 constitution, which is similar to Principle 5 of Iran’s 1979 constitution, states that the vilayat-i faqih or the supreme leader must be “fully aware of the circumstances of his age; courageous, resourceful, and possessed of administrative ability.” 58 According to Article 110 of Iran’s 1989 constitution, the vilayat-i faqih or Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has numerous responsibilities including: 1. delineating the general policies of the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, after 2. consulting with the Expediency Council; 3. supervising the performance of the government’s general policies; 4. issuing decrees for national referendums; 5. functioning as the Supreme Commander of the armed forces; 6. declaring war and peace and mobilizing the armed forces; 7. appointing, dismissing, and accepting the resignations of various members of the government, judiciary, armed forces, and the head of Iran’s state-run radio and television networks; 8. resolving differences among the branches of Iran’s armed forces and regulating their relations; 9. resolving problems, which cannot be solved by conventional methods through Iran’s Expediency Council; 10. signing the decree formalizing the election of Iran’s president after he has been elected by the people; 11. dismissing the president of Iran, by taking into account the interests of the country, after the Supreme Court has provided a verdict regarding the violation by the president of his legal functions in accordance with the relevant constitutional provisions; 12. pardoning or reducing the sentences of the condemned, within the scope of Islamic precepts, upon recommendation of the Head of the Judiciary; 59 Provisions which were similar to these in Iran’s 1979 constitution enabled Khomeini to consolidate his power after that constitution was approved. One day after Khomeini’s death in 1989, Ayatollah Khamenei was elected by Iran’s Assembly of Experts as Khomeini’s successor.

60

Chapter 3

The constitutions of 1979 and 1989 established several political entities within Iran’s government. Some officials in Iran’s government are elected to their positions, while others are appointed. The framers of the 1979 and 1989 constitutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran wanted those constitutions and the governmental entities, which those constitutions established, to reflect the priorities of Shia Islam and democracy, with the belief that certain aspects of democracy are endemic to Shia Islam. 60 Virtually all of the governmental entities, which will be discussed, appeared in the 1979 constitution. That constitution was amended in 1989. In view of the fact that those amendments are the most recent, this description is based on the 1979 constitution, including the amendments which were made in1989. Iran’s supreme leader, who has the title of ayatollah (of which there are several in Iran) and is the vilayat-i faqih, is elected by the Assembly of Experts, which is comprised of eighty-six members, all whom must be Shia clerics. This assembly is legally obliged to elect a person, who, among other credentials, is supremely qualified in terms of his knowledge of Islamic Law and related matters, to be Iran’s supreme leader. 61 In case the supreme leader is unable to perform his legal functions or loses one of his qualifications, which are stated in the constitution, he shall be dismissed from his position by the Assembly of Experts, and that assembly will choose a new supreme leader. 62 That assembly will also choose a new supreme leader if he dies while in office or resigns. 63 The members of the Assembly of Experts are elected by Iranians after potential candidates for the assembly are vetted by Iran’s Guardian Council. 64 Elections to the Assembly of Experts are held every eight years. 65 Next to the supreme leader, the president of Iran is the highest leader of the state and is responsible for the implementation of Iran’s constitution. As the chief executive, Iran’s president is responsible for the exercise of executive powers, except for the matters that are the responsibility of the supreme leader. 66 The candidates for Iran’s presidency are vetted by the Guardian Council, and Iran’s president is elected by a direct vote of the people to a four-year term of office and may be reelected for one additional four-year term. 67 According to Iran’s constitution, the president shall be elected from among distinguished religious and political persons and be of Iranian origin, possess Iranian citizenship, be efficient and prudent, have a good reputation, be honest and pious, while being true and faithful to the essentials of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Shia Islam, which is Iran’s official religion. 68 Among other responsibilities, Iran’s president 1. has the obligation to comply with all legislation which has been passed by Iran’s parliament or has been approved by a referendum, and to forward those laws to the relevant authorities for implementation; 69

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

61

2. shall sign treaties, conventions, agreements, and contracts concluded by Iran’s government with other governments, as well as agreements concerning international organizations, after they have been ratified by Iran’s parliament; 70 3. shall be directly responsible for the state plan and budget as well as the civil services within the country; 71 4. shall have the power to approve ambassadors who shall be appointed upon the recommendation of the minister of foreign affairs, and the president shall receive the credentials of foreign ambassadors; 72 5. shall submit his resignation to Iran’s supreme leader and shall continue to perform his functions as long as his resignation is not accepted. 73 In terms of the constitution’s provisions for Iran’s cabinet, which that constitution calls the “Council of Ministers,” the president of Iran is its head and he supervises the work of those ministers by taking the necessary measures to coordinate the decisions of individual ministers and the council as a whole. 74 The president is responsible to Iran’s parliament for the actions of the Council of Ministers. 75 The Council of Ministers ordinarily includes approximately twenty-two ministers and twelve vice presidents, each of whom is responsible for specific areas, such as, and not limited to, Agriculture, Atomic Energy, Communication, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Defense, Education, Environmental Protection, Foreign Affairs, Health, Labor, Sports, and Women and Family Affairs. 76 The Guardian Council, which is distinct from the Council of Ministers, has the responsibility, among others, of safeguarding the ordinances of Islam and Iran’s constitution, while assuring that the laws, which Iran’s parliament approves, are consistent with them. 77 The Guardian Council is comprised of a total of twelve Shia Muslim jurists, six who are appointed by Iran’s supreme leader and six who are elected by Iran’s parliament from the persons nominated by the head of Iran’s judiciary. 78 Members of that council are elected for a period of six years. However, after the passage of three years in the first term, half of the members of each group are changed by drawing lot, and new members are appointed to their seats. 79 If a majority of the members of the Guardian Council find legislation passed by Iran’s parliament to be inconsistent with the rules of Islam or Iran’s constitution, they must return that legislation to Iran’s parliament for review and revision. 80 That council also has the responsibility of interpreting Iran’s constitution, and it can render its interpretation with a three-fourths majority of its members. 81 The Guardian Council has the responsibility of supervising the elections of the Assembly of Experts, the president, and the parliament as well as the execution of referendums. 82 The members of the Expediency Council, which is distinct from the Guardian Council, are appointed by the supreme leader, and it has the power to make decisions in cases where there are differences of

62

Chapter 3

opinion between Iran’s parliament and the Guardian Council about laws which were passed by the parliament. The Expediency Council may also discharge other functions. 83 The members of Iran’s parliament are elected by the people and the body is comprised of 270 representatives, each of whom is elected to a four-year term. 84 The Guardian Council vets potential candidates and decides which candidates are permitted to run for seats in the parliament. 85 According to Iran’s constitution, Zoroastrians and Jews have one representative each in parliament; Assyrian and Chaldean Christians collectively have one representative, and Armenian Christians in the north and south of Iran each have one representative. 86 The fact that the members of those monotheistic religions are guaranteed one or more representatives in parliament is consistent with the Islamic principle of “people of the book” (ahl al-kitab), which is intended to provide Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians protected status when they are religious minorities in countries which have a majority-Muslim population. 87 In response to multiple occasions in Iran’s history when Iranian governments have granted concessions to foreign countries, Iran’s constitution prohibits the granting of concessions to foreigners for establishing companies and institutions in agriculture, industry, mining, trade, and other services. 88 Iran’s constitution also provides village, town, city, district, and provincial councils whose members would be elected by the people of the same locality. 89 The head of Iran’s judiciary is appointed by Iran’s supreme leader and has the responsibility of ensuring that legal cases are adjudicated and that Iran’s laws are administered in compliance with Sharia. 90 Iran’s constitution expresses a strong commitment to the country’s military for several reasons including (1) a history of significant foreign interference in Iran’s domestic affairs; (2) a desire on the part of Iran’s religious and political leadership, soon after Iran’s revolution succeeded, to repress dissent among persons and groups, within and outside Iran, who opposed that country’s government; (3) a long-term desire to use Iran’s foreign policy, and potentially its military, in an effort to protect Iran and expand its influence in the Middle East; and (4) the goal of protecting Shias in the Middle East and other places. 91 The supreme leader appoints Iran’s military commanders. 92 In this context, there are two major branches in Iran’s military: the regular military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The regular military has the primary responsibility of defending Iran’s territorial integrity, while the IRGC is responsible for defending Iran as a nation and defending the country’s Islamically-based political system. 93 Iran’s constitutions of 1979 and 1989 express the government’s goals for Iran’s military and the IRGC. For example, Iran’s 1989 constitution indicates that Iran’s army and IRGC have the responsibility of engaging in Islamically-based action for God’s way and for “extending the sovereignty of God’s

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

63

law throughout the world.” 94 Since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, the IRGC has expanded and been strengthened militarily while becoming influential in various spheres within Iran, including the political, economic, strategic, and cultural areas. 95 Iran’s IRGC and regular military have similar ground, naval, and air forces. These military groupings are intended to cooperate during times of war, and usually operate within largely separate geographic locations during periods of peace. 96 For example, the IRGC’s navy and the regular navy are both responsible for the defense of Iran’s coasts but the two navies operate in different areas. The IRGC handles naval operations in the Persian Gulf, while the regular navy operates along the coastlines in the southern portion of the Caspian Sea. At the same time, the regular navy operates Iran’s larger more traditional ships, while the IRGC typically uses smaller boats with a fleet of thousands of armed speedboats at its disposal. Along these lines, Iran’s regular air force is larger and controls more airplanes than the IRGC’s air force. Yet, the IRGC supervises Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an essential component of the country’s defense system. 97 Consistent with the Iranian constitution’s emphasis on promoting the rule of God’s law in the world and Iran’s use of the military to achieve that and related goals, Iran’s constitution also states that Iran’s foreign policy is based on opposing any form of domination whatsoever, with the goals of defending the rights of all Muslims, rejecting alignment with dominating powers, and maintaining reciprocal relations with non-belligerent states. 98 Iran’s constitution also states that the Islamic Republic of Iran regards the happiness of human beings in societies as its aspiration and recognizes independence, freedom, and the rule of right and justice for all people of the world, while supporting the just struggles of oppressed people against their oppressors anywhere in the world. 99 These constitutional principles have played a crucial role in Iran’s religious, educational, financial, political, and military support of Shias and related groups in such places as Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and other Arab states in the Persian Gulf, for example. 100 The constitutional principle, which states that Iran will support the rightful struggle of oppressed people against their oppressors, also relates to Iran’s support of the Palestinians, most of whom are Sunni Muslims and some of whom are Christians, in opposition to Israel. 101 BUILDING ON SHIA PRINCIPLES: A MIXED LEGACY Consistent with principles related to justice and fairness, which appear in Iran’s constitution, as Khomeini’s government began its attempts to establish itself in the early 1980s, it endeavored to assist different sectors of Iranian society, which had been negatively affected by the policies of Mohammad

64

Chapter 3

Reza Pahlavi. For example, while the Islamic Republic of Iran placed no limits on land ownership, it distributed more than 850,000 hectares of confiscated farmland to approximately 220,000 underprivileged families in three provinces of Iran. The new farmers formed more than ten thousand cooperatives. The government supported farmers in other ways also. It increased prices of agricultural commodities, enabling Iran to become self-sufficient in terms of cereal production, while initiating an extensive literacy campaign among marginalized people in rural areas. At the same time, the government of the Islamic Republic improved and expanded roads, electricity, piped water, and health clinics into a large number of rural small towns and villages throughout the country. In the wake of these policies’ implementation, farmers and others in rural areas were able to purchase radios, televisions, telephones, motorcycles, and pickup trucks. 102 A positive result of these policies was that from the period between 1976 until 2012 life expectancy in Iran increased from fifty-three years of age to seventy-three years of age. 103 Iran’s Islamic Republic brought other benefits to the members of Iran’s working classes and other people within Iranian society who were marginalized. The government provided direct subsidies for bread, rice, sugar, cheese, fuel, and cooking oil as well as indirect subsidies for electricity, sanitation and piped water. The government passed a labor law, which, while not legalizing labor strikes and free trade unions, provided workers with six-day, forty-eight-hour workweeks, paid Fridays (which is a non-workday in Iran), a minimum wage, and twelve-day annual paid holidays from work. 104 There were several positive effects from these and related policies. For example, between 1976 and 2015, Iran’s infant mortality rate dropped from 100.5 deaths per 1,000 live births to 13.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. 105 Between 1976 and 2006, the literacy rate in Iran rose from 47.49 percent of the population to 84.61 percent of the population. 106 This meant that most of the people in several ethnic minority groups within Iran, who may have had a language other than Farsi as their primary language, could converse and read in Farsi. 107 In spite of idealistic goals related to peace and justice which appear in Iran’s constitutions of 1979 and 1989, throughout its history, the Islamic Republic of Iran has had a history of repressing dissent, often in violent and brutal ways. 108 This is tragic and ironic in view of the fact that a reason that Iran’s Islamic Revolution occurred was because its proponents opposed the repression of previous regimes, including that of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and aspired to put in place a new governmental system which would guarantee human rights, justice, freedom, and liberty for all Iranians. For example, with respect to the Islamic Republic’s desire to consolidate its power and eliminate opposition, in the period between February 1979 and June 1981, Iran’s revolutionary courts executed 497 political opponents, including a former prime minister, six cabinet ministers, 93 persons who had worked for

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

65

SAVAK, and eighty commissioned and 125 noncommissioned military officers. 109 As the Islamic government continued to consolidate its power, from June 1981 until June 1985, it executed approximately eight thousand opponents. 110 In anticipation of Ayatollah Khomeini’s death, which was to occur on June 3, 1989, and in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War, under Khomeini’s supervision, in 1988, special governmental courts oversaw the hangings of approximately 2,800 prisoners, who were deemed to be opponents of Iran’s Islamic government and were accused of having turned their backs on God, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Quran. 111 These executions occurred because of Khomeini’s desire to eliminate as many of his opponents as possible in order to strengthen the position of his successor and his allies after Khomeini’s imminent death. 112 Unfortunately, even since that time, the Islamic Republic of Iran has continued to violate human rights in various ways. 113 PRO-MONARCHICAL IRANIANS At the same time, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there were Iranians who strongly supported the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties, including their policies of Westernization, secularization, and modernization. These supporters, who included members of Iran’s middle and upper classes, gravitated strongly toward those polices, and their education, upbringing, families, livelihoods, and lifestyles were Western and secular. These Westernized Iranians emphatically rejected Iran’s Islamic Revolution and virtually everything which accompanied it, because they contradicted their most deeplyheld worldviews, careers, and ways of living. Included in that sizeable group of Westernized, and often urban, Iranians were those who benefited financially from the policies of the Qajars and the Pahlavis. The Islamic Revolution utterly overturned their lives. Those who did not have their financial assets saved or invested in banks outside Iran lost most or all of it because the Islamic government confiscated it, in view of their pro-Pahlavi positions. Pro-Pahlavi Iranians, who could afford to leave Iran and received permission to enter other countries, did so and reestablished themselves, usually in their new home countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Western European countries, the United States, and Canada. A large percentage of those Iranians have bitter and resentful feelings toward the Islamic Republic, believe that the government has done large-scale damage to the country politically, socially, and economically. RESISTING THE UNITED STATES In the months after Khomeini returned to Iran on February 1, 1979, the Iranian government was involved in two of several significant realities relat-

66

Chapter 3

ed to the country’s foreign policy: (1) a takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran by Iranian students on November 4, 1979, which was a crisis that was to last 444 days, ending on January 20, 1981, with the Iranian government freeing all the hostages 114 and (2) the Iran-Iraq War which began on September 22, 1980, with Iraq’s attack on Iran; this war was to last almost eight years, ending on August 20, 1988. 115 Deeply concerned that the United States may try to use its embassy in Tehran as a base to catalyze a coup against Khomeini and his government, as it had done against the premiership of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, and angered by the fact that the United States had admitted Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the United States, a large group of students, some of whom believed that the United States would again return him to Iran after the coup, which had it plotted, took over the US embassy in Tehran in early November 1979. They took hostage ninety people who were inside that embassy, including sixty-six Americans. 116 By mid-November 1979, the non-American hostages and the American hostages who were African-American and female were freed, bringing the total number of hostages to fifty-three. 117 Initially, the hostage-takers demanded the return of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran for trial. 118 In addition, they wanted to find evidence inside the US Embassy of support of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s repressive policies and actions, and of US conspiracy to overthrow Khomeini and his government. 119 After the students entered the embassy, they retrieved a large number of documents, which later became an eight-volume book of 8,500 pages, comprised of telegrams, correspondences, and reports from the US Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency containing information about a variety of topics related to Iran-US relations. 120 Some of the Iranian students, who took over the embassy, even pasted together a large number of documents which embassy workers had shredded before the takeover. 121 Those and related documents revealed detailed American intelligence about political figures in Iran and accounts of meetings between American intelligence agents and moderate elements within Iran. 122 Ayatollah Khomeini, the students who took over the US Embassy, and their allies presented these and other documents as evidence of US support of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s oppressive policies and of SAVAK’s as well as US collusion with that king to oppose any government, including Khomeini’s, which would be hostile to US interests in Iran. 123 With knowledge of those documents, on November 5, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini called the United States the “Great Satan” and its embassy in Tehran a “den of espionage.” 124 As anti-American feelings increased in Iran, with the increased public disclosures by students on Iran’s national television stations of evidence of American espionage and its intervention in Iran’s affairs, it became increasingly difficult for Iran’s government to end the crisis in view of the fact that a reason for the Islamic Revolution was its

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

67

supporters’ opposition to US and other foreign involvement in Iran’s affairs. 125 On September 12, 1980, Ayatollah Khomeini announced four conditions for the release of the American hostages: 126 1. US return of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s wealth to Iran, which the United States had frozen after the hostages were taken; 127 2. the cancellation of all of US claims against Iran which included, but were not limited to, approximately 390 cases instituted against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various government corporations and instrumentalities; 128 3. a guarantee of no future US military or political intervention in Iran; and 4. the unfreezing of all Iranian funds which were held in the United States. 129 On November 2, 1980, Iran’s parliament passed a resolution stating that the hostages would be freed if the United States were to comply with those four conditions. 130 On November 3, 1980, members of the administration of Jimmy Carter, who was the president of the United States at the time, were informed that Iran’s government had asked Algeria to serve as a mediator between the United States and Iran in the negotiations about the freeing of the hostages. 131 These negotiations lasted until January 19, 1981, which is when the Algiers Accords, the agreement under which the hostages were released, was signed. Some of the main provisions of the Algiers Accords included: 1. The United States would not intervene in Iran’s domestic affairs; 2. The United States would remove the freezes on Iranian assets and economic sanctions on Iran; 3. The United States and Iran would end litigation between their respective governments and citizens, transferring them to international arbitration through a tribunal which the agreement established; 4. The United States would ensure that American court decisions regarding the transfer of any property of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would be independent from sovereign immunity and those court decisions would be enforced; 132 and 5. The Iranian government would pay its debts to American institutions. 133 The hostages were freed soon before Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president of the United States on January 20, 1981. 134

68

Chapter 3

While the hostage crisis was a significant factor which led to the termination of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States, it provided the first opportunity after Iran’s Islamic Revolution for both countries to engage in meaningful discussions about their grievances with respect to each other. 135 While the negotiations focused primarily on the hostage crisis, they addressed some of the Iranians’ concerns and led to a resolution of the crisis. 136 The taking of the hostages and the fact that they were kept for a relatively long period of time also reflect the suspicion that Iran’s government had and continues to have, with respect to the United States. The continual involvement of foreign powers in Iran’s affairs, of which the 1953 coup against Mosaddegh was the most dramatic example, provides an understanding as to the Iranians students’ and the Iranian government’s motivations during the hostage crisis. Indeed, documents which the Iranian students, who raided the US Embassy in Iran retrieved and pieced together, showed that the Central Intelligence Agency attempted to recruit high-level Iranian officials, clerics, exiles, and others, either as paid or unwitting agents, during and after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, in an effort to advance US interests with respect to Iran’s government. 137 One of the officials, whom the Central Intelligence Agency attempted to recruit, largely before the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, was Abolhassan Banisadr, who was the president of Iran in the early stages of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and held other high-level government positions during that period. 138 The documents, which the Iranian students retrieved and pieced together, describe several meetings in Tehran in which Banisadr and a Central Intelligence Agency official, who was known to Banisadr as an American businessman, participated where that agent offered to hire Banisadr as a paid consultant or a full-time employee for $1,000 per month. Banisadr stated that he declined both offers. 139 The publication and broadcast of this kind of information in Iran, even after the hostage crisis ended, continued to heighten Iranians’ suspicions of the United States and of its involvement in Iran. 140 During and after Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis, both Iran and the United States accused each other of having violated international law and human rights. 141 Iran accused the United States of having violated those principles in numerous ways during the period of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, including US work in the coup against Mosaddegh in 1953, its support of SAVAK and that agency’s imprisonment and torture of thousands of political prisoners, and US support of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s repressive tactics toward various aspects of Shia Islam. 142 For their part, US government officials have maintained that the Islamic Republic of Iran has violated human rights and international law through the taking of the hostages, repression of the rights of religious minorities, restrictions on freedom

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

69

of the press and speech in Iran, and Iran’s support of such militant groups as Hezbollah. 143 THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR Adding to the Iranians’ suspicions during the revolutionary period and the hostage crisis, the Iraqi military, in response to orders from Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, launched an attack on Iran on September 22, 1980, which was approximately ten months after the hostages were taken, and approximately four months before they were to be released. This attack initiated the Iran-Iraq War which lasted until August 20, 1988. 144 There were several factors that motivated Iraq’s attack on Iran, which included beliefs on the part of Saddam Hussein and other Iraqis that 1. Iraq had not received its fair-share of coastline along the Persian Gulf as a result of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, between the British and French which played a significant role in setting the borders of Middle Eastern countries, and subsequent treaties; 145 2. the Algiers Treaty of 1975, between Iran and Iraq, which placed the border between those two countries in the middle of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, was unfair to Iraq partly because it gave Iran more access to that waterway and the Persian Gulf than it deserved; 146 3. all or part of the oil-rich Khuzestan province, which is on the Iranian side of the Iran-Iraq border, should belong to Iraq; 147 and 4. after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, its government encouraged Shia Muslims in Iraq to engage in a Shia Islamic revolution against Iraq’s government in order to establish a Shia government in Iraq, which would be similar to Iran’s. 148 Saddam Hussein and others in the Iraqi government believed that Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the domestic turmoil in Iran, which resulted from it, would weaken Iran to such an extent that it would not be able to defend itself effectively against military attacks by Iraq. 149 For its part, members of Iran’s government and the vast majority of Iran’s population believe that Iraq’s attack on Iran was wholly unjustified and that Iraq and the United States were aligned with each other against Iran, because both of those countries viewed Iran as a threat after Iran’s Islamic Revolution. 150 From the perspective of the Iranian government, Iraq attacked Iran on such a large scale, that they perceived that initial Iraqi military offensive, and subsequent attacks, as consistent with the United States’ goal of overthrowing Iran’s Islamic government. 151 Iran’s governmental leaders firmly believed that the United States had indicated to Iraq its approval of Iraq’s attack

70

Chapter 3

on Iran. 152 Iran’s leaders believed there was evidence to support these viewpoints; some of that evidence was available at the time of Iraq’s invasion while other pieces of evidence emerged later. For example, a confidential memo, which was written by Alexander Haig, who was US president Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state from January 22, 1981, until July 5, 1982, referred to a meeting in April 1981 with the Saudi Prince Fahd, where Haig learned that President Carter gave the Iraqis approval to initiate a war against Iran. 153 In any event, Iranian governmental leaders’ opinions regarding US support of Iraq were also based on what they perceived throughout the IranIraq War. 154 To those Iranian governmental officials, the fact that the US government did not express opposition to Iraq’s invasion, or acknowledge it as a violation of international law and as an aggressive act, nor demand the withdrawal of Iraqi soldiers from occupied lands in Iran constituted ample evidence that the US government supported Iraq’s invasion. 155 Along these lines, on February 26, 1982, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. 156 This change in policy made Iraq eligible for the extension of US government credit-guarantees, loosened controls on the export of American goods to Iraq, facilitated Iraq’s entry into the international arms market, and positioned it to purchase arms from the United States. This change in policy also sent the message to US allies that they were free to do business with Iraq. 157 During March and May of 1982, Iran’s military engaged in a series of battles which broke Iraq’s battle lines and separated Iraq’s military units in northern and southern Khuzestan. At this time, Iran regained control of the strategic city of Khorramshahr in Khuzestan. After this victory, Iran’s political and military leaders decided to attempt to move into Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. 158 After those events, on July 14, 1982, White House Deputy Press Secretary Larry Speakes, who worked under President Ronald Reagan, stated US “opposition to the seizure of any territory by force.” 159 In the eyes of Iranian governmental officials, this and similar statements by US government officials at the time indicated US support of Iraq in view of those leaders’ perception that when the Iraqi military had previously seized three of Iran’s provinces, the US government had said nothing. 160 Reinforcing the Iranian government’s suspicions about the United States’ siding with Iraq was the warning that Iran’s political leaders received from Iranian intelligence, around 1983, which stated that the United States was providing the Iraqi government and military with satellite images, which disclosed where Iran’s military units were amassing soldiers in order to launch an attack on Iraqi forces. 161 Later, declassified documents revealed that Donald Rumsfeld, who was a special envoy for President Reagan, secretly visited Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister in Iraq, in December 1983. The talking points of Rumsfeld’s meeting included the Reagan

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

71

administration’s assurances to Aziz that the United States “would regard any major reversal of Iraq’s fortune as a strategic defeat for the west.” 162 A few months later, on November 26, 1984, Ronald Reagan and Tariq Aziz met at the White House. 163 During or soon after this meeting, the United States and Iraq agreed to restore diplomatic relations, which Iraq and several other Arab nations had severed with the United States in 1967 after Israel’s victory over Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. 164 George P. Shultz, who was US secretary of state during the Reagan administration from July 16, 1982, until January 20, 1989, 165 later wrote in his memoir that while the United States basically had a policy of not supplying arms to either the Iraqi or Iranian militaries during the Iran-Iraq War, US support for Iraq increased in approximate proportion to Iran’s military success in that war. 166 Iranians perceived a stark contradiction between US government’s formal stance of neutrality in that war, on the one hand, and its support of Saddam Hussein, on the other. This perceived contradiction led to an escalation of distrust of the United States by Iranian political leaders and Iranians in the general public. 167 A high percentage of oil, which the United States and other industrialized countries needed, flowed through the Persian Gulf, and Iran and Iraq were attacking each other’s oil assets in the Gulf region. 168 Thus, Kuwait, which was an ally of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War and whose tankers were carrying Iraqi oil, accepted the US offer of placing American flags on its oil tankers and the escorting of those tankers by American naval vessels. 169 This US military endeavor was named “Operation Earnest Will” and lasted from July 24, 1987, until September 26, 1988; 170 a goal of this operation was to protect Kuwaiti ships from attacks by the Iranian military. 171 From the perspective of Iranian governmental officials, this agreement between the United States and Kuwait was part of the US broader plan to become involved in the war against Iran. From this Iranian perspective, this was an undeclared war by the United States against Iran. 172 In October 1987, the Iranian military attacked a Kuwaiti tanker flying the American flag. In response, the United States navy attacked two Iranian oil fields, destroying them. In April 1988, an American destroyer was badly damaged by Iranian mines, and the American navy responded by attacking two Iranian oil platforms, resulting in the loss of several Iranian ships and a large number of Iranian sailors. 173 THE SHOOTING DOWN OF AN IRANIAN PASSENGER JET In the midst of these kinds of battles between the United States and Iran in the Persian Gulf, a terrible tragedy occurred. On July 3, 1988, the USS

72

Chapter 3

Vincennes, which was a guided missile cruiser that was operating in the Persian Gulf shot down a civilian Iranian airplane, Iran Air Flight 655, from Bandar Abbas in Iran to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. According to the US government, crew members on the USS Vincennes mistakenly identified the Iranian commercial passenger plane as an attacking Iranian military warplane. 174 From an American perspective, the USS Vincennes attempted to contact the flight crew of Iran Air Flight 655 seven times and received no response. 175 Unfortunately, the crew of the Vincennes did not use air traffic control frequencies, so it is likely that the Iran Air’s flight crew did not receive the radio messages or did not know that the messages were directed at them. Believing that the Vincennes was under attack, the ship’s crew fired two surface-to-air missiles at the Iranian passenger plane causing it to plunge into the Strait of Hormuz, which is on the eastern end of the Persian Gulf. All 290 people on the plane died. In the wake of these events, the Iranian government expressed enormous skepticism that experienced radar operators could have mistaken a passenger plane for an F-14 fighter. In addition, the Iranian government stated that even if the airplane had been a military warplane, the crew members of the Vincennes should not have fired at it because it was in Iranian airspace, it had not followed an attack pattern, and it had not taken any hostile actions. The Iranian government concluded that the crew of the Vincennes had acted improperly. In addition, the Iranian government stated that when an Iraqi pilot had attacked the USS Stark in the previous year, the US government concluded that the Iraqi pilot should have realized that his target was an American warship. In much the same way, according to the Iranians, the US government should have recognized the mistake on the part of the Vincennes’s crew. 176 The crew members of the Vincennes received combat-action ribbons, 177 the captain of that ship, Captain Will Rogers III, received the Legion of Merit, while Lieutenant Commander Scott E. Lustig, who was the ship’s weapons and combat systems officer, was given two Navy commendation medals—one for his four years of service on the Vincennes, and the other for his role in a battle with seven Iranian boats several minutes before it shot down the Iran Air plane. 178 Both Rogers and Lustig were praised for what the US Navy considered to be their accomplishments as naval officers. Rogers was commended for “exceptionally meritorious conduct” in the performance of outstanding service as a commanding officer from April 1987 to May 1989, which included the period that the Vincennes shot down the Iranian airplane under Rogers’s command. 179 The US Navy recognized Lustig for “heroic achievement” in connection with firing on the seven Iranian boats and praised him for his “meritorious service” as weapons and combat systems officer from 1984 to 1988. 180 Although the US government issued a

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

73

“note of regret” about the loss of innocent lives, it neither admitted responsibility nor apologized for the shooting down of the plane. 181 For Iranians, the psychological scars, which the downing of that plane created have not been healed; indeed, the granting of those awards has exacerbated the Iranian government’s distrust of the United States and has convinced them that the Vincennes’s attack on the Iranian passenger airplane was intentional. 182 Several years after the downing of the plane, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was Iran’s president from August 3, 1989, until August 3, 1997, told Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who worked in several highlevel positions in Iran’s government, that the attack on the Iranian passenger plane was a signal that the United States would officially enter the Iran-Iraq War on the side of Iraq. 183 Even more than twenty-five years after the attack on the Iran Air plane, that event, together with the US support of Iraq in other ways during the Iran-Iraq War, including the United States providing Iraq with the chemicals for its deployment of chemical weapons against Iran, 184 continues to shape the thinking of Iran’s military leaders. These circumstances remind Iranians of how vulnerable they have been to foreign aggression, a position which encouraged Iran in its attempts to build strong military and defense systems. 185 ENDING THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR On July 20, 1987, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 598, which called on Iran and Iraq to observe an immediate cease-fire, discontinue all military actions, and move all of their military forces to the internationally recognized boundaries between the two countries. 186 The resolution requested the UN secretary general to send a team of UN observers to verify, confirm, and supervise the cease-fire and the movement of Iranian and Iraqi soldiers to the internationally recognized boundaries. The resolution also urged that prisoners of war on both sides be released and returned to their home countries without delay after the conclusion of active hostilities between Iran and Iraq. On July 17, 1988, Iran notified the UN secretary general of its formal acceptance of resolution 598, expressing the need to save lives and to reestablish justice as well as peace and security. The following day, Iraq also reaffirmed its agreement with the resolution’s principles. 187 Although Iran and Iraq may have verbally accepted the UN cease-fire resolution on those dates, Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi military offensives, in cooperation with Mojahedin-e Khalq, a political and military organization comprised of Iranians who were opposed to Iran’s Islamic Republic, up and down the war’s frontline in order to increase Iraq’s potential political and military advantage in a final settlement. 188 This Iraqi military offensive, which began on July 22, 1988, failed in the face of large-scale defensive

74

Chapter 3

counterattacks by the Iranians. 189 After a few more battles between Iran and Iraq, by August 20, 1988, a UN-mediated truce was established between the two countries. 190 The borders, which had existed between Iran and Iraq before the war, were restored and by 1990 Saddam Hussein accepted the Algiers Agreement of 1975, 191 which he had publicly rejected in 1980. 192 In view of the far-reaching destruction which the Iran-Iraq War wreaked upon lives and property, Iran’s policies toward Iraq have been governed, particularly since 1988, by an imperative to prevent Iraq from being in a position to go to war against Iran again, and by deep suspicion of any political or military activities in that country which could threaten Iran. 193 The US government’s support of Iraq in that war also deepened the Iranian government’s suspicions of the United States. IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM Another significant domestic and foreign policy decision, which Iran’s leaders made after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, related to the future of Iran’s nuclear program, which began in the 1950s with the strong support of the United States as part of President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program. A goal of that initiative involved the United States assisting some of its allies at the time, including Iran, in their development of nuclear programs for peaceful purposes. 194 With the Atoms for Peace program as an initial springboard, the United States and some Western European countries continued to provide Iran with substantial assistance for its nuclear program until Iran’s Islamic Revolution gained significant traction in 1979. In the context of the Atoms for Peace program, on December 22, 1956, President Eisenhower authorized the implementation of an agreement which committed the United States to moving forward with the development of peaceful uses of atomic energy in Iran through the cooperation between the United States and Iran with respect to the design, construction, and operation of nuclear reactors in Iran for research. 195 On November 25, 1967, Iran began operation of the five-megawatt Tehran Research Reactor, which functioned, in part, on five kilograms of 93 percent highly-enriched uranium and one hundred grams of plutonium. This reactor was comparable to the ones that the United States had constructed for Israel and Pakistan, and was capable of producing up to one-hundred grams of plutonium—238 annually. These materials, together with most of the expertise and training for Iran’s nuclear program, were provided to Iran directly by the US government. 196 Some of the most far-reaching of Iran’s actions, which related to its nuclear program, were its acceptance of several American-initiated international conventions, organizations, and treaties, which were intended to create international regulatory mechanisms for nucle-

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

75

ar programs. 197 Iran ratified the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) statute on May 16, 1958, and continues to be a member of that agency. 198 Iran signed the treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water (also known as the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty) in 1963, ratified it in 1964, and continues to be a party to that treaty. 199 It has also been a non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) since 1970. 200 In the midst of Iran’s commitments to these and other related treaties, Akbar Etemad, an Iranian physicist who is considered a founder of Iran’s nuclear program, became the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) in 1974 and he continued in that role until 1978. 201 Etemad and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had ambitious plans for Iran’s nuclear program. In December of 1975, Etemad announced that by 1994 he hoped to increase Iran’s power capacity from 5,000 megawatts, which was Iran’s capacity in 1975, to 70,000 megawatts, a significant portion of which would come from nuclear power. 202 One country, which Etemad believed could assist Iran in its efforts, was France. Iran’s ownership position in two French energy companies, which were doing work in nuclear energy, provided it with an opportunity to enter the front end of the nuclear cycle. 203 On the latter end of the nuclear cycle, an intergovernmental agreement between Iran and France provided for the shipment of spent nuclear fuel from the Iranian nuclear plants to France for reprocessing. 204 In May 1975, France and Iran also concluded a final agreement to build the Isfahan Nuclear Reactor Center, which was conceived as a “mainstay” of Iran’s nuclear energy program, intended to employ approximately one thousand nuclear experts, who would use the center for training and to perform the operation and maintenance of Iran’s nuclear power stations. 205 In the 1970s, The Iranian government also had agreements with companies and agencies in Australia, Germany, Japan, and South Africa to provide materials and expertise for two Iranian nuclear power plants near the city of Bushehr. 206 During the 1970s, Iran and Israel engaged in talks with respect to a joint endeavor named “Project Flower,” which, if brought to fruition, would have enabled Iran to construct a surface-to-surface ballistic missile known as Jericho, which could have been fitted with a nuclear warhead. 207 After Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini and others in Iran’s government initially opposed the country’s nuclear program in view of the fact that if Iran were to continue that program it would have to depend on foreign countries for expertise and materials, which contradicted one of the Islamic Revolution’s most important principles, which was Iran’s freedom, to the extent possible, from dependence on foreign countries. 208 On September 6, 1979, Fereydoun Sahabi, who became the head of the AEOI after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, announced that Iran had cancelled all plans

76

Chapter 3

for the development of atomic energy and he called for a termination of Iran’s uranium-supply agreements with France, Gabon, Namibia, Niger, and South Africa because during this period the Iranian government saw no need for fissile material. 209 However, during the years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s deep concerns about (1) sanctions which had been levied against it by the United States, (2) the possibility that the United States may attack Iran, and (3) the possibility that Iran’s supplies of oil and natural gas could be depleted were some of the causes behind Iran’s government changing course and deciding to continue its nuclear program. Around 1982, Iran focused its initial attempts to restart its nuclear program beginning with one of the nuclear plants near Bushehr. 210 Leaders of Iran’s government realized that keeping that nuclear power plant inoperative meant that billions of dollars, which were already invested in it, would be wasted. Thus, that government turned to several countries to complete the nuclear plant in Bushehr, including Argentina and China, at the early stages of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program in the early to mid-1980s. 211 The threats that Iran faced in the Iran-Iraq War escalated the need for a nuclear program in the minds of several of Iran’s political leaders in view of their concerns about Iran’s potential military vulnerability during and after that war. 212 During various phases of Iran’s post-revolutionary period, Iran received or attempted to receive materials and expertise from persons, organizations, and agencies in such countries as China, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia as it strengthened and expanded its nuclear program, while the United States put great efforts into attempting to block Iran from this expansion. 213 One way that the United States attempted to block Iran from expanding its nuclear program was by working with its allies and other countries in levying economic sanctions against Iran. 214 These sanctions created significant economic and financial hardships in Iran. 215 Given this situation, one platform of Hassan Rouhani’s successful campaign for Iran’s presidency in the run-up to his beginning his first term as Iran’s president on August 3, 2013, involved improving relations with Western countries, including Iran exploring possible ways of reducing or eliminating the sanctions, which had been levied against it. 216 After Rouhani’s election, he instructed Iran’s foreign minister, Muhammad Javad Zarif, to pursue talks about Iran’s nuclear program with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (which are comprised of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and Germany, which are often called the “P5+1” countries. 217 An important negotiator in these talks was John Kerry who was the US secretary of state under President Barack Obama at the time. Through these talks, the Iranian government wanted relief from sanctions, while the P5+1 countries wanted assurance that Iran would be hampered or blocked from producing a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

77

JOINT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN OF ACTION In mid-2015, it was announced that all sides had agreed to a set of accords, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in which Iran agreed to curtail or end the parts of its nuclear program which heightened its nuclear weapon breakout capability (that were the elements which enabled it to produce a nuclear weapon quickly), while the P5+1 countries agreed to reduce or eliminate certain sanctions, which had been levied against Iran. 218 The JCPOA prevents Iran, for a period of fifteen years, from producing the fissile material needed to establish the capacity to build a nuclear weapon by blocking two pathways to such a weapon: (1) uranium enrichment and (2) that uranium’s transformation into plutonium. 219 There are four points in the accords which are particularly significant. First, Iran is required to reduce the amount of low-enriched uranium it had already stored, which could have been processed into weapons-grade fuel. Second, Iran agreed to restrict its future enrichment capacity, limiting the number of its centrifuges. Third, Iran agreed to limit the work of its nuclear plant in Iraq to supporting peaceful nuclear research and radioisotope production for medical and industrial purposes. 220 Fourth, Iran allowed officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to strictly monitor its nuclear facilities. 221 Altogether, these and other measures in the JCPOA were designed to ensure that if Iran were to violate those accords and attempt to produce a nuclear weapon quickly, it would take approximately one year for it to produce the necessary weapongrade fuel for a single nuclear bomb. 222 On May 7, 2018, US president Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the JCPOA and that it was preparing to reinstate all the sanctions which it had waived as part of the accord. Consistent with that action, the Trump administration planned to impose additional economic penalties on Iran. 223 In President Trump’s speech, where he announced US withdrawal from the JCPOA, he stated his belief that the Iranian government is the leading state sponsor of terror. He also stated that the Iranian government exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies and militias such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and al-Qaida. President Trump expressed his belief that no action taken by the Iranian government has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them. In President Trump’s view, the JCPOA allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and to reach the brink of a nuclear breakout in a short period of time. He stated that the JCPOA lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for very weak limits on the regime’s nuclear activity and placed no limits on Iran’s actions, which opposed US interests. President Trump believes that the JCPOA’s inspection provisions lack adequate mechanisms to prevent, detect, and punish cheating and do not provide the United States and

78

Chapter 3

other foreign countries the unqualified right to inspect important locations in Iran, including its military facilities. Trump also stated that the JCPOA failed to address the Iranian government’s development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads. 224 President Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA even though Iran had complied with it. After Trump announced US withdrawal from the agreement, the other signatories stated that they would continue to comply with the JCPOA. 225 The US government has also promised to levy sanctions against any companies which may conduct business with Iran. 226 While it is difficult to predict the exact long-term impact of these decisions on Iran’s economy, several European companies have stopped doing business in Iran as a result of US withdrawal from the JCPOA and that country’s threat to levy sanctions against companies doing business in Iran. 227 The Iranian government sharply denounced US withdrawal from the JCPOA as illegal and wholly unjustified, in that the Iranian government states that it was complying with the JCPOA’s terms. The Iranian government has also expressed its willingness, under certain conditions, to continue to comply with the JCPOA. That government also suggested that it may increase its production of nuclear materials if the remaining signatories to the JCPOA did not provide assurances to Iran that they would compensate Iran economically and in other ways in response to US withdrawal. 228 On July 1, 2019, Iran exceeded a crucial limit on the amount of nuclear fuel it was permitted to possess under the JCPOA, in response to US withdrawal from that agreement and what the Iranian government viewed as European countries’ inadequate support of Iran, in light of the sanctions which the United States imposed on Iran after it withdrew from the JCPOA. 229 On October 31, 2019, Iran’s atomic energy organization announced that Iran resumed uranium enrichment at its underground Fordow facility, taking the next step in its stage-by-stage moves away from the JCPOA. The country’s atomic energy organization stated that uranium gas had successfully been injected into 1,044 centrifuges, in the presence of UN inspectors. The centrifuges had previously spun empty under the JCPOA’s terms. 230 The JCPOA’s future remains to be seen. SUSPICIONS ABOUT FOREIGN INTERFERENCE Iranians’ suspicions related to foreign interference in their country are rooted in both ancient and modern times. Iranians have inherited historical memories of ancient Iran’s (or Persia’s) battles with Greece in the fifth century BCE, the invasion of the Muslim Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century CE, the invasion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, conflicts between the Ottomans and Iranians at various times, as well as the

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

79

interference of the Russians, British, and Americans in Iran during the modern period. Iranians’ suspicions of being overrun, victimized, and exploited by foreign countries runs deep in their consciousness and often plays a prominent role in their worldviews and conversations with fellow-Iranians and non-Iranians. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s strong opposition to the United States is rooted in that country’s substantial involvement in Iran’s domestic and international affairs from the 1940s until Iran’s Islamic Revolution, and Iranians’ perceptions, which may be accurate, that after Iran’s Islamic Revolution the United States continues in its desire to harm Iran and use Iran for its own purposes. One reason for Iran’s assertive military and political policies in the Middle East involves its desire to defend itself against the United States and its allies in almost any way that it can. Iran’s foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, is also strongly influenced by Iran’s religious and political leaders’ belief that Iran must protect itself from Israel and Iran’s Sunni adversaries in the region, as well as Iran’s ideology that it must protect Shias throughout the Middle East. Indeed, two of several motivating factors behind Iran’s Islamic Revolution were the revolutionaries’ strong opposition to the US harmful impact by the United States on Iran and their desire to properly establish and perpetuate Shia Islam in Iran. Thus, the relative strength of Iran’s military, its military operations in the Middle East, its ballistic missile program, and its nuclear program, which the Iranian government asserts is exclusively peaceful, are intended to defend Iran and its Shia allies against adversaries that may have the potential of doing significant harm to the country. The repeated declarations on the part of American officials about their desire to implement regime change in Iran or to bomb the country are two of several factors that have heightened Iranians’ fears about US objectives. These fears are continually reinforced by Iranians’ historical memories, rooted in thousands of years of history which relate to Iran being harmed by foreign countries. While these suspicions represent one side of Iranians’ personas, there are certainly people in Iran who are open and receptive to various aspects of Western and even American culture, including art, music, television shows, movies, and so on. There are even rank-and-file Iranians who are willing to throw aside any suspicions of the United States, and openly embrace the possibility of Iran and the United States reestablishing diplomatic relations. Within this cultural environment of contrasting views, Iran faces several major challenges which, if not properly addressed, could weaken Iran domestically and in terms of its potential influence in the Middle East, particularly among Shias. These challenges include high unemployment, underemployment, inflation, high levels of pollution and potential environmental degradation in Tehran and other parts of Iran, a generally unstable economic and

80

Chapter 3

political future, and the restrictions which economic sanctions place on Iranian individuals and the country’s economy as a whole. The Iranian government’s relatively consistent violation of human rights have also created much frustration within Iran, and have generated criticism from persons outside the country. Some Iranians believe that Iran’s Islamic Revolution, while claiming to bring democracy, freedom, and liberty to that country, actually created a situation where a terribly repressive secular government was replaced by an Islamic one which was just as or even more repressive than the one that it succeeded. Within this context, there are Iranians both within and outside the country, who seriously question the enormous amounts of money that the Iranian government is spending on causes and groups in such places as Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza, while the Iranian government maintains a costly war effort in Syria where it is supporting the Syrian government and Hezbollah, in coordination with their ally Russia. There are Iranians who believe that the Iranian government should invest most or all of the money, which it is spending on foreign wars and involvement, within Iran itself for the purpose of creating more and better jobs, addressing inflation, combatting Iran’s illicit drug problem, reducing pollution, and protecting the environment. There are Iranians who also believe that corrupt religious and political leaders in the country are illegally or unethically appropriating large amounts of money for themselves. Because openly criticizing Iran’s government can result in heavy-handed punishment, Iranians who believe these ideas only express them to people whom they trust. At the same time, there are other rank-and-file Iranians who are true believers with respect to Iran’s governmental policies and believe that Iran’s foreign involvements are fully justified and necessary both to protect Iran itself and its interests in various parts of the Middle East. The level of political and economic discontent, which is present in Iran, and the apparent fragility of its economy led to protests in the fall of 2019. 231 It remains to be seen whether those or future protests will hamper Iran’s assertive political and military policies in the Middle East. The continued threat of an American attack on Iran exacerbates Iranians’ fear of an unstable future. After all, Iran is a country where political protests—in the form of the Tobacco Protest, the Constitutional Revolution, Mosaddegh’s election, Iran’s Islamic Revolution, and protests after that revolution—constitute a pattern in Iran’s modern history. NOTES 1. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 357. 2. Ibid. 3. Ervand Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982), 457–458.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

81

4. Michael Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic (London: Allen Lane, 2013), 4–5, 99. 5. Ibid., 457–458. 6. Joanna De Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics in Iran: From the Qajars to Khomeini London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 191. 7. Ibid. See also Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, 457–458, 504. 8. Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shariati (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 368. 9. Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran, 99; Ali Rahnema, “Ali Shariati: Teacher, Preacher, Rebel” in Pioneers of Islamic Revival, ed. Ali Rahnema (London: Zed Books, 1994), 225. 10. Rahnema, “Ali Shariati,” 225. 11. Ibid., 226–228. 12. Siavash Saffari, Beyond Shariati: Modernity, Cosmopolitanism, and Islam in Iranian Political Thought (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 7. 13. For intellectual resonances in modern Sunni thought, see Jon Armajani, Dynamic Islam: Liberal Muslim Perspectives in a Transnational Age (University Press of America / Rowman and Littlefield Publishing, 2004), 1–14. 14. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, 466. 15. David Buchman, “Shiite Islam in Contemporary Iran: From Islamic Revolution to Moderating Reform,” in Islam in World Cultures: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. R. Michael Feener (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 87. 16. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 358. 17. Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1990), 19–24. 18. Ibid. 19. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 358. 20. Ibid. 21. Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ali Mohammadi, Small Media, Big Revolution: Communication, Culture, and the Iranian Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 119–135. 22. “Vilayat-i faqih” and “Velayat-e faqeeh” are two translations to Farsi of the Arabic term “wilayat al-faqih.” 23. Imam Khomeini (Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini), Governance of the Jurist (Velayat-e Faqeeh), 7–77; Ruh Allah Khumayni, Islam and Revolution I: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941–1980), trans. Hamid Algar (n.p.: Mizan Press, 1981), 27–125; and Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 98. 24. Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown, 98–99. 25. Ibid. 26. Alexander Knysh, Islam in Historical Perspective, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2017), 440. 27. M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Religion and Politics in Iraq: Muslim Shia Clerics between Quietism and Resistance (Singapore: Pustaka Nasional PTE, 2004), 70–102. 28. Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown, 98. 29. Ibid., 98. 30. Sreberny-Mohammadi and Mohammadi, Small Media, Big Revolution, 119–135. 31. Ibid. 32. John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Islam and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 66. 33. Stephen C. Poulson, Social Movements in Twentieth Century Iran: Culture, Ideology, and Mobilizing Frameworks (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2006), 224–225. 34. Eva Patricia Rakel, “Iranian Foreign Policy since the Iranian Islamic Revolution: 1979–2006” in The Greater Middle East in Global Politics: Social Science Perspectives on the Changing Geography of the World Politics, ed. M. Parvizi Amineh (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 150–152. See also Mohsen Sazegara and Maria J. Stephan, “Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Nonviolent Struggle” in Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Govern-

82

Chapter 3

ance in the Middle East, ed. Maria J. Stephan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 185–204. 35. Misagh Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1989), 209. 36. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 360. 37. Diane D’Souza, Partners of Zaynab: A Gendered Perspective of Shia Muslim Faith (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2014), 172–173. 38. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 360. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., 361. 41. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, 516. 42. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 361. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., 362. 45. Ibid. 46. Kathryn Spellman, Religion and Nation: Iranian Local and Transnational Networks in Britain (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 23. 47. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 362. 48. Ibid. 49. Baqer Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (New York: Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 221. 50. Parvin Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 226. 51. Rouhollah K. Ramazani in his “Introductory Note” to “Document: Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran [which is the 1979 version of the constitution],” Middle East Journal 34, no. 2 (Spring 1980): 181–182. 52. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 364. 53. Mahmood T. Davari, The Political Thought of Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari: An Iranian Theoretician of the Islamic State (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 138. The full text of the amended 1989 version of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran appears on the website of the Islamic Parliament of Iran at: http://en.parliran.ir//UploadedData/89/Contents /635996064834543008.pdf (accessed September 30, 2017) with the title “The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979; Last amended in 1989.” 54. Rouhollah K. Ramazani, “Introductory Note” to “Document: Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran [which is the 1979 version of the constitution],” 182. See also “Document: Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Principle 5, p. 189; Principle 110, pp. 198–199. 55. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 364; Momen, Introduction to Shi`i Islam, 161; Rouhollah K. Ramazani, “Introductory Note,” 182–183. 56. Afshon Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 26. See also Tabatabai, Shi`ite Islam, 212. 57. Imam Khomeini (Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini), Governance of the Jurist (Velayat-e Faqeeh): Islamic Government, trans. Hamid Algar (Tehran, Iran: The Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works, International Affairs Division, n.d.), 19–27, http://www.iranchamber.com/history/rkhomeini/books/velayat_faqeeh.pdf (accessed September 30, 2107). See also “Document: Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran [which is the 1979 version of the constitution],” Principle 5, p. 189; “The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979; Last amended in 1989,” Article 5, p. 12. 58. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, Article 5, at https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iran_1989.pdf?lang=en (accessed July 7, 2018). Constituteproject.org is a scholarly website directed by Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg, and James Melton, which is part of the Comparative Constitutions Project that produces comprehensive data about the world’s constitutions. See http://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org /about-ccp and http://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/contact. With respect to Iran’s 1979 constitution, see “Document: Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran [which is the 1979 version of the constitution]” Middle East Journal 34, no. 2 (Spring 1980): Principle 5, p. 189.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

83

59. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, Article 110. 60. Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006), 180–181. 61. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, Article 107. 62. Ibid., Article 111. 63. Ibid. 64. Stephen C. Poulson, Social Movements in Twentieth Century Iran: Culture, Ideology, and Mobilizing Frameworks (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2006), 252. 65. Lowell Barrington, Michael J. Bosia, Kathleen Bruhn, Susan Giaimo, and Dean E. McHenry Jr., Comparative Politics: Structures and Choices (Boston: Wadsworth / Cengage Learning, 2010), 271. 66. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, Article 113. 67. Ibid., Article 114. 68. Ibid., Article 115. 69. Ibid., Article 123. 70. Ibid., Article 125. 71. Ibid., Article 126. 72. Ibid., Article 128. 73. Ibid., Article 130. 74. Ibid., Article 134. 75. Ibid. 76. Karen Latchana Kenney, Iran (Edina, Minnesota: Abdo Publishing, 2012), 100. 77. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, Article 91. 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid., Article 92. 80. Ibid., Article 94, Article 96. 81. Ibid., Article 98. 82. Ibid., Article 99. 83. Ibid., Article 112. 84. Ibid., Articles 62–64. 85. Lowell Barrington, Comparative Politics: Structures and Choices, 2nd ed. (Boston: Wadsworth / Cengage Learning, 2013), 189. 86. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, Article 64. 87. Eric Orlin, Lisbeth S. Fried, Jennifer Wright Knust, Michael L. Satlow, and Michael E. Pregill, eds., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions (New York: Routledge, 2016), 24. 88. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, Article 81. 89. Ibid., Article 100. 90. Ibid., Article 170. 91. Ibid., section entitled “An Ideological Army.” 92. Barbara Ann Rieffer-Flanagan, Evolving Iran: An Introduction to Politics and Problems in the Islamic Republic (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013), 61. 93. Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam, 5. 94. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, section entitled “An Ideological Army.” 95. Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam, 5. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid. 98. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, Article 152.

84

Chapter 3

99. Ibid., Article 154. 100. Fahad Mohammad Alsultan and Pedram Saied, The Development of Saudi-Iranian Relations since the 1990s: Between Conflict and Accommodation (London: Routledge, 2017), 50. See also Suzanne Maloney, Iran’s Long Reach: Iran as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008), 72. 101. Cornelius Adebahr, Europe and Iran: The Nuclear Deal and Beyond (London: Routledge, 2017), 28. 102. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 180. 103. Habib Tiliouine and Richard J. Estes, eds., The State of Social Progress of Islamic Societies: Social, Economic, Political, and Ideological Challenges (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2016), 215. 104. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 180. 105. The World Bank, “Mortality Rate, Infant (per 1,000 Live Births)” https://data .worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN (accessed October 7, 2017). 106. Zahra Mila Elmi, “Educational Attainment in Iran,” Middle East Institute, January 29, 2009, http://www.mei.edu/content/educational-attainment-iran (accessed October 7, 2017). 107. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 180. 108. “Document: Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran [which is the 1979 version of the constitution],” section entitled “Trustworthiness and Justice,” p. 187. See also Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989, at www.constituteproject.org, Article 154. 109. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 181. 110. Ibid. 111. Ibid. 112. Ibid., 181–182. 113. Amnesty International, “Iran 2016/2017” https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle -east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/ (accessed October 7, 2017). 114. Elaine Sciolino, Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran (New York: Touchstone/ Simon and Schuster, 2000), 373. 115. Shirzad Azad, Iran and China: A New Approach to Their Bilateral Relations (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2017), 6. 116. Seyed Hossein Mousavian with Shahir Shahidsaless, Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 62. See also Lung-chu Chen, An Introduction to Contemporary International Law: A Policy-Oriented Perspective, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 304. 117. Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran, 172. See also CNN Library, “Iran Hostage Crisis Fast Facts,” October 29, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/world/meast/iran-hostage-crisis -fast-facts/index.html (accessed October 11, 2017). 118. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 55. 119. Ibid., 57. 120. The book, which contains a collection of the documents which the Iranian students retrieved in the US Embassy in Tehran, is entitled Documents from the Den of Espionage and the name of the student organization which published it was “Muslims Students who Follow the Line of the Imam,” which in the original Farsi is Danishjuyan-i musalman-i payraw-i khatti imam, Asnad-i lanah-i jasusi, (Tehran: Danishjuyan-i musalman-i payraw-i khatt-i imam, n.d.). See also Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 58. 121. Elaine Sciolino, “7 Years after Embassy Seizure, Iran Still Prints U.S Secrets,” New York Times, July 10, 1986. 122. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 58. 123. Ibid., 58–59. 124. Ibid., 58. 125. Ibid. 126. Hossein Alikhani, Sanctioning Iran: Anatomy of a Failed Policy (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 91. 127. Sean D. Murphy, United States Practice in International Law, vol. 1, 1999–2001 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 478.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

85

128. Robert M. McGreevey, “The Iranian Crisis and U.S. Law” Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business, vol. 2, no. 2 (Autumn 1980), 386–388. 129. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 70–71. 130. Ibid., 72. See also Hossein Alikhani, Sanctioning Iran, 91. 131. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 72. 132. Sovereign immunity is a legal concept which suggests that the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution. The Algiers Accords’ removal of sovereign immunity with respect to Muhammad Reza Pahlavi meant that legal decisions, which would have led to the return of his assets to Iran, for example, had to be honored by the US government. See Riad A. Ajami, Karel Cool, G. Jason Goddard, and Dara Khambata, International Business: Theory and Practice, 2nd ed. (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2006), 183. 133. “Text of Agreement between Iran and the U.S. to Resolve the Hostage Situation,” New York Times, January 20, 1981. 134. John Patrick Diggins, Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007), 162. 135. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 73. 136. Ibid. 137. Elaine Sciolino, “7 Years after Embassy Seizure, Iran Still Prints U.S. Secrets” New York Times, July 10, 1986. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid. 140. Ibid. 141. Valerie Epps and Lorie Graham, Examples and Explanations for International Law, 2nd ed. (New York: Wolters Kluwer Law and Business, 2015), 146–148. 142. Clair Apodaca, Understanding U.S. Human Rights Policy: A Paradoxical Legacy (New York: Routledge, 2006), 25. 143. Human Rights Watch, “Human Rights Watch World Report, 2003; Events of 2002: November 2001–November 2002” (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2003), 450. See also Warren Christopher, Introduction in American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis, eds. Warren Christopher and Paul H. Kreisberg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 11. Jimmy Carter, “Sanctions against Iran Remarks Announcing U.S. Actions. Speech made by President Jimmy Carter, April 7, 1980.” https://30vpln3tyz8n43tfcf2m7fs5-wpengine.netdna -ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Carter-primary-sources.pdf. 144. Spencer C. Tucker, “Iran-Iraq War,” in The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts, vol. 2: E-L, ed. Spencer C. Tucker (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2010), 578, 581. 145. Kourosh Ahmadi, Islands and International Politics in the Persian Gulf: Abu Musa and the Tunbs in Strategic Perspective (London: Routledge, 2008), 101. 146. Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (London: Routledge / Taylor and Francis E-Library, 2002), 47. 147. Ofira Seliktar, Navigating Iran: From Carter to Obama (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 40. 148. Raymond A. Hinnebusch, The International Politics of the Middle East, 2nd ed. (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2015), 216. 149. Nikki R. Keddie, Iran and the Muslim World: Resistance and Revolution (London: MacMillan, 1995), 119. 150. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 84. 151. Ibid. 152. Ibid., 84. 153. Michael Nelson, ed., Guide to the Presidency, vols. 1–2, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1996), 1696; “Document 5: Talking Points, State Department, [for Alexander Haig meeting with Ronald Reagan], Top Secret/Sensitive, circa April 1981,” 2, on the website of the National Security Archive, which is hosted by The George Washington University, at the following web addresses: http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB394/docs/81-04-

86

Chapter 3

00%20Haig%20TPs.pdf (accessed October 14, 2017) and http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/ NSAEBB394/ (accessed October 14, 2017). 154. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 84. 155. Ibid. 156. Ibid. See also Steven Hurst, The United States and Iraq since 1979: Hegemony, Oil and War (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 43. 157. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 84; Steven Hurst, The United States and Iraq since 1979, 43. 158. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 85. 159. “US Calls for an End to Iran-Iraq Fighting,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 15, 1982 https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/0715/071522.html (accessed October 15, 2017). 160. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 85. 161. Ibid., 87. 162. “Document 29: United States Interests Section in Iraq Cable from William L. Eagleton Jr. to the United States Embassy in Jordan. ‘Talking Points for Amb. [Ambassador] Rumsfeld’s Meeting with Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein,’ December 14, 1983,” 2, on the website of the National Security Archive, which is hosted by The George Washington University, at the following web addresses: http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq29.pdf (accessed October 15, 2017) and http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/ (accessed October 15, 2017). See also Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 87. 163. “President Reagan’s Photo Opportunities on November 26–29, 1984: President Reagan Meeting with Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq in Oval Office on November 26,” Reagan Library, published on August 22, 2017, YouTube Video, 0:00-3:34, https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=wircTm08fFk (accessed October 15, 2017). See also Bernard Gwertzman, ”U.S. Restores Full Ties with Iraq but Cites Neutrality in Gulf War,” New York Times, November 27, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/27/world/us-restores-full-ties-with-iraq-but-cites -neutrality-in-gulf-war.html (accessed June 20, 2018). 164. Gwertzman, “U.S. Restores Full Ties with Iraq.” 165. Michael Nelson, ed., Guide to the Presidency, vol. 1–2, 2nd ed., 1696. 166. George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner, 1993), 237. 167. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 88. 168. Donna J. Nincic, “Troubled Waters: Energy Security as Maritime Security” in Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century: A Reference Handbook, eds. Gal Luft and Anne Korin (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 36. 169. John H. Cushman Jr., “U.S. Warships Set to Begin Escorts of Gulf Tankers,” New York Times, July 22, 1987, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/22/world/us-warships-set-to-begin -escorts-of-gulf-tankers.html (accessed June 20, 2018). 170. Agnieszka Jachec-Neale, The Concept of Military Objectives in International Law and Targeting Practice (London: Routledge, 2015), 99, n.76. 171. Ibid. 172. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 96. 173. Ibid., 96–97. 174. During the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the United States sold eighty F-14 fighter planes to Iran and delivered seventy-nine of those. See Richard Halloran, “Iran Said to Use F-14’s to Spot Targets,” New York Times, June 7, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06 /07/world/iran-said-to-use-f-14-s-to-spot-targets.html (accessed June 20, 2018). 175. Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr., “Iran Air Flight 655; Event Date: July 3, 1988” in The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars, 574. 176. Ibid. 177. Ibid. 178. Molly Moore, “2 Vincennes Officers Get Medals; Citations Do Not Mention Downing of Iranian Airliner That Killed 290,” Washington Post, April 23, 1990, https://www .washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/04/23/2-vincennes-officers-get-medals/cf383f02 -05ce-435b-9086-5d61de569ed8/?utm_term=.a95cfedcf14b (accessed June 20, 2018). 179. Ibid.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath

87

180. Ibid. 181. Pierpaoli, “Iran Air Flight 655,” 574. 182. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 101–102. 183. Ibid., 98. 184. Greg Ryan, U.S. Foreign Policy towards China, Cuba and Iran: The Politics of Recognition (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018), 105. 185. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 98. 186. United Nations Peacemaker, Document Retrieval, “Security Council Resolution 598: Iraq-Islamic Republic of Iran, Summary,” July 20, 1987, http://peacemaker.un.org/iraqiran -resolution598 (accessed October 19, 2017). See also United Nations Peacemaker, Document Retrieval, “The Situation between Iran and Iraq” and “Resolution 598 (1987) of 20 July 1987,” http://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IQ%20IR_870720 _Security%20Council%20Resolution%20598%20%281987%29.pdf (accessed October 19, 2017). 187. United Nations Peacemaker, Document Retrieval, “Security Council Resolution 598: Iraq-Islamic Republic of Iran, Summary,” July 20, 1987. 188. Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran, 280–281. 189. Ibid., 283. 190. Dilip Hiro, Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran after the Gulf Wars (London: Routledge, 2001), 18. 191. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 444. 192. Nader Entessar, Kurdish Politics in the Middle East (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2010), 172. 193. John Robertson, Iraq: A History (London: Oneworld, 2015), 305. 194. The full text of President Eisenhower’s speech entitled “Atoms for Peace” is on the following website: University of Maryland, Voices of Democracy: The U.S. Oratory Project, “Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘Atoms for Peace’ (8 December 1953)” http://voicesofdemocracy .umd.edu/eisenhower-atoms-for-peace-speech-text/ (accessed October 20, 2017). See also Ira Chernus, Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 79. 195. Mohammad Homayounvash, Iran and the Nuclear Question: History and Evolutionary Trajectory (London: Routledge, 2017), 4. 196. Ibid., 20. 197. Ibid., 20–21. 198. International Atomic Energy Agency, “List of Member States,” https://www.iaea.org /about/governance/list-of-member-states (accessed June 20, 2018). 199. United Nations Treaties, “Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water [Signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963]” https://treaties.un.org /pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=08000002801313d9 (accessed August 20, 2017). See also Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty & Partial Test Ban Treaty Membership” http://www.nti.org/media/documents /apmctbt.pdf (accessed October 20, 2017). 200. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Iran: Overview,” http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/iran/ (accessed October 20, 2017). 201. Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro, Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 156. 202. Homayounvash, Iran and the Nuclear Question, 35–36. 203. Ibid. 204. Ibid., 65. 205. Ibid. 206. Ibid., 66–68, 125–126. 207. Ibid., 135–143. 208. Ibid., 155–156. 209. Ibid., 156. 210. Ibid., 161–162.

88

Chapter 3

211. Ibid., 165–166. 212. Farhad Rezaie, Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Study in Proliferation and Rollback (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan / Springer, 2017), 27–30. 213. Ibid., 39, 41, 46–63. 214. Ibid., 136–142. 215. Dinshaw Mistry, Containing Missile Proliferation: Strategic Technology, Security Regimes, and International Cooperation in Arms Control, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), 148. See also Jay Loschky, “Most Iranians Say Sanctions Hurting Their Livelihoods, Yet Majority Says Nuclear Power Should Still Move Forward,” Gallup News, November 6, 2013, https://news.gallup.com/poll/165743/iranians-say-sanctions-hurting -livelihoods.aspx (accessed June 20, 2018). 216. Thomas Erdbrink, “Iran Moderate Wins Presidency by a Large Margin,” New York Times, June 15, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/world/middleeast/iran-election .html (accessed June 20, 2018). 217. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 534. 218. Michael R. Gordon and David E. Sanger, “Deal Reached on Iran Nuclear Program; Limits on Fuel Would Lessen with Time,” New York Times, July 14, 2015, https://www .nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-is-reached-after-longnegotiations .html (accessed June 20, 2018). 219. Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], Vienna, July 14, 2015, “A. Enrichment, Enrichment R&D, Stockpiles,” sections 1 and 2, https://www.state.gov/documents/organiza tion/245317.pdf 220. Robert J. Reardon, Containing Iran: Strategies for Addressing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge (Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, 2012), 37. 221. JCPOA, “C. Transparency and Confidence Building Measures,” section 15. 222. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 534. 223. “Read the Full Transcript of Trump’s Speech on the Iran Nuclear Deal,” New York Times, May 8, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/politics/trump-speech-iran -deal.html?action=click&module=Intentional&pgtype=Article. 224. Ibid. 225. Mark Landler, “Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned,” New York Times, May 8, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html. 226. Saphora Smith, “Foreign Firms Doing Business in Iran May Face Sanctions, U.S. Warns,” NBC News, May 9, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/foreign-doing-busi ness-iran-may-face-sanctions-u-s-warns-n872601. 227. “France, Germany, Britain Formally Request Exemptions from U.S. Iran Sanctions,” Daily Star (Lebanon) and Agence France Presse, June 6, 2018, http://www.dailystar.com.lb /News/World/2018/Jun-06/452277-france-germany-britain-formally-request-exemptions-from -us-iran-sanctions.ashx. 228. “World Must Withstand Law-Breaking U.S. Behavior: Iran FM [Foreign Minister],” Press TV, June 3, 2018, http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/06/03/563796/Zarif-Europeans -letters-US-nuclear-deal. Press TV is owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran. See “Iran’s Press TV Taken Off Air in N[orth] America,” Aljazeera, February 9, 2013, https:// www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/02/20132913263566603.html. 229. David E. Sanger, “Iran Breaches Critical Limit on Nuclear Fuel Set by 2015 Deal,” New York Times, July 1, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/us/politics/iran-nuclear-limit -compliance.html (accessed July 2, 2019). 230. Patrick Wintour, “Iran Resumes Uranium Enrichment in New Step Away from Nuclear Deal: Nation has Inched Away from 2015 Agreement after Donald Trump Imposed Tough U.S. Sanctions,” The Guardian, November 5, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov /05/iran-announces-injection-of-uranium-gas-into-1044-centrifuges (accessed November 10, 2019). 231. Negar Mortazavi. “Iranian Leaders Declare Victory Over ‘Enemies’ after Deadly Protests.” The Independent, November 20, 2019.

Chapter Four

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

In considering the role of Iran and Shia Islam in religion and politics in the Middle East, Iraq is significant for several reasons. Karbala, the city where Husayn, the third Shia Imam was martyred, is in Iraq. 1 In addition to mosques, holy sites, and pilgrimage sites in Karbala, which are important to Shia Muslims, there are several other such sites in Iraq which are significant for them also. 2 Some of Shia Islam’s most important seminaries and scholars are in Iraq also. 3 In addition, with respect to Iraq’s population of approximately thirty-nine million, 4 approximately 65 percent are Shia Muslims, while approximately 30 percent are Sunni Muslims. 5 Historically and in modern times, Shia scholars, students, and religious pilgrims have travelled back and forth between Iraq, Iran, and other parts of the world where Shias live, influencing Shia Islam in various ways. 6 Shia intellectuals and students in Iraq, in terms of their relationship with Iranian Shia intellectuals and independently of them, have had a lasting impact on religious and political discourse within the Shia tradition. 7 The Ottoman Empire which, during its height, ruled large land areas within the Middle East and North Africa governed much of the area, which was later to become the modern nation-state of Iraq, from 1534 until 1704, 8 and again from 1831 until 1920 9 (with the Mamluks ruling the region of Iraq and some other areas of the Middle East and North Africa from 1704 until 1831). 10 The Ottoman Turks are typically considered to be non-Arabs 11 and most of the high-level governmental and religious leaders during most or all of the Ottoman Empire’s history were Sunni Muslims. 12 During World War I, which lasted from 1914 until 1918, the Ottoman Empire was aligned with such countries as Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which were the Central Powers, against such countries as France, Great Britain, and the 89

90

Chapter 4

United States, which were the Allied Powers. 13 During that war, the British and French secretly signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided subregions of the Middle East and North Africa, which had been within the Ottoman Empire, into areas of British and French colonial control, if the British and French were to be on the victorious side of World War I. With the victory of the allied powers in World War I, the British and French governments implemented the Sykes-Picot Agreement and related agreements in such a way that brought into existence the post–World War I countries and governments of the Middle East and North Africa, together with their national boundaries. 14 WORLD WAR I In this context, World War I brought significant changes to Iraq. Soon after that war began, the British invaded what was to later become the modernnation state of Iraq in order to protect their oil interests in Iraq and Iran and to prevent or inhibit the Germans and the Ottomans from conquering that region. 15 In the wake of this British invasion of Iraq, which was fought primarily between the British and Ottoman militaries, members of the Shia establishment in the region of Iraq declared a war (or military jihad) against the British, which they believed was justified on the basis of Islam and its sacred texts, in view of the idea that this British action was an invasion of majorityMuslim territories by a majority non-Muslim country. 16 Even some Shia clergymen and others in the Middle East fought against the British invasion in Iraq and other parts of the region. 17 By March 11, 1917, the British had largely succeeded in their conquest of Baghdad, 18 and by November 14, 1918 (which was three days after the signing of the armistice ending World War I), 19 the British had taken Mosul. 20 By the end of World War I, the British were in control of all three Ottoman provinces which were in the region of Iraq. Those provincial regions included the cities of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, and the areas which surrounded them. 21 After the British conquest of Iraq, the British worked to impose their colonial rule on the country, strengthening their control of it, and appointing small numbers of Arabs from the region of Iraq and other areas to senior governmental positions. 22 Another set of problems, which the British created in their colonial rule of Iraq after World War I, involved the boundaries which they had set for what was to later become the nation-state of Iraq. The Ottomans had administered much of the region, which was to become Iraq, as three distinct provinces. The mountainous northern province of Mosul was linked economically to Asia Minor, which covered an enormous area largely north of Mosul. The province of Baghdad, which was in central Iraq, supported farming and peo-

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

91

ple in that area engaged in commerce with Iran and other areas. Basra, which was the southern province in the region of Iraq, was oriented largely to the Persian Gulf and trade with India. When these three provinces became Iraq under a British colonial mandate in 1920, they did not constitute a single integrated political entity. 23 Within the region of Iraq, Arabs (that is to say people who speak Arabic as their first language) comprise approximately 80 percent of the population, with Kurds comprising 15 percent, and other ethnic groups such as Armenians, Assyrians, Turkmens, and Yazidis (who can be considered both an ethnic and a religious group) collectively comprising 5 percent. 24 Even though Sunni Muslims were numerically in the minority, the British supported their aspirations for political power in the emerging nation-state of Iraq. The Kurds, who are non-Arabs and most of whom are Sunni Muslims, are a distinct ethnic group, living in various parts of the Middle East including portions of northern Iraq, as well as portions of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurds’ aspirations for political autonomy have often created potential for discord in Iraq and other countries where they constitute an ethnic minority. 25 The Kurds’ resistance to the centralizing efforts of the British colonizers and the emerging Iraqi nation-state as well as their opposition to integrating themselves fully into that state has been a factor that has led to a series of conflicts, which has continued throughout Iraq’s modern history. The presence of other religious and ethnic groups within Iraq has often created the potential for an escalation of tensions within the country. Another significant difficulty with respect to the formation of Iraq related to the boundaries which the British put into place for it. One specific example of this problem is that the boundaries restricted Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf. Iraq was given only thirty-six miles (fifty-eight kilometers) of coastline along that Gulf, most of which was poorly suited to the construction of deep-water ports. Iraq has a much larger area and population than Kuwait, yet Kuwait has a much larger and more commercially utilizable coastline than Iraq. The frustrations and disadvantages which this disproportionality has caused Iraqis were among the reasons for Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. 26 OPPOSING THE BRITISH Because the Ottoman presence in the region of Iraq had been largely focused on major cities, tribal groups, which had operated with relative freedom from governmental constraints, has significant political and economic influence in Iraq’s rural areas. The British colonizers in Iraq witnessed firsthand the difficulties in establishing foreign rule over the diverse and independently-

92

Chapter 4

minded inhabitants of the rural areas and other parts of Iraq when a large number of Iraqis living along the Euphrates River revolted against the British beginning in June 1920. 27 The revolt lasted for several months and was directed against the British and their attempts to replace the somewhat decentralized Ottoman system of governance with the British colonial centralized governmental structures. 28 Another major factor in the revolt was the decision that was made in the San Remo Conference, which took place in April 1920, that Iraq would come under British mandate, which meant that Iraq would be a British colony. 29 Shias in Iraq played an important role in the 1920 revolt. 30 Iraqi Shia clerics viewed British economic policies as exploitive of Shia clerics and other Iraqi Shias, including all the Shias who lived in Shia shrine cities in Iraq. The Shia clerics in Iraq also believed that the growing British influence in Iranian political and economic affairs was a threat to their own religious and political positions in Iraq, in that those Iraqi clerics relied heavily on financial and other material contributions from Iranian Shias. 31 Iraqi Shia clerics were threatened by the British presence in Iraq, in part, because the British attempted to regulate the flow of pilgrims and corpses to Iraq’s shrine cities. (Being buried near specific shrines in Iraq was desirable for Shias because they believe that they would receive special blessings if they would be buried there.) 32 If the British had succeeded in controlling and taxing those religiously-based sources of revenue, the Shia clerics could have lost a major source of income and much of their independence and influence among Iraqi Shias. 33 The British occupation of Iraq also posed a significant challenge to the sayyids in Iraq. The sayyids believe that they are descendants of the seventh century prophet Muhammad and hold a special status in Islam. Some of the Iraqi sayyids resided among the Shia tribes and their income was derived largely from the tribesmen’s contributions. The sayyids feared that the administrative skills and organizational power of the British colonizers were greater than theirs and, as a result, from their viewpoint the British could have eroded the sayyids’ influence among the tribesmen. Thus, the Arab sayyids and the Iranian Shia clerics had shared interests in encouraging the tribes in Iraq to revolt against the British in order to preserve their financial positions and influence among their Shia supporters in Iraq. Religion, that is Shia Islam itself, was also a major factor in the Shia clerics’ decision to call for a revolt against the British. From their seats in the Shia shrine cities in Iraq, the Shia clerics viewed the occupation of Iraq by the British, whom those clerics considered to be both Christians and infidels, as a sign of the impending collapse of Islam and the civilizations which Muslims had established. The information, which was disseminated by the Shia clerics of Karbala, for example, described the British occupation of Palestine as the latest and most threatening crusade ever waged against Is-

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

93

lam. These Shia leaders called on all Muslims to use military means against the attempts of western Christian countries to demolish Islam in Iraq, Palestine, and Syria. 34 In Najaf, the Shia cleric Sheikh al-Sharia Isfahani, who was highly regarded, called for an Islamic union in order to eject all heretics, which included all Westerners and Christians, from Islamic areas. The goal of Isfahani and other like-minded Shia clerics in calling for a revolt was to establish an Islamic government in Iraq, which was free of foreign control. 35 Iraqi Shia clerics had expressed their hope for an Islamic government in Iraq through a referendum that had been held in the region of Iraq in 1919. The Shia clerics restated this desire for an Islamic government in the period immediately before the Arab revolt of 1920 when there were reports that an agreement was reached in Najaf between several Shia tribal sheikhs and Shia clerics to institute an Islamically-based government built on the foundations of Shia doctrine. In this vein, an influential Shai cleric in Iraq wanted to implement a constitutional system of government and to establish a national parliament in Iraq according to the principals, which had been advocated by the pro-constitutionalist Shia clerics during Iran’s Constitutional Revolution. 36 The details of the resolutions of the San Remo Conference, which gave Britain a colonial mandate over Iraq, reached Iraq in May 1920. Soon after that, Shia and Sunni clerics, together with a number of other rank-and-file Shias and Sunnis, formed an anti-British coalition in Iraq. 37 One way that Shia and Sunni leaders mobilized Arab Shias and Sunnis in Iraq against the British was through speeches and writings which emphasized the idea that the British were disgracing Arab honor through their colonial occupation of Iraq. These appeals to Arab identity, which had little or no connection to Islam, could have enabled Iraqi Shias and Sunnis to relate well to the message of unity and resistance to British colonialism. 38 At the same time, within the Shia clerics’ own communities, they also used Shia symbols and rituals to mobilize their members against the British occupation of Iraq. For example, during Ramadan (the Islamic month of fasting), which took place during a portion of May and June in 1920, Shia clerics integrated Islam with political resistance against the British by infusing the ritualized expressions of deep sadness about the martyrdom of the seventh-century Imam Husayn, with religio-political meanings that were proShia and anticolonialist. The Shia clerics engaged in this religio-political fusion by identifying the twentieth-century British colonizers in Iraq with the seventh-century enemies of Imam Husayn, who killed him. 39 Sunni sermons and commemorations also fused Islamic symbols and rituals, which Sunnis and Shias shared, with anticolonialist messages. Sunni and Shia preachers and poets, who addressed thousands from their own religious communities in mosques, emphasized the need for unity under Islam. 40

94

Chapter 4

Police informants were surprised and overwhelmed by the large numbers of people who participated in the Islamic religious celebrations in Baghdad and surrounding areas. 41 The writer of one of the police reports stated that a phenomenon of such a great magnitude had never occurred in Islam’s history. The police reports indicate that a goal of these religious ceremonies was to unify the lower classes in their opposition to British colonial occupation of Iraq, and this goal seems to have been achieved, at least in the short term. In late May 1920, it was reported that people in the region of Iraq were openly discussing political matters without fear and that politically active Shias and Sunnis had gained confidence religiously and politically. The British implemented several measures in their efforts to quash these open expressions of opposition to them, which included outlawing an opposition organization and expelling some of its members. Yet, these and related steps accomplished little in halting the momentum which was created by the religious ceremonies and related demonstrations. 42 Sir Arnold Talbot Wilson, who was the British acting civil commissioner in Mesopotamia (which included Iraq) from 1918 to 1920, 43 wrote in his memoirs that the fervent appeals, which were made to Shia and Sunni Islam as well as a common Arab identity, generated “extreme enthusiasm.” 44 Wilson stated that in light of these events, it would be a terrible mistake to allow the religious ceremonies and the related political protests to continue. 45 An influential Shia cleric in Iraq issued a message which emphasized the importance of Shias and Sunnis remaining united in the struggle. Then, in early August, a fatwa (or religious and political declaration), which was attributed to that cleric stated, in part, that Iraqis were obligated to demand their rights; it also stated that they would be allowed to use arms if the British were to refuse to accept their demands. 46 In midst of these and other events, the 1920 revolt took place in one-third of Iraq and had lasted approximately three months. 47 It cost the British forty million British pounds and 426 lives. The Iraqis experienced over nine thousand casualties. 48 By October of 1920, the British had successfully ended the revolt. 49 Although the revolt did not achieve Iraqi independence nor enable Iraqis to have genuine political authority, it succeeded in undermining the manner in which the British attempted to govern Iraq, while assuring the Iraqis a much larger degree of participation in the form of government, which came into existence after the revolt. 50 At the same time, the revolt’s failure lessened, temporarily, the political influence of the Shia clerics, who led it, because they had invested an enormous amount of religious and political capital into an unsuccessful endeavor, which caused some rank-and-file Iraqi Shias to question, in the short term, those clerics’ judgment and their ability to lead resistance against the British. 51 In the period leading to the 1920 revolt, the Shia clerics in Iraq wanted to create a political system in that country, which, if they had been successful,

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

95

would have enabled them to dominate the politics of the new Iraqi nationstate from the time of its establishment. Yet, even though the immediate failure of the 1920 revolt may have temporarily weakened the Shia clerics politically, the revolt’s expansiveness and fervor demonstrated the Shia clerics’ ability to religiously and politically mobilize large numbers of Shias in Iraq. Thus, the Shia clerics showed that they could compete with almost any other groups within Iraq and the government itself in terms of catalyzing Iraqi Shias using mosques, public protests, and other grassroots methods. From the perspectives of Iraqi Sunnis and others in that country, who may have found themselves opposing the Shias, the existence of such a highly autonomous and politically active Shia establishment could have posed a threat to an Iraqi state, particularly one that Sunni religious and political leaders may have wanted to dominate. Along these lines, future Iraqi governments, which were mostly or completely influenced by Sunnis, would seek to block the power of Shia clerics and institutions in the country, and to reduce the links between the Shia clerics in cities such as Najaf and Karbala, in Iraq, on the one hand, and Shia power centers in Iran, on the other. 52 SEEDS OF IRAQI INDEPENDENCE On October 1, 1920, Sir Percy Cox landed in Basra, Iraq, in order to begin his position as the British high commissioner in that country. A major step in establishing the institutions and structures of the new Iraqi nation-state and the British role in it took place at the Cairo Conference in 1921. During that conference, three important aspects of the Iraqi state began to be concretized. The first of these aspects was the Iraqi monarchy, which lasted until Iraq’s revolution of 1958. The British installed Faisal I, who was a Sunni from Mecca, 53 to be the first king of the new Iraqi nation-state and he was installed as Iraq’s king on August 27, 1921. 54 The second aspect was the treaty which Faisal I would approve, on behalf of Iraq, with Britain, which would legitimate Britain’s colonial involvement in Iraq; this Anglo-Iraqi Treaty was ratified by Iraq’s cabinet in October 1922. 55 The third was a constitution for Iraq, which apparently gave Iraq’s government some democratic elements, while it was, in fact, the British who attempted to control Iraq’s political and economic affairs during its founding as a monarchy in 1921 and for a number of years after that. 56 Shias in Iraq were threatened by Faisal I’s government because (1) a large number of Sunnis served in high-level government and military position and (2) his government had the strong support of Britain. 57 Shia clerics in Iraq responded to this threat in several ways. One way they did so was through a conference held in Karbala in April 1922, which approximately two hundred Shia leaders attended, at which they agreed on a number of demands, includ-

96

Chapter 4

ing (1) complete independence for Iraq instead of its colonial mandate status under Britain; (2) the creation of a national assembly (or parliament) which would give fair representation to Iraqi Shias; (3) 50 percent representation for the Shias in both Iraq’s cabinet and within governmental administration more broadly; and (4) a religiously justified war against the Wahhabis, a group of strict Sunnis, most of whom at the time were from the Arabian peninsula and who had attacked Shias and others in Iraq. 58 Indeed, a major factor which prompted the Karbala conference was a series of raids in Iraq by Arabian Wahhabis that took place in March 1922. 59 While these Shias did not succeed in having their demands met, those demands represented the Shias’ deep anxieties about the dominance of the Sunnis in Iraq’s government, the intervention of Britain in Iraq’s affairs, and the potential strength of the Wahhabis, all of which the Shias believed was at their expense. On October 20, 1922, Iraq’s interior minister instructed Iraq’s provincial governors to begin preparing for the elections to Iraq’s Constituent Assembly. 60 With King Faisal I’s approval, the provincial governors were also instructed to quietly encourage voters to vote for the candidates who were likely to vote in favor of the treaty between Iraq and the British. Iraqi Shias opposed this treaty because it enabled British interference in Iraq’s economic and political affairs, while supporting the Sunni-dominated government of King Faisal I. With these principles in mind, several influential Shia clerics in Iraq issued fatwas, beginning in early November 1922, forbidding—on Islamic grounds—Shias from voting in the elections. 61 By June 1923, the fatwas which the Shia clerics had imposed on the elections had begun to lose their impact in several towns and cities, where Shias lived, because of (1) the withdrawal of Turkish soldiers from northern Iraq and (2) Britain’s proposal to reduce the period of the Anglo-Iraqi treaty from twenty years to four. 62 In response to the Shias’ opposition to the constituent assembly, the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty, and other policies supported by King Faisal I and the British government, King Faisal I introduced an amendment to the existing Law of Immigration, on June 23, 1923, which permitted the deportation of foreigners in Iraq, who were found to be engaging in anti-government activity. This amendment permitted the deportation of large numbers of non-Iraqi Shia clerics from Iraq, most of whom were Iranian. 63 After a long period of negotiations, which Iraqi government leaders hoped would embarrass the Iranian Shia clerics who had been deported to Iran, those clerics were permitted to return to Iraq on April 22, 1924. By that date, the elections for Iraq’s Constituent Assembly had been completed and the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty had been ratified. 64 The departure and deportation of these Iranian Shia clerics was a factor that weakened their standing with respect to the Iraqi Shias, while giving those Shias greater confidence in attempting to assert whichever level of political influence they may have had. 65 British officials in Iraq expressed high levels of satisfaction regarding what they perceived to be the

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

97

substantial decrease in the influence of the Iranian Shia clerics on religion and politics in Iraq as a result of the departures and deportations. 66 INDEPENDENCE Iraq’s reception as an independent state to the League of Nations in October 1932, 67 the publication of a British census in that year showing a Shia majority in Iraq, and King Faisal I’s death in 1933 created a tenser religious and political landscape in Iraq. Within this milieu, the frustrations of Iraqi Shias about the continued dominance of Sunnis in Iraq’s government, the persistent British influence in that country (in spite of Iraq’s independence, which took place in 1932), and the publication of two books (The Umayyad State in Syria written by Anis al-Nusuli and Arabism in the Balance by Abd alRazzaq al-Hassan, both of which biased against Shias) were some of the factors that precipitated the 1935 revolt. 68 In September 1934, Ali Jawdat al-Ayubi, who was Iraq’s prime minister at the time, dissolved Iraq’s parliament. In the new elections, which were held in December, the government did not include some prominent Shia leaders in the list of candidates. As a result, those Shia leaders lost their seats in parliament. 69 The Iraqi government also gave a large proportion of the fifteen seats allocated for certain Shia provinces to Sunnis from other parts of Iraq, who did not represent the interests of the Shia provinces. 70 Throughout January 1935, Shia leaders encouraged anti-government protests in Shia areas of Iraq. 71 In March 1935, a group of Iraqi Shias made known twelve demands which were similar to the ones that some Iraqi Shias had made in April 1922 and on subsequent occasions. 72 The demands, which were made in March 1935, included (1) guarantees for Shia participation in government, parliament, and the civil service in accordance with their proportion in Iraq’s population; (2) teaching of Shia law in law schools; (3) changes in taxation in the rural southern part of Iraq in such a way that taxes would not be significantly burdensome to the Shias there; and (4) increased government investment in health and education in Shia areas of Iraq. 73 While, in large part, these and related Shia demands were not met, they are indicative of the grievances which Shias in Iraq continued to harbor. As the Shias’ frustrations continued to simmer, tribal unrest among certain Shia tribes spread to various parts of Iraq. 74 The Shia protests against the Iraqi government became so intense that on May 11, 1935, Iraqi planes began bombing the villages of the insurgent tribes in Iraq’s Diwaniyah province, which is in the south-central part of the country. After numerous violent confrontations between Shia protestors and the government, Iraqi military forces succeeded in quashing the revolt by the end of May 1935. 75 The Shia revolt of 1935 demonstrated that violence had become an unfortunate politi-

98

Chapter 4

cal modality within the new Iraqi nation-state. Violence had become both a tool in the hands of Iraq’s government for the exercise of political control and a vehicle which Iraqis utilized in their attempts to influence governmental policies. The fact that some Iraqi Shias participated in the 1935 revolt and others did not reflects certain weaknesses in the kind of social cohesion, which may have existed among Iraqi Shias. At the same time, the revolts reveal the fact that the Iraqi Shias did not have a strong political leader who could systematically represent and defend Shia interests throughout Iraq and in powerful political centers in the country, such as Baghdad. 76 While a number of Iraqi Shia businesspeople and politicians either supported or participated in the revolt, other prominent Shias did not do so, possibly because they did not want to publicize their Shia identity or they resisted the idea of forcing Shia demands on Iraq’s government. 77 Although some Iraqi Shia clerics attempted to assert themselves as political leaders, they did not succeed in gaining the government’s recognition for their demands. Some members of Iraq’s Shia populace objected so strongly to other Shias’ use of violence in the revolt that the credibility of the Shia clerics, who supported violence, was substantially lessened. SHIA-SUNNI COMPETITION: THE 1940S AND 1950S The struggle for power between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq became even more competitive in the 1940s and 1950s after a significant increase in the number of young educated Shias who possessed the knowledge and credentials to challenge Sunnis for positions in Iraq’s government. The tense relations between the young, educated Shias and the Sunnis reflected Shias’ frustrations with the barriers, which they faced, in achieving equality with respect to the Sunnis. For their part, the Sunnis feared being outnumbered by the Shias within the government and other professional sectors of Iraqi life. 78 During the period between the end of World War I and the end of World War II (from 1918 until 1945), the Shias increasingly resented the political reality in Iraq where the varying interests of their community were represented by one or two governmental ministers and a handful of Shia tribal leaders. 79 During the years immediately after World War II, Shia members of Iraq’s parliament protested the government’s policy of allowing only a small number of Shias into the military and police academies. They also protested against the small number of Shia officers in the army and police force. 80 Sunni political leaders responded to the Shias’ protests for more power in the government by increasing the number of Shias in governmental positions, while expanding the total number of governmental jobs in such a way that assured Sunnis control of the most crucial components of the government. 81

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

99

To whatever extent there may have been an increase in Shias’ representation in Iraq’s government during the 1940s and 1950s, it did not end the Sunnis’ significant influence on the state’s crucial political institutions. This situation was particularly apparent in the case of Salih Jabr, who was Iraq’s first Shia prime minister, and served in that capacity from March 1947 until January 1948. 82 Between January and November 1949, a government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Said, an Iraqi Sunni politician, was in power. 83 Jabr represented the interests of some Shias, while Said represented the interests of some Sunnis, and the two men were political rivals. Although Jabr was no longer the prime minister after January 1948, he continued to be an influential politician because he had the support of a large number of Shia members of parliament in the middle-Euphrates area of Iraq. 84 While after the fall of al-Said’s government in November 1949, Jabr did not become prime minister, he continued to influence aspects of Iraqi politics. 85 Between September and February 1950, Jabr acted as minister of interior under the government of Tawfiq al-Suwaidi during a time when five of the twelve government ministers where Shias. The fact that Shias held the important positions of interior, finance, and economics deeply troubled Sunni politicians because that situation threatened what they hoped would be their own dominant position. The Sunnis felt further threatened by other moves which Jabr and his Shia allies made to place more Shias in governmental positions. 86 A decisive point in the rivalry between Jabr and al-Said was the parliamentary election in Iraq in January 1953 where both of those politicians attempted to have as many of their coreligionists elected to Iraq’s parliament as possible. This election constituted a significant defeat for Jabr and his Shia supporters in that ninety of the 135 parliamentary seats went to Sunnis and only six went to Shias. 87 There were several negative effects of this election for Iraq’s Shias including the fact that the young, educated Shias who had looked to Jabr for leadership were deeply dismayed by this defeat and by Jabr’s failure to realize their socioeconomic and political aspirations. Jabr was not included in any of the governments which were formed in Iraq following the elections of 1953. His political career, which was in demise, ended with his death in 1957. 88 SHIAS AND COMMUNISM The continued frustrations of young Shias with their exclusion from representation in Iraqi politics contributed to the increasing number of them who adhered to communism, particularly in the late 1940s and during the 1950s. These frustrations also played a role in the renewal of Shia Islamic religious and political ideologies in Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s. 89 Communism is an atheistic political ideology which emphasizes the equitable distribution of

100

Chapter 4

financial assets and political power to all people in society. In a communist society, there would be common ownership of the means of production and no differing socioeconomic classes, no private ownership of money or property, and no nation-state, as such. Communism is anti-capitalist and emphasizes the importance of a classless society. 90 While origins of communism in Iraq may be rooted in the late 1920s, communism became a significant factor in that country’s political life between approximately 1938 and 1958, largely in the form of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). 91 Shias constituted the majority of the rank-and-file members of the ICP and dominated that organization in other ways. The Shias’ proportion within high levels of the ICP grew from approximately 21 percent to 47 percent between 1949 and 1955. The movement of a segment of Iraqi Shias toward the ICP reflected, in part, their desire for a political vehicle which would enable them to increase their role in Iraq’s national politics. The increase in Shias’ participation in the ICP may have also been influenced by the demise of Salih Jabr. Young Shias in the ICP wanted to have positions of influence in the country, which they believed they deserved because Shias constituted the majority in Iraq. The increase in the appeal of communism to Shias was a manifestation of their opposition to what they perceived to be Sunni domination in Iraq’s government and in the entire order of society and politics. Iraqi Shias who had been blocked from access to governmental positions and felt deprived of opportunities to participate in governmental decision making viewed communism as an avenue through which they could make changes to the government and society. Yet, young Iraqi Shias’ adherence to the ICP was not primarily a reflection of their commitment to most or all of communism’s principles. Rather, their adherence to the ICP was a reflection of those young Iraqis’ desire for political participation and social influence, and their hope to bring into existence a new political order in Iraq, where Shias would, at minimum, have a level of influence which would be commensurate to their numbers in Iraq. 92 The appeal of communism was closely related to pan-Arabism’s failure to act as a unifying force for the Shias of Iraq. In its most idealistic manifestation, pan-Arabism is the idea that all of the approximately twenty-two Arab states should unite into a single nation-state or that they should form a strong confederation of nation-states which cooperate closely with one another. 93 Various forms of pan-Arabism achieved varying levels of popularity from the 1920s through the 1970s. While there were non-Muslim Arabs, such as some Arab Christians, who espoused pan-Arabism, 94 Shias in Iraq believed that this ideology’s proponents were mainly Arab Sunnis whose interests involved advancing their own interests at the expense of Shias. 95 Within this framework, there were Iraqi Shias who believed that if a single Arab nationstate or a strong confederation of such states were to come into existence, the

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

101

Shias would lose their numeric majority in Iraq, and be relegated to relatively powerless roles because the Sunnis would dominate, since there are more of them in the Arab world than there are Shias. 96 In contrast, communism was more appealing to a segment of Iraq’s Shias because of its emphasis on equality among socioeconomic classes and ethnic groups. At the same time, the Shia communists in Iraq believed that communism offered the solutions, which Iraq needed, in order to change the inequitable socioeconomic and political realities in that country. 97 In addition, the strong opposition which the ICP expressed to the idea of including Iraq in a confederation of Arab states reflected an Iraqi Shia viewpoint. 98 Iraqi Shias, who opposed communism because its atheism and certain other elements contradicted Islam, used Islam as a vehicle in their attempts to generate the kinds of political changes which they believed would benefit them. A period of Islamic renewal for Iraqi Shias began to take shape in the 1940s. In its early periods, this Shia Islamic movement in Iraq reflected Iraqi Shia clerics’ fears that (1) young Shias were turning to communism, which is secular and antireligious, and (2) the Iraqi government’s attempts to foster its interpretation of Islam (which was pro-Sunni and anti-Shia) in opposition to communism, contradicted the Shia clerics’ interpretations of Islam. 99 On a number of occasions, beginning in 1945, prominent Shia clerics warned against the spread of communism in Iraq. In addition to the Shia clerics’ fears about communism’s atheistic ideology, these clerics may have been concerned that communism within Iraq could have provided a significant entry point for the influence of the Soviet Union, whose government repressed the practice of all religions, including Islam. Iraq’s Shia clerics pointed to the strong measures which Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took against communists in Iran, and they encouraged Iraq’s government to implement similarly repressive policies against the communists in Iraq. In newspaper interviews and meetings with British officials, Iraqi Shia clerics urged the Iraqi government and the British to cooperate with the Shia clerics in strengthening the Shia Islamic seminaries in Karbala and Najaf, and in encouraging Shias to make religious pilgrimages to those cities. The Shia clerics also encouraged the British officials in Iraq and the Iraqi government to increase their investments in southern Iraq, where there were (and continue to be) large numbers of Shias, in order to strengthen Shia Islam and to combat communism there. 100 British officials considered their meetings with the Shia clerics important, and in response to those clerics’ recommendations, the British officials and the Iraqi government permitted a fervent anticommunist Shia cleric to return to Iraq in the mid-1940s, from his exile in Iran, in order to preach against communism in his hometown, which is near Baghdad. 101 Yet, during and for some years after mid-July 1958, communism was to have an increasing influence within Iraq’s government. On July 14, 1958,

102

Chapter 4

there was a military revolt in Iraq (which is often called the “July 14 Revolution” or the “1958 Iraqi coup d’état”), where King Faisal II, Prince Abd alIlah, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said were all killed, the monarchy ended, and Abd al-Karim Qasim, who was an Iraqi brigadier general, became Iraq’s prime minister. 102 After that revolution, Qasim used the ICP as a temporary political ally in his efforts to resist other political forces inside and outside Iraq that opposed Qasim and his rule. 103 As the ICP made its political support crucial to Qasim, at least in the short term, that party’s influence in Iraq increased. By 1959, news and information from communist perspectives were influential in the press and radio, and student groups had a strong communist presence. In this context, the ICP could quickly encourage large numbers of Iraqis to engage in public demonstrations, and important sections of several governmental ministries were directly or indirectly influenced by the communists. By means of the ICP’s influence on Qasim’s personal staff, it also partially controlled access to him. This level of influence on the ICP’s part caused strong negative responses from several segments of Iraqi society, including Shia clerics. By 1960, a significant anticommunist movement had come into existence in several Iraqi cities, which had large Shia populations, with Shia clerics supporting some of their work. Anticommunist exhortations and memorandums, a substantial number of which were written by Shia clerics, appeared in various publications. In one such memorandum, which was written by Shia and Sunni leaders, the writers identified Prime Minister Qasim as largely responsible for the policy of supporting communism in Iraq. A prominent Shia cleric supported the memorandum and issued a fatwa attacking communism by name, stating that it contradicted Islam. The tension between the Shia leaders and the government was further exacerbated by the introduction of the Personal Status Law of December 1959, which applied to both Shias and Sunnis, and accorded women equal rights with men in matters related to inheritance of property, in cases where the deceased has no will. In the view of Muslim religious authorities, that stipulation contradicted Islamic law, in that according to most interpretations of that law, at the time, inheritance was typically patrilineal. Shia clerics viewed the personal status law as a disturbing indication of communism’s power in Iraq, and as a government measure directed at lessening the influence of Shia clerics. 104 SHIAS AND THE BAATH PARTY There was a period of instability in Iraq between 1958 and the time that the socialist Baath Party seized power in Iraq in 1968. During that decade, Shias became disillusioned and frustrated with the results of the 1958 Iraqi coup. 105 Young educated Shias had hoped that the coup d’état and their participation

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

103

in the ICP would establish a political order, which would bring more political influence to the Shias, an aspiration which was not realized. At the same time, young educated Shias encountered great difficulties in finding government jobs. The decline of communism in Iraq was partly evident in the fact that the lower-class Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad, where the ICP had derived much of its support in the 1950s and early 1960s, became significant sources of power for the Shia Dawa Party (a major political force among the Shias of Iraq) in the latter part of the 1960s and the 1970s. The Dawa Party also attracted students and intellectuals. In this context, adherence to Islamic groups and political ideologies filled some of the ideological and political voids, which were created by communism’s decline in Iraq. Shia Muslims’ attraction to Islamic political ideologies and groups was also related to the failure of the socialist Baath Party in generating large-scale appeal among the Shias. A salient characteristic of the Baath Party’s ideology was its support of pan-Arabism, which Iraqi Shias found unattractive because they believed it strongly favored Sunnis. By 1968, Sunni dominance had risen sharply within the Baath Party’s highest levels. This trend continued in later years when Iraq’s Republican Guard, which was an elite force that reported directly to the president, came to be comprised almost entirely of Sunnis and supported specific Baath Party interests. 106 THE DAWA PARTY The Shia religious establishment founded the Shia Dawa Party (“Hizb alDawa al-Islamiyah,” in Arabic, which can be translated as the “Party of the Islamic Call” or “Dawa Party”) as a Shia religious and political party in Iraq in 1957 or 1958. 107 This party attempted to organize and mobilize Iraqi Shias religiously and politically, and it also tried to provide an Islamic alternative to the ICP. 108 The Shia clerics, who founded the Dawa Party, believed that an ethical and religious renewal among Iraq’s Shias should precede ethical and religious transformations in Iraqi society, which were also necessary. 109 Consistent with those beliefs, the founders of the Dawa Party maintained that Iraqi Shia Muslims had to strengthen their own religious, political, and intellectual identities, while being reminded of the dangers of foreign influences in Iraq, and the majority-Muslim world more broadly, before any Shia religious and political transformations could occur in Iraqi society. 110 Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (1931–1980), who was a founder of the Dawa Party and the father-in-law of Moqtada al-Sadr (a leader of the Iraqi Sadrist Movement and the Mahdi Army, and cousin of Musa al-Sadr, the founder of Lebanon’s Shia Amal Movement), 111 believed that large numbers of Iraq’s Shias had deviated from Shia Islam’s true teachings, making it necessary to educate the Shias in the essential truths of the religion and its proper role in

104

Chapter 4

life. 112 According to Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr’s perspective, Shia clerics could correct deviations in traditional interpretations and practice through ijtihad which, in Shia Islam, is comprised of the authoritative interpretations of the Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah teachings of the Shia Imams, and Sharia. In line with this perspective, if ijtihad were undertaken and taught properly, all Shias could come to an understanding of their faith on a rational basis. 113 Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr emphasized the need to engage in ijtihad accurately, integrating modern religious and political ideas, while combining faith and scholarly knowledge. 114 Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr and other reformist Shia clerics, within and outside the Dawa Party, which was both religious and political, wanted to make their ideas relevant and transformative with respect to modern, educated Shia laypeople in order to gain their support for the Dawa Party’s goal of mobilizing and empowering Shia Muslims throughout Iraq religiously and politically. Making these ideas relevant and transformative necessitated adopting clear and assertive methods, while utilizing words and concepts which were meaningful to Shias. The clerics in the Dawa Party organized study groups which focused on learning Islamic sacred texts. Fellow-Shia clerics, who were not initially members of the Dawa Party, also began participating in these groups, and then members of the Shia laity did so. One way, which al-Sadr transformed the religious and political perspectives of Shias in Najaf, for example, was through the respect which he showed for the abilities of educated persons to understand Islamic law and by accepting students, who were not studying to be Shia clerics, in his classes. Young Shias embraced al-Sadr’s idea that they could gain expertise about Shia Islam, religiously and politically, without becoming Shia clerics. This grassroots approach was a crucial component of the Dawa Party’s growth and effectiveness. Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr explained his choice for the name of his organization, stating that the word dawa (which can be translated as meaning calling, as in a calling which comes to a person from God) accurately expresses the group’s goals of calling Shia Muslims together and instructing them about it, religiously and politically. Al-Sadr described the early study groups as part of the first stage of that group’s effort to call Shias to the essential teachings of their religion. For al-Sadr, two of the goals of this first stage involved (1) preparing the faithful and (2) mobilizing the Shia masses spiritually, intellectually, and politically for the purpose of empowering Shias religiously and politically, with the hope of eventually transforming Iraq. 115 The Dawa Party educated and mobilized large numbers of Shias by publishing pamphlets and making other kinds of public announcements that encouraged members and nonmembers of the Dawa Party to attend Shiabased political-mobilization meetings and study groups. The Dawa Party also held public readings, organized appropriate observances and celebrations

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

105

during Shia holidays, facilitated scholarly discussions on a variety of topics related to Shia Islam, and built libraries and schools. 116 Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim (1889–1970), an influential Shia cleric from Najaf, supported these Shia political mobilization and reform efforts by establishing new libraries and Shia religious centers. 117 The 1958 Iraqi coup d’état was a significant factor which catalyzed al-Hakim to Shia religious and political action, in large part because of the threat which he believed that Prime Minister’s Qasim’s government and the communists, who were aligned with that government, posed. A policy of the Qasim government, which al-Hakim opposed, was land reform which limited the amount of land that one person could own. From the perspective of Ayatollah Muhsin alHakim and other Shias, these land reform policies were harmful to Iraq’s Shias, in that they resulted in substantially reducing the economic and political power of the Iraqi landlords, who were major financial supporters of a large number of Shia clerics such as Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim and Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr. Four of Ayatollah al-Hakim’s sons protested the land reform policy by sending messages to the prime minister, where they stated that because the land reform involved confiscation of private property, it violated Sharia. Although the Iraqi government’s land reform policy was implemented, the government compensated land owners and required those, who received the land, to make relatively high payments to the government. By July 1959, the Iraqi government had confiscated almost 1.5 million acres and had set it aside for distribution. The loss of political and economic power on the part of some wealthy Shia families prompted them to take their personal property and move to Great Britain or other countries. Shia families who remained in Iraq settled into middle class lives. For the Shia religious establishment, including the Dawa Party, the shrinking of its support base was profoundly disturbing, especially in the face of what members of that establishment and the Dawa Party believed was the continued economic and political strength of Sunnis in Iraq. The weakening of financial support was a challenge which the Shia establishment in Iraq faced. Educated young Shias were open to becoming increasingly active politically and were responding to political leaders whose ideas conveyed visions for modernization and success in Iraq. Secular parties campaigned for and attracted the support of these young Shias, which caused fear on the part of the Shia establishment and the members of the Dawa Party. Shia Muslims in Iraq, including members of the Dawa Party, blamed the ICP for using its freedom under the premiership of Abd al-Karim Qasim to disrupt prayer services and circulate antireligious pamphlets, even posting leaflets on major thoroughfares in Baghdad. Shia clerics and members of the Dawa Party discovered, to their great frustration, that some Iraqis could not distinguish between the Arabic word shi`i (which means “Shia”), on the one hand, and shuyu`i (which means “communist”), on the other. 118 As a result,

106

Chapter 4

those who did not understand the different meanings of these two words, believed that support for communism was virtually identical to support for Shia Islam. 119 In view of the fact that Shias and Sunnis in Iraq felt threatened by the communists, the growing secularism of Iraqi society in general, as well as the secularism of Abd al-Karim Qasim’s government, leaders of the Dawa Party and the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood, which was Sunni, formed a coalition in the late 1950s and early 1960s, where the two groups agreed that an Islamic state should be established in Iraq. The most significant foundation of this Islamic state would be Islamic law and it would be established by various means including broad-based Shia-Sunni cooperation and by continuing to educate Iraq’s Shias and Sunnis about Islam. 120 Various Shia and Sunni parties, including the Dawa Party and Iraq’s Muslim Brotherhood were granted a license, by an Iraqi court, in April 1960. This joint Shia-Sunni Islamic party opposed what it termed “atheism and materialism,” publishing newspapers and other materials that asserted what the members of that party believed to be the truth of Islam, while sharply criticizing Iraq’s secular government and the communists. 121 Various Shia and Sunni clerics produced Islamic religious and political edicts which were critical of communism. One cleric wrote an edict which stated that adherence to the communist party was one of the greatest sins, while another stated that the prayers and fasting of Muslims who had embraced communism were unacceptable to God. Another Muslim cleric ruled that Muslims could not purchase meat from communist butchers, in that the meat which communist butchers produced was not halal (or consistent with Islamic dietary regulations). The same cleric stated that a communist could not inherit from a Muslim father, in view of this cleric’s idea that since a communist is not a Muslim, she or he should not benefit from Islamic inheritance laws, for example. 122 As Prime Minister Qasim felt threatened by the ICP’s increasing popularity in Iraq, he began withdrawing his support from that organization in 1960. 123 During a period of several months, several thousand communists and suspected communists in Mosul, Kirkuk, Ramadi, and districts of Baghdad were murdered or forced to leave their homes. It seems that the perpetrators of these murders and forced removals may have been officers in the Iraqi Army, who were associated with the joint Shia-Sunni Islamic Party. At the same time, Qasim and members of his government were threatened by the growing strength of the Dawa Party and its continued criticisms of the Iraqi government. For example, on October 15, 1960, a weekly publication in Hillah, Iraq (which is approximately seventy miles south of Baghdad) stridently criticized the Iraqi government for what the writers, who were writing under the name of the Islamic Party, believed were a number of that government’s failings including “atheistic concepts such as the equality of women,”

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

107

which the writers believed was one of the secular (and Western) policies that the Iraqi government espoused. 124 On October 19, 1960, eleven members of the Islamic Party’s administrative committee were arrested, and in November of that year, the Iraqi government ordered the disbanding of the Mosul branch of that party. In spite of this government action, the Islamic Party won 40 percent of the votes in the February 1961 Teachers Union elections in the Iraqi province of Ramadi (which is west of Baghdad) that were the only elections in which it presented a list of candidates. Soon after those elections, the Iraqi government declared political parties and their publications illegal. 125 THE DAWA PARTY SPREADS ITS MESSAGE Even in an environment of oppression by the government, the Dawa and other Islamic parties continued their work. The Dawa Party attempted to maintain its strength through a series of camouflaged conferences and lectures, a purpose of which was to recruit young people to the party. 126 These meetings and conferences took place in various Iraqi towns and cities. The Shia Muslims within the Dawa Party were known as “callers” (that is, the people who were in a religious way, “calling” the new recruits to that party and thus the best form of Shia Islam). 127 The callers invited the potential new recruits to the Dawa Party and counselled those new recruits with the hope that they would join that party. Callers attempted to recruit family members, classmates, and soldiers among others, with a focus on observant Shias, because they were believed to already be fairly well-grounded in Shia Islam. In this context, the callers and other members of the Dawa Party emphasized the need for Shias to meet the intellectual challenges of keeping their Islamic faith strong and relevant in the midst of Iraq’s social, political, and economic changes. Shia sermons, pamphlets, and religiously- and politically-oriented meetings, among other endeavors, catalyzed Dawa members’ criticisms and actions against governmental policies which those members viewed as antiIslamic. At the same time, the common religious and political understanding of the new recruits to the Dawa Party, as well as those of long-standing members, cemented common bonds for religious and political action. Shared religious practices (such as prayer and fasting), religious and political slogans, and the wearing of distinctly Islamic beards among the men reinforced group solidarity. Virtually all of the women and men in the Islamic party also wore distinctly Islamic clothing. 128 Members of the Dawa Party fostered morale in a variety of ways, including their belief that they were being led by God and all of the divine instructions which he has given to humans through the Quran, Hadith, Sunna, and

108

Chapter 4

teachings of the twelve Shia Imams. The members of the Dawa Party carried with them the hope that they would Islamize Iraqi society and establish God’s Islamic government on earth. By rejecting the secular ideas of Iraq’s government and others in Iraqi society, and affirming what the members believed to be God’s call in their lives, they believed that their religious and political vision for Iraqi society superseded any other aspirations for that country. 129 STRENGTHENING OF BAATH AND SUNNI POWER The coup against Qasim and his government, which occurred in February 1963, created a situation where Abdul Salam Arif became Iraq’s president, and the Baath Party (which was socialist) increased its influence in Iraq. The Baath Party viewed the ICP as a threat to its power and worked diligently to combat that party. 130 Saddam Hussein, who was a member of the Baath Party and would become president of Iraq in 1979, was one of the people who actively oppressed members of the ICP. In the wake of the coup against Qasim, approximately ten thousand Communists and suspected Communists were arrested and hundreds were killed without trials. On July 14, 1964, Arif’s government nationalized Iraq’s banks and insurance companies as well as thirty-two private manufacturing and trading companies. The nationalization of these entities reduced private financial fortunes, which were major sources of financial contributions to the Shia clerics and institutions in Iraq, leading to further declines in income and revenue for those clerics and institutions. Clergy in the Dawa Party and other Islamic parties strongly opposed the nationalization. Shia and Sunni clerics expressed their opposition to the nationalization through publications and sending urgent messages to Iraq’s government. 131 In response to these and other forms of political activity on the part of the Dawa movement, President Arif’s government formed the “Second Branch,” a special department in Iraq’s Directorate of Pubic Security, which had the goal of combatting Shia groups that opposed the Iraqi government. 132 President Arif was a Sunni and this kind of oppression against Shias in Iraq was a characteristic of the leadership of several Sunnis who had led Iraq’s government in the years subsequent to Arif’s presidency also. 133 On July 17, 1968, Iraq’s Baath Party successfully undertook a coup, which deposed Iraqi president Abdul Rahman Arif and brought to power the Baath Party, in which future Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had a leadership position. 134 In the wake of this coup, the Dawa Party and other Shias in Iraq were confronted by a government, which was strongly opposed to Shia religious and political influence in the country. 135 A component of the Iraqi government’s anti-Shia policies involved its assertive actions against Iran.

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

109

On April 15, 1969, the Iraqi government sent a message to Iran’s ambassador in Baghdad notifying the Iranian government that Iranian navy personnel would no longer be allowed on Iranian vessels in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which is between Iraq and Iran. On April 19, Iran abrogated the 1937 treaty that set the Iraq-Iran border on the Iranian side of the Shatt alArab waterway, and Iran announced that it would cease to pay tolls to Iraq and would stop flying the Iraqi flag in that waterway. Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, who was Iraq’s president, visited the powerful Iraqi Shia leader Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim requesting that al-Hakim condemn Iran’s king and the Iranian government. Al-Hakim refused to do so for several reasons, including the fact that such a condemnation would have jeopardized Iranian pilgrims’ access to Shia holy sites in Iraq. In response to al-Hakim’s refusal, the Iraqi government arrested Iranian seminary students in the Shia seminary in Najaf. Iraq’s minister of the interior ordered the closure of a university in Najaf, which had large numbers of Shia students, and he also ordered the government to confiscate that university’s operating and endowment funds. At the same time, the government began to strictly censor Shia publications. 136 After Ayatollah al-Hakim intervened in a manner that was supportive of the Iranian seminary students, the Iraqi government permitted them to leave the country. During this period, approximately twenty thousand other seminary students, whom Iraqi government officials believed to be Iranian, were apprehended and released at the Iraq-Iran border. Near the beginning of June 1969, Ayatollah al-Hakim led a motor procession, comprised of Shia clerics and merchants, from Najaf to Baghdad in order to protest the Iraqi government’s actions. 137 During Ayatollah al-Hakim’s extended stay in Baghdad, thousands of Shias came there to show him their support and respect. The Iraqi government responded by arresting and torturing Ayatollah alHakim’s son and then publicly accusing the ayatollah of being an Israeli spy. This charge was used to prevent people from visiting the ayatollah, because if they were to do so they could be suspected of aligning themselves with Israel, which the Iraqi government, like virtually all governments in the Arab world, viewed as an enemy. The Iraqi government tortured, imprisoned, exiled, and murdered several Shia ayatollahs in Iraq, who had criticized that government. The Iraqi government also conveyed the message to Sunnis, who may have opposed the government, that they could meet a similar fate as their Shia counterparts. A number of Shia scholars, including Mahdi alHakim (who was the son of Muhsin al-Hakim) addressed a letter to the Iraqi government, in June 1969, making several demands including (1) the withdrawal of government censorship; (2) the government’s granting of permission for a daily Shia newspaper; (3) the government’s granting of a promise of making no false accusations of espionage and no leveling of false charges on the basis of difference of political views; and (4) the issuance of a policy

110

Chapter 4

stating that any Muslim, who is an adherent of any branch of Islam, would be permitted to stay in any of Iraq’s holy places, in accordance with her or his religious beliefs. 138 In response, the Iraqi government confiscated Shia religious endowments in Najaf and banned Shia religious processions. Many Shia schools were abolished, recitation of the Quran on radio and television was prohibited, the teaching of Islam was removed from government-supported schools, and allies of Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim were arrested. Shias responded through three days of public protests which took place in several Iraqi cities including Najaf and Basra. A group of Shias, who were inclined to respond to the government’s violence with their own violence, established an organization by the name of Jund al-Imam (which is known in English as “Soldiers of the Twelfth Imam”). 139 Along these lines, Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim forbade Shias from being members of the Baath Party and sent his son to inform Shias in various parts of Iraq of this prohibition. A death sentence was issued against Mahdi al-Hakim, and he left the country before it could be implemented. In late 1969, Iraqi government forces raided the homes of members of Shia groups, including the Dawa Party, arresting and torturing those individuals, while confiscating and burning their books. 140 On January 20, 1970, the Iraqi government announced it had uncovered a conspiracy involving Iran’s king and a group of Iraqi army officers. As a result, forty-four people were executed within twenty-four hours of the announcement of the conspiracy, including at least three people who were sympathetic to the Dawa Party and the Shia religious and political movement more generally. Those three were Mahdi al-Tammimi, who was director of the Shia schools in Baghdad; retired General Muhsin al-Jannabi; and General Muhammad Faraj. 141 In this context, Ayatollah Khomeini, who had arrived in Iraq in 1965 in exile from Iran, gave a series of lectures in Najaf, between January 21 and February 8, 1970, where he described the ideal form of a Shia Islamic government (which became a blueprint for Iran’s Shia government after that country’s Islamic Revolution in 1979) and where he stated his belief that Shias have an obligation to revolt against unjust secular governments and to establish Shia Islamic governments. 142 Khomeini also expressed his aspirations for the efficacy of Shia protests, stating that if a collective protest were to be made against the oppressors, who commit improper acts or crimes, those oppressors would cease those actions, in that such oppressors are cowardly and retreat quickly. 143

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

111

THE BAATH PARTY’S FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO WEAKEN SHIAS’ INFLUENCE In this highly-charged political and religious environment, Iraq’s Baath-dominated government approved a new constitution on July 16, 1970, which made little reference to Islam, except for Article 4 that states, “Islam is the religion of the state.” 144 In another move, which members of the Dawa Party and other Shias in Iraq viewed as hostile to Shia Islam, Law 117 (1970) reduced the amount of agricultural land, which one landowner could hold, and eliminated compensation to landowners for confiscated land. 145 While this law effected all landowners, it had a particularly negative effect on Shia clerics and institutions in Iraq given the fact that those entities were dependent, in significant ways, on financial contributions from affluent farmers and landowners. In another set of policies, which members of the Dawa and other Shias in Iraq viewed as an attack against them, the Iraqi government worked to glorify Iraq’s pre-Islamic history as a way of uniting all Iraqis, whether or not they were Muslims, under the banner of secularism, which was an important component of the Baath Party’s ideology. Costumes, plays, and geographic sites from Iraq’s pre-Islamic history were expressly publicized by Iraq’s Baathist government and the names of some of Iraq’s provinces were changed to pre-Islamic names, such as Babylon. 146 Members of the Dawa Party, other Shias, and Shia clerics viewed the Baath Party’s emphasis on Iraq’s pre-Islamic history as a direct assault on Islam because in their view Islam as a religious and political system excoriated most pre-Islamic religions and supplanted them with Islam which, in the view of most Muslims, is the true religion. The Iraqi government attempted to further weaken Iraq’s Shia population by intentionally expanding the category of whom the Iraqi government considered to be Iranian, and then expelling those “Iranians” from Iraq based on that newly-expanded category. 147 The number of actual Iranian citizens (or Iranian passport holders) living in Iraq before the Baath Party’s coup in 1968 was 22,860. 148 On December 30, 1971, the Iraqi government deported sixty thousand people, some of whom were Shia seminary students, Shia pilgrims, and businesspeople, to Iran, asserting that, under the newly expanded category, they were Iranian nationals. 149 The Iraqi government confiscated the properties of the people who were expelled and sold those properties. 150 Partly in response to what Iraq’s Baath Party believed was the increasing threat of Shias within Iraq and in response to Iran’s seizure of three islands in the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq severed diplomatic relations with Iran. 151 Thus, from 1971 to 1976, Iranian pilgrims were not allowed to visit the Shia shrines in Iraq, depriving such cities as Najaf and Karbala of substantial sources of revenue. 152 In 1972, the Iraqi government imprisoned some high-level Shias,

112

Chapter 4

and required that governmental workers in certain jobs be members of the Baath Party, thus potentially excluding Iraqi Shias who increasingly believed that the Baath Party was antithetical to their Shia religious and political beliefs. High level government officials, who refused to join the Baath Party, were retired from government service. The Iraqi government combined its heavy-handed policies against educated, observant, and influential Shias with apparently constructive social programs that were directed largely toward the underprivileged, which included raising the minimum wage, providing health insurance, and extending electricity to small towns and villages that had not possessed it. 153 This may have been part of a governmental strategy to encourage the loyalty of underprivileged Shias toward the Iraqi government, with the hope that those Shias’ loyalty to Shia leaders and institutions would be weakened. The Iraqi government increased economic pressures on non-Baathists when it guaranteed government positions to Baath Party members who were university graduates. 154 During this period, the Iraqi government made assertive attempts to bring Iraq’s educational system under its control. The Baath Party tried to remove teachers and administrators, whose ideas contradicted that party’s ideology, and it attempted to require books and syllabi which conformed to that party’s doctrine. 155 SHIA PROTESTS A form of Shia religious and political protest against the Baathist government’s oppression took place on February 5, 1977, during the annual Shia pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala that commemorated the martyrdom of the seventh century martyr Imam Husayn. 156 While the pilgrimage itself is an annual event, this pilgrimage was organized by Shia clerics in such a way that, in addition to its religious message, it would carry the message of Shia political protest against the Baath Party and its oppressive actions. The pilgrims chanted two different types of chants during the pilgrimage: (1) the traditional Shia religious chants, which commemorated the martyrdom of Imam Husayn and (2) political chants which were directed explicitly against the Baath Party and specific Baath political and governmental leaders. Also, the pilgrims carried traditional Shia Islamic banners with traditional Shia images and other banners which carried images that explicitly criticized Iraq’s Baath-dominated government. 157 The Iraqi Army attacked the procession with army helicopters when the procession was between Najaf and Karbala. 158 After that, Iraqi army tanks attacked pilgrims in and around Karbala so as to force them to leave those areas. While some soldiers deserted the army and joined the demonstrators, the army killed sixteen people and arrested approximately two thousand. 159

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

113

On February 25, 1977, an additional eight protestors were sentenced to death. If Iraqi government officials did not know about the Shia clerics’ leadership roles in organizing the February protests before those protests, it learned about their roles afterward. Government interrogators asked those, who were arrested, which Shia clerics they followed and what their relationships to them were. After these interrogations, the Iraqi government reduced the number of Shia study circles and pressured leaders of the Dawa Party and similar Shia groups to leave Iraq, which some did. 160 Adding to the tensions, Mostafa Khomeini, who had been the eldest son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was found dead in Najaf in October 1977. 161 Mostafa Khomeini’s supporters blamed SAVAK for his death, and his passing increased the feelings of anxiety, which large numbers of Shias in Iraq had about their situation and future in that country. 162 In September 1978, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was placed under house arrest in Iraq 163 and he left that country for France in October 1978. 164 Although there had been political tensions between Iran’s and Iraq’s governments, leaders of both of those governments were threatened by the continued rise of Shia-based religious and political opposition in both of those countries. Within this context, on June 12, 1979, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir alSadr was placed under house arrest, which lasted until March 1980, the month before he was executed. 165 On June 13, 1979, a large number of his supporters, from several cities in Iraq, held a demonstration outside his home where they pledged allegiance to him as their ayatollah, while chanting religious and political slogans in support of him and Ayatollah Khomeini. Similar demonstrations took place in several Iraqi cities, and the Iraqi government responded by sending armored army units against the demonstrators, killing large numbers of them. 166 Partly in response to these demonstrations and rising Shia political power in Iraq and Iran, in 1979 the Iraqi government arrested approximately three thousand Shias, and executed and expelled a large number of Shia clerics. 167 On July 16, 1979, Saddam Hussein became the president of Iraq and the chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, at which time he purged the upper ranks of the Baath Party, having twenty-one top-ranking members of that party executed. 168 While some Shias were promoted from lower ranks of the Baath Party to serve in President Hussein’s government, thousands of other Shias were expelled from Iraq. 169 The National Assembly Law of 1980 officially granted Iraq’s president far-reaching powers at the expense of the Revolutionary Command Council, which was a move that enabled President Hussein to possess enormous political power. 170 President Hussein’s tightening grip on power, the Iraqi Shias’ belief that he would continue the Baath Party’s aggressive actions against the Iraqi Shias, and the success of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, were factors that prompted a coalition of Shia parties in

114

Chapter 4

Iraq to issue a statement, on July 31, 1979, stating that they were adopting violent methods against the Iraqi government and the Baath Party. 171 This Shia coalition pledged its support for Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr while stating in its press release (1) that the Iraqi government was holding more than ten thousand detainees, (2) that thirty-six had died because they were tortured, and (3) that one hundred (most of whom were Shia clergy) were under death sentences. With the adoption of militant tactics, the Shia groups divided themselves into civilian and military sections. The civilian sections continued to do work with respect to education and social service, while the military sections engaged in physical resistance against the Iraqi government and Baath Party. The members of these military wings viewed Imam Husayn as their religious and political role model because, in their view, he fought against heretics and sacrificed himself for the principles of Islam and the prophet Muhammad. 172 These Shia groups engaged in several assassination attempts against President Saddam Hussein and other attacks against Iraqi government interests during much of the 1980s, which was the period of the Iran-Iraq War. 173 In the wake of Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980, some Shia religious and political activists changed their tactics. In this vein, groups of Iraqi Shias went to Iran and became allies of Iran’s military in order to continue their war against Saddam Hussein’s government and the Baathists, while other Iraqi Shias remained in Iraq intentionally hiding themselves from Iraq’s government with the hope that they could actively resist it at some point in the future. Other Shias were drafted into or volunteered to serve in Iraq’s military for a variety of reasons, including those Shias’ desire to help defend Iraq against Iran. 174 In the Iraqi government’s continuing efforts to place negative pressure on Iraqi Shias and to manifest its opposition to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, on April 15, 1981, that government issued a decree offering from $8,000 to $10,000 to Iraqi men who divorced their “Iranian” wives, which refers to wives whose citizenship documents indicated Iranian origin. 175 A reason for that decree was the Iraqi government’s desire to divide Shias within Iraq and to create resentments among them. The Iraqi government intensified its oppression of Iraqi Shias by regulating and restricting places of worship for Shias and appointments to positions within the Shia clergy. The contents of sermons by Shia clergy were either provided by the Iraqi government or had to be approved by it, which usually blocked Shia clerics from imparting their desired messages to the Shia community. According to the regulations, Shia and Sunni clerics were required to receive their salaries from the Iraqi government, while Shia shrines and mosques had to be administered by that government. These and related restrictions on Iraq’s Shia clergy and on other Shias within the country severely limited the Shia clergy’s financial, relig-

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

115

ious, and political autonomy, which had made religious and political activism possible for them. 176 MILITARIZATION OF SHIA RESISTANCE In the wake of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir alHakim, who was an influential Iraqi Shia cleric, announced from Tehran on November 17, 1982, the formation of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which described itself as representing all of Iraq’s Muslims, including Shias and Sunnis, although it was actually a Shia religious and political organization. At the same time, SCIRI recognized the Islamic Republic of Iran as the foundation and primary mover of the world's Islamic Revolution. 177 In May 2007, SCIRI changed its name to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), 178 which is also translated as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). 179 SCIRI’s formation was preparation for a Shia Iraqi government that would be formed in Iraq if Iran were to conquer Iraq or parts of it in the context of the Iran-Iraq War. 180 In 1983, SCIRI established a military force with Iran’s support; this force, named the Badr Corps, conducted guerilla operations inside Iraq, while also participating in Iranian military operations during the Iran-Iraq War. As the Iran-Iraq War continued and the Badr force, as well as Iran’s other Shia allies in Iraq, continued the war effort against the Iraqi military and government, in June 1987, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced plans to increase the strength of pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia military forces in Iraq. Consistent with that policy, Kamal Kharazi, a spokesperson for the Iranian government’s office of war information, told Iran’s media that the war should be continued by the Iraqis themselves. 181 During that time, Iraqis who had been fighting as part of Iranian military units were formed into all-Iraqi units. Ayatollah Khomeini also directed that Hezbollah brigades be established inside Iraq. 182 Iran’s attempts to provide autonomy to Iraqi Shia military units, such as the Iraqi Hezbollah, would carry advantages and disadvantages for Iran during the decades that followed. One advantage of this policy was that the members of the autonomous Shia Iraqi units were comprised of Iraqis who knew Arabic as well as the specific aspects of neighborhoods, geographic landscapes, and tribal allegiances in Iraq that could enable them to engage in combat and hold the land that they had conquered. One disadvantage of these units’ autonomy, for Iran, was that there were times when such units could act in ways that could advance their own interests in Iraq, while potentially damaging Iran’s objectives in that country.

116

Chapter 4

IRAN IN IRAQ Although the Iran-Iraq War had a devastating impact on both countries and, in the end, perpetuated a situation where the boundaries between the two countries at the end of that war were virtually the same as the boundaries at the beginning, the war played a crucial role in terms of enabling Iran to increase its influence within Iraq over the long term. One way that Iran used that war to strengthen its position within Iraq was through its deployment of its own Shia-based military forces in that country. This Iranian and Shia military mobilization in Iraq was linked with fiery religio-political speeches by Khomeini and other Shia leaders in Iran justifying Iran’s battles against Saddam Hussein (who was religiously Sunni and led a secular government) as battles where the Shias were ardently fighting against a Sunni enemy. At the same time, Khomeini and other Shia leaders in Iran justified that country’s military operations in that war as a war of self-defense for Iran and for the Shias of Iraq, although there were other Iraqi Shias who viewed the situation differently. While Iran’s leaders may not have been aware of it at the time, as Iran attempted to strengthen its position among Iraq’s Shias through the Iran-Iraq War, Iran’s Shia government and its military were setting the stage to further strengthen Iran’s position in Iraq’s future as a result of the United States’ (1) future attacks against Iraq during the Gulf War in 1990–1991, (2) subsequent bombings of the no-fly zone in southern Iraq from 1991 until 2003, and (3) invasion of Iraq beginning in 2003. Thus, as the United States and its allies attacked Iraq during and after these periods, they were creating situations where Iran could increase its influence among Iraqi Shias in such a way that mobilized them religiously and politically, in spite of the fact that substantial numbers of Iraqi Shias deeply resent Iran’s involvement in their country. This opposition which those Iraqi Shias have against Iranians is rooted, in part, in those Shias being Arabs and having a feeling of ethnic superiority with respect to the Iranians, who are ethnically Persians. The deep misgivings on the part of some Iraqi Shias against Iranians is also rooted in those Iraqi Shias’ belief that the presence of Iranian soldiers and governmental officials in Iraq is damaging to Iraqi sovereignty, while many of those Iraqis believe that Iran is using its presence in Iraq to serve its own purposes at the expense of Iraqis. In contrast, there are other Iraqi Shias who believe that Iran’s presence in Iraq is benefiting Iraqi Shias in several ways, including economically, religiously, and educationally. In any case, Iran’s influence has been tangible in Iraq during much of its modern history, including from the time of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and beyond, a period to which this study turns.

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

117

NOTES 1. Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi`i Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 28–33. 2. Rebecca Rowell, Iraq (Edina, Minnesota: Abdo Publishing, 2012), 70. 3. Shaul Mishal and Ori Goldberg, Understanding Shiite Leadership: The Art of the Middle Ground in Iran and Lebanon (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 123. 4. The World Factbook, “Iraq,” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/iz.html (accessed April 12, 2018). 5. Lowell Barrington, Comparative Politics: Structures and Choices, 2nd ed. (Boston: Wadsworth / Cengage Learning, 2013), 107. 6. Momen, An Introduction to Shi`i Islam, 181–182. 7. Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006), 66–67. 8. Jeffrey S. Turley and George Bryan Souza, The Commentaries of D. García de Silva y Figueroa on his Embassy to Shah Abbas I of Persia on Behalf of Philip III, King of Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 20. 9. International Business Publications, Iraq Country Study Guide: Strategic Information and Developments, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: International Business Publications, 2013), 74. 10. Zackery M. Heern, The Emergence of Modern Shi`ism: Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran (London: Oneworld, 2015), 61. 11. Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. and Aomar Boum, A Concise History of the Middle East, 11th ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 2016), 186. 12. Nikki R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East: Past and Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 53. 13. Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 267. 14. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 150–152. 15. Reeva Spector Simon, Iraq between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny, updated ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 42. 16. Joyce N. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992), 15. 17. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 15. See also Muammer Kaylan, The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2005), 187. 18. Isaiah Friedman, British Miscalculations: The Rise of Muslim Nationalism, 1918–1925 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2012), 155. 19. Dominic J. Caraccilo, Beyond Guns and Steel: A War Termination Strategy, (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger / ABC-CLO, 2011), 28. 20. A. J. Barker, The First Iraq War, 1914–1918: Britain’s Mesopotamian Campaign (New York: Enigma Books, 2009), xix. 21. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 15. 22. Phebe Marr and Ibrahim al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2017), 19. 23. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 195. 24. The World Factbook, “Iraq,” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/geos/iz.html. 25. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 195. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., 195–196. 28. Ibid. 29. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 17. 30. Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 66–72. 31. Ibid., 66.

118

Chapter 4

32. Juman Kubba, Meeting the New Iraq: A Memoir of Homecoming and Hope (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishers, 2013), 134. 33. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 67. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 68. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid., 68–69. 38. Ibid., 69. 39. Ibid., 69–70. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid., 70. 42. Ibid. 43. Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 312. 44. Arnold Talbot Wilson, Mesopotamia, 1917–1920: A Clash of Loyalties; A Personal and Historical Record (London: Oxford University Press / H. Milford, 1931), 253. 45. Wilson, Mesopotamia, 253. 46. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 71. 47. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 17. 48. Ibid. 49. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 72. 50. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 19. 51. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 72. 52. Ibid. 53. R. Hrair Dekmejian, Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World, 2nd ed. (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 119. 54. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 20. 55. Ibid., 21. 56. Ibid., 19–20. 57. Ibid., 20–21. 58. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 19. See also Khalil F. Osman, Sectarianism in Iraq: The Making of State and Nation Since 1920 (London: Routledge, 2015), 70. 59. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 78–79. 60. Ibid., 79. 61. Ibid., 79–80. 62. Ibid., 81. 63. Ibid., 82. 64. Ibid., 83. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., 84. 67. Halla Fattah and Frank Caso, A Brief History of Iraq (New York: Facts on File, 2009), 172. 68. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 120. See also Sherko Kirmanj, “The Clash of Identities in Iraq,” in Iraq between Occupations: Perspectives from 1920 to the Present, eds. Amatzia Baram, Achim Rohde, and Ronen Zeidel (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), 45. 69. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 120. 70. Ibid., 120–121. 71. Ibid., 121. 72. Ibid., 122. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid., 123. 75. Ibid., 124. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid., 124–125. 78. Ibid., 125. 79. Ibid., 126–127.

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

119

80. Ibid., 127. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid., 128. See also Matthew Elliot, “Independent Iraq”: The Monarchy and British Influence, 1941–1958 (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1996), 172. 83. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 129. See also Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield, The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy, or Division? updated ed. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), 21. 84. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 129. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid., 129–130. 87. Ibid., 131–132. 88. Ibid., 132. 89. Ibid., 132. 90. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (n.p.: Marxists Internet Archive, 2010), 62–64. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf /Manifesto.pdf (accessed November 7, 2017). 91. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 132. 92. Ibid., 133. 93. Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1996), 1–16. 94. Serif Esendemir, “The Leadership of Turkey in Rethinking Citizenship and Human Rights in the Middle East with the Arab Spring,” in Turkey’s Foreign Policy towards the Middle East: Under the Shadow of the Arab Spring, ed. Idris Demir (Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), 158. 95. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 133–134. 96. Ibid., 134. 97. Ibid., 133. 98. Ibid., 133–134. 99. Ibid., 134. 100. Ibid. 101. Ibid. 102. Henry D. Astarjian, The Struggle for Kirkuk: The Rise of Hussein, Oil, and the Death of Tolerance in Iraq (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2007), 52. 103. Nakash, The Shi`is of Iraq, 135. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid., 136. 106. Ibid. 107. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 32. Wiley discusses the reasons for the differences of opinion regarding the date of al-Dawa’s founding on page 32 of that book. 108. James N. Watts, Iranian Influence in Iraqi Shi`a Groups (master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School; Monterey, California; June 2012), 25. 109. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 31. 110. Ibid. 111. Liora Lukitz, “The Shi`is in Post-Saddam Iraq: A Common Political Front, but Different Tactics?” in Post-Saddam Iraq: New Realities, Old Identities, Changing Patterns, eds. Amnon Cohen and Noga Efrati (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2011), 95, n. 46. 112. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 31. 113. Ibid., 31–32. 114. Ibid., 32. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid., 32–33. 117. Ibid., 33. 118. Ibid. 119. Ibid. 120. Ibid., 36. 121. Ibid.

120

Chapter 4

122. Ibid., 36–37. 123. Ibid., 37. 124. Ibid. 125. Ibid. 126. Ibid., 38. 127. Ibid. 128. Ibid. 129. Ibid., 38–39. 130. Ibid., 40. 131. Ibid. 132. Ibid., 40–41. 133. Pierpaoli, “Arif Abd al-Salam” in The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars, 143. 134. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 104–106. 135. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 45. 136. Ibid., 46. 137. Ibid. 138. Ibid., 46–47. 139. Ibid. 140. Ibid. 141. Ibid., 47. 142. Ibid., 47–48. 143. Ruhullah Khomeini, Islam and Revolution, trans. Hamid Algar (London: KPI, 1985), 118. 144. Interim Constitution of the Republic of Iraq, 1970, Part 1, Article 4, in the Weekly Gazette of the Republic of Iraq, No. 10, March 10, 1971, published by the Ministry of Information in Baghdad, Iraq, on the website of Human and Constitutional Rights (Arthur W. Diamond Law Library, Columbia University Law School, New York) http://www.hrcr.org/hottopics /statute/scans/iraq1.pdf (accessed on February 2, 2018). 145. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 48. 146. Ibid. 147. R. I. Lawless, “Iraq: Changing Population Patterns,” in Populations of the Middle East and North Africa, eds. J. I. Clarke and W. F. Fisher (London: University of London Press, 1972), 103. 148. Ibid. 149. Kourosh Ahmadi, Islands and International Politics in the Persian Gulf: The Abu Musa and the Tunbs in Strategic Perspective (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008), 102. 150. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 49. 151. Greg Cashman and Leonard C. Robinson, An Introduction to the Causes of War: Patterns of Interstate Conflict from World War I to Iraq (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2007), 271. 152. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 49. 153. Ibid. 154. Ibid., 50. 155. Baath Party, The 1968 Revolution in Iraq (The Political Report of the Eighth Congress of the Arab Baath Socialist Party in Iraq, January 1974), trans. Iraq Ministry of Information (London: Ithaca Press, 1979), 113. 156. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 51. 157. Ibid. 158. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 51–52. 159. Ibid., 52. 160. Ibid. 161. Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran, 101–102. 162. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 52. 163. Luca Trenta, Risk and Presidential Decision-Making: The Emergence of Foreign Policy Crises (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016), n. 184, 155.

Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990

121

164. Manouchehr Ganji, Defying the Iranian Revolution: From a Minister to the Shah, to a Leader of Resistance (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2002), 67–68. 165. Christopher Paul Anzalone, “Badr Organization” in U.S. Conflicts in the 21st Century: Afghanistan War, Iraq War, and the War on Terror, ed. Spencer C. Tucker (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2016), 138. 166. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 52–53. 167. Ibid., 53. 168. Harris M. Lentz III, ed., Heads of States and Governments since 1945: A Worldwide Encyclopedia of over 2,300 Leaders, 1945 through 1992 (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013), 410. 169. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 53. 170. Ibid. 171. Ibid., 54. 172. Ibid. 173. Ibid., 54–66. 174. Ibid., 58. 175. Ibid. 176. Ibid. 177. The Publicity Unit of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI] (Tehran?: 1983), as cited in Hanna Batatu, “Shi`i Organizations in Iraq: al-Da`awah al-Islamiyah and al-Mujahidin,” in Shi`ism and Social Protest, eds. Juan R. I. Cole and Nikki Keddie (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986), 197. 178. Benjamin Isakhan, “Succeeding and Seceding in Iraq: The Case for a Shiite State,” in Territorial Separatism in Global Politics: Causes, Outcomes and Resolution, eds. Damien Kingsbury and Costas Laoutides (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015), 146. 179. Anthony H. Cordesman with assistance from Emma R. Davies, Iraq’s Insurgency and the Road to Civil Conflict (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2008), 539–540. 180. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 60. 181. Ibid., 63. 182. Ibid.

Chapter Five

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

In August 1990, the Iraqi military attacked Kuwait and Saddam Hussein ordered them to do so because (1) the Iraqi government accused the Kuwaiti government of slant oil drilling in Iraqi territory and (2) Saddam Hussein wanted Iraq to have access to Kuwait’s oil reserves, ports, and long coastline. After the Iraqi military invaded Kuwait and occupied that country, and an international military coalition, which was led by the United States, successfully fought against and ejected Iraq from Kuwait by late February 1991, some Shias in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East believed it was possible that Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, would be ousted during that Persian Gulf War. 1 Given that possibility, Iraqi Shia opposition groups attempted to form a plan for governing Iraq without President Hussein. 2 Five Islamic parties met with the Kurdish nationalist parties, the ICP, and dissident Baathist in a meeting that took place in Damascus, Syria, in September 1990. At that meeting, they established the Iraqi National Action Committee, chaired by General Hasan Naqib, who had defected from the Iraqi Army in 1979. This committee called for free elections in Iraq and for Kurdish autonomy. The participants also strongly criticized Israel and Western imperialism. 3 Similar meetings of Iraqi opposition groups, which included Shias, took place before and during that Persian Gulf War, which lasted from January 17, 1991, until February 28, 1991. 4 One of several goals, which the Shias who participated in these meetings had, was to propose plans for governments, which in the absence of President Saddam Hussein, would be fair and equitable to Iraqi Shias, in view of the fact that his government and those of previous Baathists were not. 5 Saddam Hussein maintained his position as president of Iraq after the Persian Gulf War. As Iraqi soldiers retreated in defeat from Kuwait, some of them expressed their frustrations about that war by engaging in rebellious actions, which 123

124

Chapter 5

were both physical and symbolic, against the Iraqi government, in several Iraqi cities. 6 This revolt began in Basra, Iraq, on March 1, 1991, and was led by retreating Iraqi soldiers. 7 An Iraqi soldier turned the gun of his tank on a large portrait of President Saddam Hussein, which was hanging in Saad Square in Basra. Iraqi armored vehicles then attacked the crucial points of the Iraqi government’s authority including the mayor’s office, the Baath Party headquarters, and security offices. A significant amount of looting took place in Basra also, with people breaking into stores, hotels, and houses. By the third day of the revolt, the Iraqi military began to regroup, and by March 17, 1991, the revolt in Basra had ended. The fighting in Basra had been fierce and some Iraqis had taken refuge, from the combat, in Iran. Thousands had been killed or executed in Basra, with bodies left lying in the streets. POST–GULF WAR SHIA REVOLTS AND THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSES Yet, this anti-government revolt had spread. Iraqi rebel groups had taken control of most of the towns south of Baghdad. While the revolts in some of Iraq’s cities did not appear to have been planned beforehand, it seems that the Shia revolts in Najaf and Karbala were. The slogans, which the Shias were chanting, were overtly Shia in their religious and political character, calling for a Shia ruler and an Islamic revolution, in the spirit of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and its Shia government. These and other distinctly Shia aspects of the revolts in Najaf and Karbala indicate the influence of SCIRI and Shia Iraqis who had come to those cities from Iran. 8 The Iraqi Shias’ opposition to Saddam Hussein’s government continued after the revolt. While his government maintained control of southern Iraq, which has a high Shia population, its position in that region was somewhat weak, as evidenced by a large number of attacks, conducted by Shias, against Baath Party offices, military installations, and high-level governmental officials who were traveling in the south. After the Iraqi government had quelled the revolts, including the ones in which the Shias participated, a main area in southern Iraq, which the government targeted for ongoing aggression, were the marshes where a high percentage of the population was comprised of Shias. 9 Most of the Shias and others, who lived and worked in those marshes, depended on the marshes’ delicate ecosystems in order to earn a living and to sustain themselves in almost every way. Some of the marsh dwellers bred and raised water buffaloes, while others cultivated crops such as rice, barley, wheat, and pearl millet; they also kept sheep and cattle. They constructed their homes and other buildings from the plants which grew there. The marsh dwellers depended heavily on a proper level of water in the marshes to sustain themselves. 10

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

125

In the early 1990s, the Iraqi government sent approximately forty thousand soldiers into Iraq’s southern marshes to build new roads and bases in the region, and to slash and burn their way through areas with ten-foot-high reeds and palm thickets. 11 At this point, in August 1992, the United States, Britain, and France, under the UN supervision, instituted a “southern no-fly zone,” which prohibited Iraqi aircraft from flying in the southern part of that country, because those countries and their allies wanted to protect southern Iraq from aerial bombings and to prevent Iraq from attacking Kuwait again. 12 As part of a long-standing Iraqi-government project to drain the marshes, by 1993 approximately two-thirds of river waters had been diverted from the marshes into the human-made Third Waterway with the goal of completely drying the marshes. 13 By 1994, aerial photos showed a near-total destruction of the marshes. 14 As the marshes were drained, the Iraqi government’s ability to move into the area to control the population increased. 15 As a result of these actions, the Shias and others who lived in the marshes witnessed a sharp decline in their sources of income, and the desertification of their land destroyed their commercial fisheries. Between 1991 and 2000, a large number of Shia Iraqis in the marshlands were killed by the Iraqi military and others fled to Iran or to other Shia areas in Iraq. 16 The Iraqi government resettled some of them in camps, while others were forcibly moved hundreds of miles north, into portions of northern Iraq. 17 In 1980, there were approximately 250,000 to 500,000 living in the Iraqi marshes, and by 2000 there were only about 40,000 living in that region. In 1980, there were people living on 7,700 square miles of marshes in southern Iraq. By 2001, that marshland had been reduced to 386 square miles according to an estimate by the United Nations Environment Program. This reduction was almost exclusively as a result of the policies of the Iraqi government. 18 President Saddam Hussein and members of his government asserted that these policies were not intended to destroy the economy and culture of the marsh dwellers. Rather, according to this perspective, the draining of the marshes was intended to make oil reserves more accessible and to create new agricultural opportunities for a poverty-stricken region. 19 As the Iraqi government attempted to control the Shia population in Iraq’s south, opposition from the local population there, including the Shia clerics, increased. Ayatollah Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (1943–1999), who was the father of the subsequent Shia religious and political leader Moqtada al-Sadr, challenged the Iraqi regime and worked toward the religious and political empowerment of Shias in Iraq. 20 He called on other Shia leaders in Iraq to take an active role in supporting the Shias of Iraq religiously, politically, and economically. Sadiq al-Sadr appealed to underprivileged Shias in Iraqi society, particularly in the southern marsh regions and parts of Baghdad, focusing his attention on their everyday lives and concerns. He educated and trained younger Shia clerics, and sent them to those regions,

126

Chapter 5

where they worked to serve the needs of the underprivileged Shias religiously, politically, and economically. Through these and related actions, Sadiq alSadr slowly built a religious and political base among the Shias, in an attempt to generate a mass movement which would assert Shias’ power and resist the Iraqi government’s oppression against them. The actions and Shia ideologies of Iranian clerics, who worked among poor and underprivileged Shias in Iran, during the decades before Iran’s revolution, seem to have provided a model for Sadiq al-Sadr’s work. 21 From his mosque in Kufa, Sadiq al-Sadr challenged the Iraqi government, calling for the release of Shia prisoners and refusing to limit his actions, including the ones which opposed the government. In this context, Sadiq alSadr drew larger and larger crowds, which the Iraqi government viewed as a threat. However, during Sadiq al-Sadr’s life, the government did not succeed in significantly limiting his work. Yet, he knew his life was at risk, and in 1998 he wore the kind of white clothing which, in Shia Islam, symbolizes a person’s expectation that he will be martyred. In line with this foreshadowing, Sadiq al-Sadr and two of his sons were attacked and killed, on February 19, 1999, by assailants who were believed to be working for the Iraqi government. 22 In response to these murders, Shias in southern Iraq engaged in a series of uprisings which expressed opposition to Iraq’s government while extoling Sadiq al-Sadr as a Shia martyr. Sadiq al-Sadr had used his Shia message of religious and political liberation to appeal to the underprivileged Shias in parts of Baghdad and the rural areas in order to foster the initial stages of a mass Shia movement, which would in later years take a more powerful form. After Sadiq al-Sadr’s death, the clerics, whom he had educated and trained, played significant roles in continuing this movement, as would his son, Muqtada al-Sadr, particularly after the United States removed Saddam Hussein from his position as Iraq’s president in 2003. 23 Within this context, the attacks by the Sunni Islamist organization al-Qaida against the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States on September 11, 2001, would have a profound influence on Iraq, because the US government would use those attacks as justification for an invasion of Iraq, which began in March 2003. That invasion would eventually result in the United States removing President Saddam Hussein from power and having him executed. That invasion would also escalate the conflicts between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq and would have the unintended consequence of strengthening Iraqi Shias’ and Iran’s influence in that country.

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

127

ATTACKS AGAINST THE WORLD TRADE CENTER AND PENTAGON ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 On September 11, 2001, nineteen members of al-Qaida, which is a Sunni Islamist militant organization, hijacked four passenger airplanes, all of which departed from airports in the northeastern United States. The hijackers used one of those airplanes to crash into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a second of those airplanes to crash into the second of those twin towers, and a third to crash into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. 24 Some passengers of the fourth hijacked airplane, who discovered that it was being hijacked, played a significant role in causing that airplane to crash into a field in a thinly-populated portion of southwestern Pennsylvania. 25 The members of al-Qaida, who had attempted to hijack that airplane, had probably intended to crash it into the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. (It is unlikely that the hijackers’ target was the White House as had been often suggested by some news agencies in the United States). 26 Among other damage and destruction, both of the twin towers in New York City were completely destroyed and a portion of the Pentagon was damaged. 27 A total of 2,996 people died in the September 11 (or 9/11) attacks, and over six thousand were injured. Usama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Sunni Muslim who was one of alQaida’s founders and its leader before his death on May 2, 2011, provided the reasons for the 9/11 attacks in several of his publications and speeches, including his statement of October 2002, which is frequently called his “Letter to America.” 28 In that letter, bin Laden explicitly stated that al-Qaida’s motives for the 9/11 attacks included the United States’ ongoing financial, military, and political support of: 1. Israel at the expense of the Palestinians and Muslims throughout the world; 2. continual attacks against Muslims in Somalia; 3. Russian attacks against Muslims in Chechnya; 4. The Indian government’s oppression of Muslims in Kashmir; and 5. Israel’s aggression against Muslims in Lebanon. 29 Bin Laden also cited, among other grievances, the United States’ 1. military presence in Saudi Arabia, which he viewed as the US military occupation and defilement of Islam’s most sacred land; 2. military bases in other majority-Muslim countries, which bin Laden viewed as US military occupation of those countries; 3. hostility toward Muslims almost everywhere;

128

Chapter 5

4. support of oppressive and authoritarian governments in several majority-Muslim countries; 5. invasion and subsequent aggressions in Iraq; 6. economic exploitation of majority-Muslim countries; 7. moral degradation, which has corrupted large numbers of Muslims throughout the world; and 8. support of political and economic systems, which benefit the wealthy while harming the underprivileged. 30 Bin Laden and the other members of al-Qaida viewed the 9/11 hijackers as Muslim soldiers, who in Islamic acts of self-defense against the United States, attacked that country which, if it were allowed to continue its aggressive policies, would kill all Muslims and destroy Islam. 31 For Bin Laden and the other members of al-Qaida, that organization’s attacks, including the ones on 9/11, were justified on the grounds that much like Islam’s seventh-century prophet Muhammad and his fellow Muslims believed that they had to attack the seventh-century non-Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula, who intended to kill all Muslims, so too in the contemporary era, Muslims (such as the members of al-Qaida) must attack the non-Muslims, such as non-Muslim Westerners, who have been attempting to kill all Muslims and destroy Islam. UNITED STATES POST-9/11 RESPONSES In response to the 9/11 attacks, the United States, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, engaged in what became a decades-long series of large-scale attacks and wars, on the part of the United States against al-Qaida and similar organizations. The US government and Western media organizations entitled these actions “The Global War on Terror.” 32 An initial phase of that war involved full-scale US military invasions against al-Qaida and the Taliban (a tenuous Sunni ally of al-Qaida) in Afghanistan, which was an important base for al-Qaida in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks. Another significant phase of that war involved the US invasion of Iraq beginning in March 2003, even though Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, strongly opposed alQaida and similar Sunni Islamist organizations. President Hussein and secularist leaders of other majority-Muslim countries opposed al-Qaida and similar Sunni Islamist organizations because members of those organizations wanted to overthrow those secular political leaders and their governments, and replace them with governments which ruled solely on the basis of strict interpretations of Islamic law (or Sharia). 33 In the wake of 9/11, Americans feared future Islamist attacks against the United States. These fears were catalyzed by the 9/11 attacks themselves, other militant Sunni Islamist attacks in various parts of the world, as well as

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

129

the US government and mass media in that country continually reinforcing Americans’ anxieties about militant Islam. Within this environment, after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush and his administration engaged in a full-scale effort to convince Americans and the US international allies that an invasion of Iraq was necessary in order to assure the security of the United States and its allies from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction which, as disclosed after the US invasion, Iraq did not possess. As part of this media campaign, President Bush and his administration frequently raised the possibility that the Iraqi government would support al-Qaida in its future militant attacks, with the possible use of weapons of mass destruction, against the United States and its allies. THE US GOVERNMENT’S JUSTIFICATIONS FOR INVADING IRAQ In this climate of anxiety, the US Congress approved, on October 16, 2002, a measure entitled Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002, which expressed several reasons for the United States’ impending invasion of Iraq, including the allegations that: 34 1. Iraq “had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that [it] had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;” 35 2. Iraq had “in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire [for the 1990–1991 Gulf War], attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;” 36 3. Iraq both posed “a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;” 37 and 4. Iraq persisted “in violating resolution [sic] of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region.” 38

130

Chapter 5

That United States congressional resolution also states that “it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.” 39 It is also possible that American government officials were concerned that President Saddam Hussein would threaten to disrupt oil supplies from Iraq, or actually do so, as a means of attempting to advance his own regional or global objectives. 40 In the time leading to the beginning of the Iraq War, the US government unilaterally declared its view that Iraq was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which stated, among other stipulations, that Iraq must provide to the United Nations and related agencies information about “chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles” 41 and “immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access” to its military and weapons sites, and those people who had information about Iraq’s weapons. 42 According to that resolution, if Iraq did not comply, it would face “serious consequences” as a result of its “violations of its obligations.” 43 The Bush administration issued an ultimatum for President Saddam Hussein and his two sons to resign from their positions, which none of them did. On March 20, 2003, the US military campaign in Iraq began with a large-scale bombing campaign and the invasion of Iraq by American and British ground soldiers, who had been based in Kuwait. The invading soldiers captured Iraq’s oil facilities, and within three weeks, US armored columns entered Baghdad. 44 THE UNITED STATES IN IRAQ The lack of the US preparation for the post-invasion situation became evident as conflicts in Iraq escalated during the summer of 2003. 45 The United States, by failing to address Iraq’s public security and economic stability, created a climate which catalyzed that country’s multi-sided civil war and descent into chaos. One of the most significant reasons for Iraq’s civil war after the American invasion was that President Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi military, police forces, and laws had all been almost completely abolished relatively soon after the invasion began. Elements which can enable cohesion and peace in a nation-state, including educational institutions, businesses, jobs, governmental regulations, law enforcement agencies, and infrastructure such as roads, bridges, plumbing, electricity, and the internet had all been terribly weakened as a result of the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and by the US invasion of Iraq beginning in March 2003. 46 The multi-sided civil war in Iraq, which ensued after the US invasion and involved warfare within and among people of various tribes, ethnicities, sects, and religions, had a devastating impact on Iraq. For example, the World Health Organization estimated

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

131

that 151,000 Iraqis died as a result of violence in Iraq between March 2003 and June 2006. 47 According to one study’s estimate, the war damages sustained by the people and country of Iraq is approximately $394.4 billion. 48 The anti-American insurgency in Iraq first emerged from Iraqis who were offended and infuriated by the invasion and occupation of a foreign country. More Iraqis joined the insurgency when the occupying forces removed Baath Party members and Saddam Hussein’s other loyalists from Iraq’s government. This process is called “de-Baathification.” 49 As the United States removed increasing numbers of Iraqi governmental employees and military servicepeople from their jobs, because American governmental officials believed they would maintain their loyalty to Saddam Hussein, some of these unemployed people, embittered and well-trained, joined the insurgency against the United States. A significant number of former Iraqi military officers and those enlisted were in particularly strong positions to engage in combat against the Americans because of their military training under Saddam Hussein’s government, and their firsthand experiences with warfare during the Iran-Iraq War, the Persian Gulf War, and their battles against antiSaddam Hussein insurgencies during his rule. 50 In addition to the establishment of various Arab Sunni militias and militant groups (some of which were based on Islam and others of which were based on secularism), Kurds (a majority of whom are Sunni Muslims) and Arab Shias either formed or strengthened their own militias, in resistance to the Americans and other groups within Iraq which threatened them. 51 The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) reinforced themselves in the largely Kurdish regions of northern Iraq. For their part, the Shias strengthened themselves within various Shia militias such as SCIRI, primarily in southern Iraq. One rival Shia militia, whose members are called “the Sadrists,” under the leadership of Shia religious and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr (b. 1973), strengthened itself in the largely Shia areas of southern Iraq. 52 Those events occurred in the wake of the establishment of the Interim Governing Council, also known as the “Iraqi Governing Council” (or IGC), in Iraq on July 13, 2003, which was the provisional government of Iraq from that date until June 1, 2004. 53 That interim government was formed by the Americans, and its membership was comprised of Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, a Turkmen, and an Assyrian, all of whom were Iraqi citizens. Iraqi Shia and Sunni groups rose in strong opposition to the IGC because they viewed it as yet another means by which the United States would advance its interests at the expense of almost all Iraqis. 54 The Shia Sadrists, faculty and students at Iraq’s Shia seminaries, and some moderate Shia clergy were all gaining power and were factionalizing. The Sadrists were one of the most influential Shia groups, and beginning in the summer and fall of 2003 they were becoming increasingly armed and militant. They had similarities with the Sunni ex-

132

Chapter 5

Baathists, who had been terminated from their government and military positions through the US policy of de-Baathification. Many of these Shias, like the alienated ex-Baathists, were not included in Iraq’s emerging government. The Shias’ feelings of being marginalized in their own country were intensified by that exclusion. At the same time, one of the main constituencies among the Sadrists was comprised of those who were young and underprivileged in largely Shia neighborhoods in Baghdad, and large areas of southern Iraq. THE SHIA MAHDI ARMY In the summer of 2003, Sadr announced the establishment of the Mahdi Army, which was the military wing of the Shia Sadrist movement. By autumn of 2003, Sadrists were attacking US soldiers, with the hope of eventually expelling them from Iraq. On October 11, 2003, Sadr proclaimed his own government. Sadrists also fought against SCIRI, over control in Karbala, and more Americans were killed during and after these battles. By early 2004, Sadrists were taking control of mosques and universities in Baghdad, establishing Islamic law courts, and enforcing Shia Islamic law in the areas which they controlled. 55 During this time, the Sadrists’ military training became more thorough and rigorous, while their military capacity strengthened. As the Sadrists continued to resist the Americans and increased their own influence, in early April 2004 an Iraqi judge issued an arrest warrant for Sadr for the murder of the prominent Shia cleric Abdul-Majid al-Khoei in April 2003. 56 After the issuing of this arrest warrant, Sadr (from a Shia mosque in Kufa) called for the escalation of the Shias’ open revolt against the United States. 57 Thousands of Sadr’s Shia supporters came to southern Iraq from Baghdad and captured crucial establishments such as police stations and government buildings. 58 They also occupied the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority (a governmental authority in Iraq administered by Americans) in the southern Iraqi cities of Kut and Nasiriyya. 59 The Shia Islamist parties who opposed the Sadrists and the Mahdi Army became deeply concerned that the Sadrists’ taking of large amounts of territory in southern Iraq would lower their chances of winning political offices in elections. As a result, they asked the Coalition Provisional Authority and the American military to attack the Mahdi Army’s positions in southern Iraq. 60 Sadr’s aggressive tactics had turned some of the Shias in southern Iraq against him. Because the Sadrist forces were too thinly spread and disorganized to maintain the positions which they had taken, they withdrew. With these threats in mind, Sadr took refuge in a Shia shrine in Najaf. 61 On May 5, 2003, US military forces began an assault on the Mahdi Army in Najaf. The Mahdi Army was weakened by attacks from American tanks and warplanes.

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

133

Sadr realized that the Mahdi Army could not withstand the attacks, and requested that Shia clerics, including the prominent and well-respected Ali al-Sistani, mediate with the Americans and other Shias who were fighting against the Sadrists. An agreement was arranged which enabled Sadr, the Sadrists, and the Mahdi Army to withdraw from Najaf and Karbala. However, those militias were not required to disarm. 62 SHIA SECULARIST RESPONSES On June 1, 2004, Ayad Allawi, a Shia Muslim and member of the Interim Governing Council, who believed that secularism, not Islam, should be the legal foundation of the new Iraqi state, became Iraq’s prime minister. He was appointed to that position by the Interim Governing Council. 63 While the Iraqi Interim Government (IIG), whose membership had been appointed and which Allawi headed, was comprised of Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds, the IIG intentionally marginalized Shia Islamists (such as the Sadrists), who wanted Islamic law to be the legal foundation of the new Iraqi state. 64 The United States government and the members of the IIG strongly favored the Shias, who supported a secular government for Iraq and were opposed to Iran’s influence. In contrast to those Shias, the Iraqi Shia Islamists focused their attention, in part, on attempting to make gains in future elections. The Iranian government supported a rapid departure of the US military forces from Iraq, in view of the threat which that country posed to Iran. 65 The Iranian government also wanted Iraq’s future government to be dominated by Shia Islamists who supported Iran. Members of the Iranian government also believed that Allawi’s secular government, with its close connections to the United States and its anti-Iranian secular ideology, was a potential obstacle to its goals in Iraq and the region. These goals included protecting Iran’s borders and providing as much security as possible to Shias throughout the Middle East, including Iraqi Shias. 66 The IIG’s period in power (which lasted from June 28, 2004, until May 3, 2005) was one of continuing conflict between the Multinational Forces (which were led by the United States), and Sadr’s forces, including his Mahdi Army. 67 Iran supported the Mahdi Army by arming it, training its soldiers in camps, some of which were located in Iran, and providing it with officers. 68 The various battles in Iraq were factors that weakened Prime Minister Allawi and his supporters who believed in a secular, nonreligiously based nation-state. Among other factors, these battles showed that Allawi’s government was unable to create cohesion in Iraq, while maintaining peace and security. Exacerbating the difficulties, which his government faced, were the personal failings of him and the other members of the Iraqi Interim Govern-

134

Chapter 5

ment, their lack of organization, and little support among Iraqis. The Shia and Sunni insurgencies, and their battles, widened the gaps between and within these groups, and had a damaging impact on Allawi’s political future. Ali Sistani and Muqtada al-Sadr, whose support among various Iraqi Shia constituencies was strong, continued to maintain their influence in those sectors. 69 DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ: ELECTIONS, A NEW CONSTITUTION, AND GOVERNMENT FORMATION During 2005, several events were to have an enormous impact on Iraq’s political system for years to come. These events included elections, a drafting of a constitution, and forming indigenously Iraqi national and provincial governments based on the election results. 70 These were among the first free elections in Iraq’s modern history. At the same time, those elections and their consequences reinforced several negative trends which already existed in Iraq. These included the continued segmentation of Iraq religiously, ethnically, and regionally; a weakening national government; and deeply divided political leaders. 71 Elections were held in Iraq on January 30, 2005. In the elections for Iraq’s 275-seat national assembly, three blocs emerged, which were to hold considerable sway in that assembly. The first was the United Iraqi Alliance with 140 seats (which was 51 percent of the seats in the assembly). The Kurdistan Alliance came in second place with 75 seats (27 percent), while the Iraqiyya Party came in third place with 40 seats (14 percent). Several smaller parties and collections won the remaining 20 seats (8 percent). The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) was comprised of other major Shia groups including the Sadrists, the Dawa Party, SCIRI, and Ali Sistani and his followers. 72 This alliance was led by SCIRI. 73 While secularist Shia Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, was invited to join the UIA, he refused because he did not want to accept Sistani’s leadership. Allawi also felt uncomfortable in a religiously-based Shia bloc that, in his view, was too closely aligned with Iran. One of the UIA’s main goals involved maintaining as much unity as possible among Iraq’s Shias, so as to influence Iraq’s new government. 74 The Kurdistan Alliance constituted a coalition that incorporated most of the major Kurdish parties including the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Among other goals, the Kurdistan alliance wanted to increase the Kurds’ influence within the Iraqi government, while working toward greater autonomy for Kurds in northern Iraq. 75 The Iraqiyya coalition was led by Prime Minister Allawi and his allies, and relied, to a certain extent, on the support of secularists. 76 Sunnis were not adequately represented on the election list. The Iraqi Islamic Party, which

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

135

was Sunni Islamist and had resigned from Iraq’s cabinet because of the MNF’s massive assaults against the Sunnis in Falluja, assembled an electoral ticket in late December 2004, and then withdrew from the elections under enormous pressure from Iraq’s Sunnis. 77 The absence of a substantial Sunni presence in the elections damaged the elections’ legitimacy and, at least in the short-term, alienated Sunnis from the apparently democratic process. In this regard, Sunni Arab groups won only six parliamentary seats (2 percent), which left Sunnis little voice in the constitutional process and in national Iraqi politics. This lopsided representation in Iraq’s national parliament and in local legislative bodies, which strongly favored Shias and Kurds over Arab Sunnis caused the Arab Sunnis to be frustrated with respect to their marginalization from power. This situation led to power struggles in several areas of the country, including Baghdad, which then led to increased violence that frequently spiraled out of control. 78 The new Iraqi government, which took office on May 20, 2006, 79 was led by the new prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jafari, an Iraqi Shia and member of the Dawa Party, which was part of the United Iraqi Alliance. 80 When the cabinet formed, it was comprised of a total of thirty-eight ministers, thirty-two of whom had portfolios (or specified responsibilities) and six of whom did not. 81 Among the thirty-two ministers, who had portfolios, eighteen were Shias, eight were Kurds, and six were Sunni Arabs. Several of the key positions were held by Shias including the offices of prime minister, vice president (which was held by Adil Abd al-Mahdi who was a member of SCIRI), and ministry of interior (which was held by Bayan Jabri who was a member of SCIRI). The president of Iraq was Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who was a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. 82 Both Tareq al-Hashimi (a Sunni and a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party) and Adil Abdul-Mahdi (a Shia and a member of SCIRI) became vice presidents, while Abd al-Qadir alMufriji (a Sunni Muslim) became defense minister. 83 The Islamist Shias almost dominated the cabinet with the Sunnis’ representation on that body being relatively small. This very large cabinet, appointed in part to award representation to various groups and parties, was dysfunctional. Each cabinet minister considered his ministry his own territory, over which he had exclusive control. Cabinet ministries did as they pleased. The prime minister had to bargain in order to accomplish anything. Decision making by consensus consumed large amounts of time, making delivery of basic services and speedy decisions impossible. 84 Individuals and parties wanted to maintain their hold on power, and they used their cabinet ministries to reward their supporters and family members, often through corruption, nepotism, and patronage. 85 After Iraqis ratified a new constitution in a referendum that was held on October 15, 2005 (where large numbers of Shias and Kurds voted in favor of the constitution, and large numbers of Sunni Arabs voted against it), 86 elec-

136

Chapter 5

tions were held in December 2005 for the purpose of electing leaders to a new, permanent Iraqi government which would replace the previous, temporary versions. 87 Again, in this election, the Shia parties did well. The United Iraqi Alliance (which was the largest Shia coalition) won 128 seats (46.5 percent), followed by the Kurdistan alliance with 53 seats (19.2 percent), Tawafuq (an Arab Sunni coalition) with 44 seats (16 percent), Iraqiyya with 25 seats (9 percent), and the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue with 11 seats (4 percent). The Iraqi Front for National Dialogue described itself as a nonsectarian coalition that wanted to end the presence of foreign troops and to rebuild Iraqi government institutions. 88 On April 22, 2006, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, who was a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, became president of Iraq and he appointed Nouri al-Maliki, who was a Shia and a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, as prime minister. 89 ESCALATION OF SHIA-SUNNI CONFLICTS Conflicts between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq continued to escalate. One serious incident was the bombing, on February 22, 2006, of the Askari mosque in Samarra, Iraq, which is one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam. 90 A weeklong period of horrific conflicts between Shias and Sunnis ensued. In this context, the political ascendancy of the Shias in Iraq’s government and society was deeply threatening to the Sunnis. Sunnis and Shias continued to view themselves in sectarian, rather than national terms. As the results of the 2005 elections became apparent, Sunnis became fearful of a decisive and permanent shift to Shia-dominated government and the subsequent exclusion of Sunnis from the political process. 91 The Shias’ administrative rule over much of Iraq’s security apparatus reinforced the Sunnis’ fears. The interior ministry was one area of that apparatus where Shia domination, particularly by the Shia Badr Brigade, was particularly strong. Calls by various Shias including members of SCIRI for an autonomous Shia region in the central and southern parts of Iraq intensified the polarization between Shias and Sunnis. 92 The Sunnis were also fearful of the shifts in power to the Shia Islamist parties, which were aligned with the Kurds. The Sunnis were anxious that this Shia-Kurdish alliance carried the potential of these groups permanently consolidating their power using elections (as they had already done) and taking control of Iraq’s government. 93 The Shias also had their fears. They had gained power in Iraq’s government through elections, which gave them a sense of legitimacy that the Sunnis could not match, and the Shias wanted to preserve it. The Shias also harbored legitimate fears of Sunni militant groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq, and of Sunnis wanting to do everything in their power to end Shia rule. One of several arenas where the mutual distrust between Shias and Sunnis mani-

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

137

fested itself was the sectarian civil war, which took place in Baghdad in 2006 and 2007. In the run-up to the Baghdad civil war, Sunnis were forcing Shias to leave Sunni-dominated neighborhoods by threatening and murdering them. In a long succession of tit-for-tat killings between Shias and Sunnis in January of 2006, there were seven hundred murders. SUNNI ISLAMISTS: AL-QAIDA IN IRAQ One of the main Sunni Islamist organizations, which fomented the anti-Shia bias, was al-Qaida in Iraq which wanted to establish a Sunni Islamic nationstate in Iraq based on a strict Sunni understanding of Islamic law. Members of al-Qaida hoped that Sunni Muslims would conquer the world eventually and establish a global Islamic nation-state with a strict Sunni interpretation of Islamic law forming a foundation for that state. In al-Qaida’s efforts to conquer Iraq, its members wanted to foment a large-scale Shia-Sunni war in Iraq as the first stage of causing a collapse of Iraq’s government and al-Qaida’s takeover of it. 94 Al-Qaida’s bombing of the Shia Askari mosque in Samarra on February 22, 2006, opened the floodgates in terms of a massive sectarian war in and near Baghdad that played a significant role in putting the death toll at 34,400 by the end of 2006. 95 In the Baghdad civil war, the Sunnis, who, during most of Iraq’s modern history, were the dominant political force in the country, were largely defeated by the end of 2006 because the Shias had emerged victorious in the ground battles. At the same time, al-Qaida experienced several hardships politically. For example, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed in June of 2006. During this period, the Sunni insurgency was fracturing over ideological differences. Another source of hardship for the Sunnis was the execution of Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, on December 30, 2006. 96 By the end of 2006, Iraq was in a state of almost constant civil war and fragmenting with respect to various religious and ethnic groups. In 2007, at least two factors helped somewhat improve this negative situation: an increase in the number of US soldiers in Iraq and the participation of certain Arab Sunni political groups in Iraq’s national government. 97 These factors enabled Nouri al-Maliki’s government to strengthen its position and that of the central government in the non-Kurdish areas from 2008 to 2011. The increased stability during that period helped enable economic development, including new oil concessions, and an agreement with the United States to withdraw its military forces near the end of 2011. 98 Unfortunately, the period of stability did not last. As Maliki became more authoritarian, he was at the center of several competing political parties and other forces, which were striving for greater political power in Iraq. One of those forces was al-Qaida in Iraq, from which the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) emerged. 99

138

Chapter 5

While al-Qaida in Iraq had engaged in numerous militant attacks against targets in that country, attacks which that group is believed to have executed or to have supported in August, October, and December 2009 manifested its growing strength. These attacks against Iraqi government buildings constituted a prelude to the greater influence which al-Qaida and ISIS would have in Iraq and Syria in subsequent years. 100 The fact that the militants attacked Iraqi government targets at a time when Iraq had a Shia prime minister, namely Nouri Maliki, indicates the bombers’ opposition to that Shia-led government and their desire to show that government’s inability to protect its own buildings and the people in them. Another indication of the Maliki government’s weakness was corruption which inhibited economic development, possibilities for foreign investment in Iraq, and Iraqis’ confidence in their government. Corruption within the government included payoffs and kickbacks on government contracts, nepotism, theft of government property and resources, including oil, criminal protection rackets, and other illegal activities. 101 After the US withdrew from Iraq in 2011, the Iraqi security forces, although trained by Americans, no longer had the direct support of the US intelligence services or the benefit of that country’s warplanes to combat al-Qaida in Iraq. 102 In addition, competing factions within the Iraqi military failed to coordinate intelligence-sharing and to develop an effective strategy to fight militant groups, such as alQaida. 103 UNINTENTIONALLY SETTING THE STAGE FOR SUNNI MILITANCY: ISLAMIC STATE IN IRAQ AND SYRIA One of the problems in Maliki’s government was the emergence of a “shadow state” which was, in part, comprised of highly segmented military and paramilitary forces. 104 Maliki attempted to use this shadow state to his advantage. For example, Maliki developed what amounted to his own private army consisting of anti-guerilla and anti-militant forces known as the Golden Division. This was one way that Maliki continued Saddam Hussein’s policy of fostering relatively small, elite military units, which were loyal to the leader. 105 Maliki’s Dawa Party also controlled the Eighth Division of Iraq’s army. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (or ISCI, which is the Shia Islamist party in Iraq that had been named the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq until 2009), exerted significant control over the Iraqi army’s Fourth Division. 106 At the same time, Kurds prevented Iraq’s regular army from operating in the large portions of northern Iraq, which were under the jurisdiction of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). The security forces in the KRG were primarily the Kurdish peshmerga soldiers who were members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party or the Patriotic Union of Kurdi-

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

139

stan. 107 These forces failed to cooperate with the Iraqi government and sometimes with each other regarding challenges related to Iraq’s national security. While these military and security institutions had been weakened by competing political, ethnic, familial, and religious loyalties, the armed forces were also compromised by what is known as Iraq’s “ghost army.” 108 This refers to large numbers of fictitious names which appeared as officers on Iraq’s military rosters, while actual people collected those fake persons’ salaries. Portions of Iraq’s military operated as patronage networks for Maliki, with military officer positions awarded to Maliki’s loyalists, instead of the ones with military expertise and ability. These loyalists, who were appointed to such positions, used them to illegally obtain money for themselves by taking portions of the transit fees which were charged at military checkpoints and collected by lower ranking soldiers. This kind of patronage became endemic to the Iraqi military and other government agencies, which were responsible for security. It enabled military officers and government officials to advance their own sectarian agendas and to profit personally from the corrupt system. There was also large amounts of waste in this system, in that there were several different government security agencies which were responsible for doing the same kind of work. 109 At the same time, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan transformed what had been their respective parties’ intelligence agencies into the official security agencies of the Kurdistan Regional Government. 110 These Kurdish governmental institutions rarely coordinated their efforts and intelligence work with each other, while spying on their rival Iraqi intelligence agencies. Thus, both the Iraqi and Kurdish governments lacked central institutions which could have monitored and responded to the growing strength of al-Qaida, ISIS, and similar Sunni militant organizations. After the US withdrawal from Iraq, all of these governmental security and intelligence agencies, which were within the Iraqi government and the Kurdish Regional Government, were deprived of drone and satellite intelligence, which they had been provided before that withdrawal. Maliki contributed to the weakening of Iraq’s military by terminating funding to Sunni groups in Iraq such as Sahwa, which with the support of the United States, had fought against Sunni Islamist militant groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq. The members of Sahwa and similar Sunni organizations lost their salaries and experienced discrimination when they attempted to join the military because of the preference which the Maliki government gave to Shias. The members of Sahwa and similar Sunni organizations who had fought successfully against al-Qaida, in 2008 for example, felt betrayed by the Maliki government’s actions. Therefore, the members of Sahwa and their Sunni allies had almost no incentive or military means to fight against al-Qaida and ISIS as they became stronger and conquered various regions of Iraq beginning in 2013.

140

Chapter 5

Fragmentation within Iraq’s military, intelligence, and security services, combined with patronage, corruption, and feelings of betrayal among Sunnis in particular, caused these governmental institutions to be seriously weakened. Such realities made the Iraqi government and military almost defenseless with respect to al-Qaida’s and ISIS’s subsequent conquests of large portions of Iraq. 111 Haider al-Abadi, who is a Shia Muslim and a member of the Dawa Party, took office as Iraq’s president on September 8, 2014. 112 In his capacity as president, he inherited most of the problems of Maliki’s administration, including (1) forming an inclusive government from a factionalized political structure; (2) Sunni Arabs’ deep alienation from the Iraqi government; and (3) decreasing oil prices, which would create difficulties in Iraq, in that oil has been a significant revenue source for the country. THE RISE AND SPREAD OF THE ISLAMIC STATE IN IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS) The most drastic difficulty, which confronted Abadi, was the rise and spread of ISIS, a Sunni Islamist organization that is virulently anti-Shia, and whose members wanted to impose a strict Sunni version of Islamic law on all the areas which it conquered. One of ISIS’s most dramatic achievements was its capture of Mosul, Iraq, in June 2014. 113 That city in northern Iraq, with a population of approximately 1.7 million, is Iraq’s second largest. 114 By June 10, 2014, ISIS controlled Mosul’s airport, police stations, and central bank. Members of ISIS also captured a prison in Mosul, where they killed 670 Shias, and they captured the Turkish consulate in that city, where they seized eighty members of its staff. 115 Approximately half a million of Mosul’s inhabitants fled to the territory of the Kurdistan Regional Government or to other parts of Iraq. Within this context, thirty thousand Iraq soldiers seemed incapable of preventing approximately fifteen hundred ISIS soldiers from conquering such a large and important city. ISIS’s conquering of Mosul was probably because of several factors, including the attitudes of some of that city’s residents, Mosul’s political and military elites’ cooperation with ISIS, and a collapse of the Iraqi military. Some of Mosul’s Sunni residents, who were deeply alienated by the sweeping arrests and intimidation by Iraqi security forces under the pro-Shia administrations of Presidents Maliki and al-Abadi may have supported, or at least implicitly agreed to, the presence of ISIS units in Mosul before June of 2014. Many of Mosul’s residents, who stayed in that city after ISIS’s conquest of it, either actively supported ISIS or passively resigned themselves to its presence. Officials in Iraq’s national government accused politicians in Mosul and areas around it of cooperating with ISIS, particularly targeting such persons

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

141

as Athil al-Najaifi, the governor of Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital. 116 The Iraqi officials’ charges against al-Najaifi ranged from failing to deploy security forces to protect Mosul to directly cooperating with ISIS before it captured that city. According to an investigation by Iraq’s parliament, al-Najaifi had redeployed the local police from one area, thus allowing ISIS to enter Mosul. Al-Najaifi responded by stating that he had no jurisdiction over the army in Mosul and, as a result, could do very little to defend the city. Al-Najaifi departed from Mosul for Erbil, a city in the Kurdish Regional Government’s control, and not Baghdad. His doing so was an indication that he did not want to risk arrest by the central government, giving Maliki reason to accuse him and the Kurds of having cooperated with ISIS. 117 A breakdown of the chain of command within the Iraqi military is another reason for the inadequate defense of Mosul against ISIS’s invasion. 118 A number of Iraqi soldiers, particularly Shia soldiers, who were serving in majority-Sunni areas in Iraq, felt marginalized by the Sunnis’ hostilities toward them. As a result, those Shia soldiers felt little incentive to fight against ISIS. 119 The Iraqi army soldiers, who fought ISIS, faced the depletion of their ammunition and supplies, and were captured by ISIS, whereas other Iraqi soldiers withdrew. Iraqi military forces in Mosul collapsed in the face of ISIS’s attack on June 10, 2014. The next day, ISIS captured the town of Baiji, which is approximately one hundred miles south of Mosul, and ten days later a nearby oil refinery, which supplies oil to Iraq domestically. ISIS conquered Tikrit, which is 140 miles south of Mosul and near the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, on June 11. In Camp Speicher, which is close to Tikrit, ISIS soldiers executed seventeen hundred Iraqi military cadets, whom they targeted because they believed that they were Shias. On June 13, 2014, ISIS forces reached areas near Samarra, the site of the sacred Shia al-Askari shrine, the destruction of which in 2006 catalyzed large-scale battles in Iraq. As ISIS’s soldiers marched closer to Baghdad, it appeared as if Iraq’s military may not have been able to protect Samarra or Baghdad. Ayatollah Sistani issued a religious decree calling on Shias to defend Baghdad and sacred Shia sites in Iraq. 120 Shia volunteers responded to Sistani’s call, dramatically increasing the number of soldiers in the Shia militias. At the same time, there were Shia militia leaders who held positions in the Iraqi government, several of them serving as government ministers. ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI AND ISIS After Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was the head of ISIS, began to live and work in Mosul, he entered a mosque in that city on June 29, 2014, and declared himself the caliph, which was the official title of all the successive

142

Chapter 5

leaders of Sunni Islam from the time of the Prophet Muhammad’s passing in 632 until the demise of the last Sunni caliph (and the end of the caliphate) in 1924. By June 29, ISIS’s territory stretched from ISIS’s capital, Raqqa, in the west, as far as Tikrit in the east. When ISIS took control of a Syrian-Iraqi border post before seizing Mosul, they held a major media event celebrating their rejection of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 between the British and French which played a significant role in setting the borders of Middle Eastern countries including Iran and Iraq. 121 This media event symbolized ISIS’s rejection of European colonialism. It also asserted what ISIS’s members believed was its own authority, as the true Islamic state, to destroy the borders of Middle Eastern countries, which the European colonialists had established, and create new borders for what ISIS’s members hoped eventually would be a global Islamic nation-state under strict Islamic law. THE ARAB SPRING, SYRIA’S CIVIL WAR, AND ISIS While a large number of factors, several of which have been described, created an environment for the rise of ISIS, two additional factors are significant. One is the “Arab Spring” and the second, related factor, was the civil war in Syria, which shares a 372 mile (599 kilometer) border with Iraq. 122 The Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia in December 2010, was comprised of a series of violent and nonviolent revolts against authoritarian governments in several Arab countries, including Syria. In that country, there were people and groups with different ideologies, who wanted to overthrow Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and his government, and replace them with a leader and government whose ideology was consistent with their political beliefs. ISIS was one of the groups that fought against President al-Assad and the Syrian government, with the hope of overthrowing that government and replacing it with what ISIS’s members believed was a truly Islamic Sunni government. Other groups, which were revolting against the Syrian government, wanted to overthrow that government with the hope of establishing a secular democracy in that country. One of several reasons that ISIS was able to install its capital in Raqqa, Syria, and create its own military bases in that country, was because Syria’s civil war, which began in March 2011, had weakened the Syrian government to such an extent that Syria’s military could not adequately fight against ISIS and other groups, which were attempting to overthrow it. 123 Within this context, ISIS leveraged the weakness of Syria’s government to its advantage, which included using its bases in Syria to send large numbers of ISIS soldiers into Iraq in order to fight there.

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

143

ISIS AND ITS IRAQI SHIA ADVERSARIES By June 2014, ISIS had captured large amounts of territory in Iraq, and the Iraqi military was experiencing enormous difficulties in blocking ISIS’s farreaching military advances. With ISIS a few miles outside of Baghdad and Iraq’s military in a weakened state, Iraq’s government became dependent on several different non-governmental militias in Iraq, primarily Shia and Kurdish, in order to defend Baghdad and other parts of Iraq. On June 13, 2014, Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa (which is a religious and political decree) calling on Shias to defend Baghdad and Shia holy sites in Iraq. While his decree was not exclusively directed at Shias in Iraq, large numbers of Shias in Iraq responded to this decree by joining several Shia militias for the purpose of defending Shias in Iraq against ISIS’s advances and hostile actions against Shias. Some of these Shia volunteers joined a Shia force named “al-Hashd al-Shaabi,” which is often translated into English as the “Popular Mobilization Forces” (PMF). 124 The PMF also functions, among other things, as an umbrella organization that coordinates the work of existing Shia militias. 125 It is estimated that after Sistani issued his fatwa, the various Shia militias in Iraq, including the ones that operated under the PMF, came to be comprised of between 60,000 and 120,000 soldiers, whereas, around the same time, the Iraqi military was comprised of only fifty-thousand reliable soldiers. The Badr Brigade and Sadr’s Mahdi Army, which had been renamed the Peace Brigades, constituted significant components of the PMF. 126 ISIS VERSUS IRAN’S ISLAMIC REVOLUTIONARY GUARD CORPS Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Guard’s (IGRC) Quds Force played a crucial role in Iraq, and particularly in the battles against ISIS. The Quds force is a branch of the IGRC, which was formed soon after Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. The IGRC itself is intended to protect Iran’s Shia Islamic political system, including its government. The IGRC views itself as having a crucial role in protecting Iran’s Islamic system by preventing foreign interference in Iran and coups in that country by Iran’s regular military. The Quds Force is a special-forces unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which is responsible for their military operations outside Iran. The Quds Force reports directly to the supreme leader of Iran and its commander has been Major General Qasem Soleimani, who is Iranian. General Soleimani is a charismatic figure, who is often heroized among Shias in pro-Shia media. He played a crucial role in supporting Shia Iraqi militias in their

144

Chapter 5

battles against ISIS, while fostering an alliance between those Shia militias and Kurdish groups in Iraq, which were also fighting against ISIS. 127 One of Soleimani’s first major victories took place in August 2014 in Amerli, Iraq, which is approximately 110 miles north of Baghdad where Shia and Kurdish forces succeeded in forcing ISIS to retreat. 128 This military campaign benefited from the US air support, which was largely coordinated through the Kurds, with Shia and Kurdish militias fighting on the ground. 129 Shia and Kurdish forces under Soleimani’s command had similar success in defeating and causing the withdrawal of ISIS from the Iraqi towns of Jalawla and Saadia, which are twenty miles from Iraq’s border with Iran. 130 These battles included the first reported use of Iranian F-4 military aircraft, which provided air support for the ground forces. The use of the F-4s was an escalation prompted by the proximity of the fighting to Iran’s borders. It was a bold assertion of Iran’s place in the war. Regardless of frequency or effect, Iranian air assets were operating in Iraq in a manner parallel to that of the United States and allied air forces. It appears that this was one case, possibly among others, where there was, at minimum, tacit cooperation between Iran and the United States in the fight against ISIS and similar Sunni Islamist organizations. 131 Although both countries denied that such cooperation existed, in December 2014, US secretary of state, John Kerry, described Iran’s military contributions as having a positive effect in the war against ISIS. 132 ISIS WEAKENED The battles against ISIS continued and by June 2018 ISIS forces within Iraq and Syria were weakened but not fully destroyed. Indeed, large numbers of ISIS soldiers fled from Iraq, under massive military pressure from the militaries of the United States, Iran, and Iraq to countries such as Syria, Libya, Yemen, the Philippines, and Turkey. 133 Although ISIS had apparently been weakened in Iraq and Syria, by that time, there remained thousands of ISIS soldiers in that country and internationally who remained committed to ISIS’s cause and were ready to fight for it and its Sunni Islamist objectives well into the future. 134 DEVASTATION AND DEMOCRACY While the US invasion of Iraq, which began in 2003, brought enormous devastation and horrific civil war to that country, it also enabled the establishment of a democratic system within Iraq which both reinforces sectarian and ethnic divisions, because the political parties are often divided along sectarian and ethnic lines, while at the same time carrying the long-term potential of bringing peace to some of Iraq’s conflicts, since, if a democracy

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

145

functions properly, it has the potential of giving individuals and groups the opportunities to express their opinions, assemble, vote, and settle their differences peacefully. Although this is the manner in which democratic systems are intended to function, of course they do not always operate in that manner. Yet, if there is to be any hope for lasting peace in Iraq’s future, part of that hope may lie in the possibility that Iraq’s democratic system may function in such a manner that it would be one significant political component in providing for the nonviolent settling of differences. Within this context, Iraq’s leaders face four challenges. The first involves creating long-lasting national cohesion based on a political consensus. The conflicts between Sunnis and Shias were escalated during the rise of ISIS and the battles involving the Kurds. A resolution of these differences could be one step to beginning the establishment of national cohesion in the country. A second challenge is the development of Iraq’s economic resources, including oil and human resources. While a strengthening of Iraq’s infrastructure began in 2007, with the revival of (1) foreign investments, (2) oil contracts, and (3) some local businesses, full-scale oil development was inhibited by disagreements between Iraq’s central government and the Kurdish Regional Government as well as expenses which Iraq’s government incurred as a result of the war against ISIS. A third challenge, which Iraq faces, is proper governance in the face of corruption, kin and clan allegiances, sectarianism, ethnic divisions, and weak infrastructure as a result of wars which have involved Iraq since 1980. A fourth challenge is the involvement of foreign countries, both within the Middle East and outside of that region, in Iraq’s domestic affairs. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States have a significant influence in Iraq; addressing and potentially limiting the influence of those countries in Iraq’s domestic affairs could contribute to Iraqis believing that they may have more influence over their country’s future. In this context, what remains to be seen are the results of Iraqis’ cross-sectarian mass protests in 2019 against high unemployment, a weak economy, and government corruption. The outcomes of those protests and their effects on Iraq’s government and citizens are uncertain. 135 American governmental and military leaders did not anticipate Shia religious and intellectual fluorescence in Iraq when they planned the US invasion of that country in 2003, yet this was one result of that war. In the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s removal from power, and as Iraq’s civil war quieted, Najaf reasserted itself as a center of Shia religious and intellectual life. 136 Religiously, the burial site of Imam Ali in Najaf has experienced a resurgence in the number of visitors that it has received with daily visitors often numbering seventy-five thousand, and on important Shia holidays as many as three million visitors may come to the shrine. 137

146

Chapter 5

Considering such factors, this study turns to another country, Lebanon, where Shias have had a substantial share of the country’s population, and where sectarianism, foreign involvement, governance, and questions about national cohesion have also played a significant role. 138 Kadhimiya, where the tombs of the seventh and ninth Shia Imams are located, and Samarra, the sites of the tombs of the tenth and eleventh Imams, as well as the location of the underground tunnel where the twelfth imam disappeared into hiding are also popular sites for visitations. Foreigners, particularly Iranians and Indians, comprise most of the visitors to the city. Shias prefer to be buried in the vast Wadi al-Salam cemetery, because they believe they will receive additional blessings if they are buried there, and Shia clerics officiate tens of thousands of funerals there annually. Intellectually, the demise of Baath power and the anti-Shia policies, which accompanied it, have opened the door for vigorous Shia intellectual life in Najaf’s Shia seminary. Shia scholars and students have been debating and conducting research on such topics as the role of Shia Islam in politics, Shia legal interpretations of artificial insemination, the role of women and gender in Islam, Shia’s relationships with Sunnis, appropriations of violence and nonviolence in Islam, the US policies toward Iraq, and Iran’s participation in Iraq’s religious and political life. As of 2009, Najaf’s seminary had approximately five thousand students, including students from Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, India, Iran, and Yemen, all of whom can study there freely without the threat of the Iraqi government punishing them or the employees of the seminary, as had been the case under Baath governments. 139 The situation in Najaf may be a glimmer of hope for the future of Iraqi Shias, residents of a country damaged by invasions and sectarian conflicts. Yet, Iraqi Shias are not the only ones who have lived in an oftenpolarized sectarian setting. Lebanon’s Shias have experienced sectarian conflict in their country, and it is to Lebanon which this study turns. NOTES 1. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 65. Saddam Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006, as a result of the US invasion of Iraq, which began in March 2003, which constituted the beginning of the Iraq War that was the United States’ second war in that country. See Keith L. Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 24. 2. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 65. 3. Ibid. 4. Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004), 132. 5. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as, 65–66. 6. Faleh A. Jabar, The Shi`ite Movement in Iraq (London, UK: Saqi Books, 2003), 269. 7. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 181. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 197.

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

147

10. Wilfred Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs (London, UK: Penguin Books, 2007), 3, 22, 27, 68, 93, 167, 175, 205, 210. See also Richard M. Edwards, “Marsh Arabs,” in U.S. Conflicts in the 21st Century: Afghanistan War, Iraq War, and the War on Terror, ed. Spencer C. Tucker (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2016), 535. 11. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 197. 12. Ibid. 13. Edwards, “Marsh Arabs,” 535. 14. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 197–198. 15. Ibid., 198. 16. Edwards, “Marsh Arabs,” 535. 17. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 197. 18. Edwards, “Marsh Arabs,” 535. 19. Ibid. 20. Jocelyne Cesari, The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity, and the State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 194. 21. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 198. See also Cesari, The Awakening of Muslim Democracy, 194, n. 144. 22. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 198. 23. Ibid. 24. Carol K. Winkler, In the Name of Terrorism: Presidents on Political Violence in the Post–World War II Era (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 155. 25. Ibid. 26. Stephen E. Atkins, “United Airlines Flight 93,” in The War on Terror Encyclopedia: From the Rise of Al-Qaeda to 9/11 and Beyond, ed. Jan Goldman (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2014), 378. 27. Shaopei Lin and Zhen Huang, Comparative Design of Structures: Concepts and Methodologies, (Heidelberg: Springer, 2016), 107. 28. This letter is dated October 6, 2002, was posted on the internet in Arabic on October 14, 2002, and was subsequently translated into English. See Bruce Lawrence, introduction to Usama bin Laden’s “To the Americans; October 6, 2002” in Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden, ed. Bruce Lawrence, trans. James Howarth (London, Verso 2005), 160–161. 29. Usama bin Laden, “To the Americans; October 6, 2002,” in Messages to the World, 160–172. 30. Ibid. 31. Jon Armajani, Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 1–29. 32. Douglas Macgregor, Marvin Weinbaum, Abdullah Ansary, and Robert Pape, “The ‘Global War on Terror:’ What Has Been Learned?” Middle East Policy, 15, Issue 4, (Winter 2008): 1–25. 33. Jon Armajani, “Reconstructed Sacred Histories in Modern Islamic and Christian Religio-Political Movements” in Historical Dimensions of Islam: Pre-Modern and Modern Periods; Essays in Honor of R. Stephen Humphreys, eds. James E. Lindsay and Jon Armajani (Princeton, New Jersey: Darwin Press, 2009), 257–269. 34. Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002, Public Law 107–243, pp. 1–3, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-116/pdf/STATUTE -116-Pg1498.pdf (accessed February 12, 2018). 35. Ibid., 1. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., 1–2. 39. Ibid., 3. 40. Nafeez Ahmed, “Iraq Invasion was about Oil,” The Guardian, March 20, 2014 https:// www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy -peak-scarcity-economy (accessed February 15, 2018).

148

Chapter 5

41. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, November 8, 2002, p. 3; http://www .un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/1441.pdf (accessed February 12, 2018). 42. Ibid., 3–4. 43. Ibid., 5. 44. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 525. 45. Ibid. 46. Anthony R. Dimaggio, Mass Media, Mass Propaganda: Examining American News in the “War on Terror” (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2009), 108–109. 47. World Health Organization, “New Study Estimates 151,000 Violent Iraqi Deaths since 2003 Invasion,” News Release from World Health Organization, January 9, 2008, http://www .who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr02/en/ (accessed February 13, 2018). 48. Nake M. Kamrany and Megan Sieffert, “Estimating War Damages Sustained by Iraq (2003–2010)” Huffington Post, n.d., https://www.huffingtonpost.com/nake-m-kamrany/post _1518_b_803541.html (accessed February 13, 2018). 49. Haider Ala Hamoudi, Negotiating in Civil Conflict: Constitutional Construction and Imperfect Bargaining in Iraq (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014), 107. 50. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 526. 51. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 203–204. 52. Patrick Cockburn, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq (New York: Scribner, 2008), 112. 53. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 219. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 56. Hayder al-Khoei, “Moqtada al-Sadr Should Not Be Above the Law,” The Guardian, January 6, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/06/moqtada-al-sadr -law (accessed February 13, 2018). 57. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 219. See also Joel Roberts, “Arrest Warrant for Iraqi Cleric,” CBS News, April 5, 2004, https://www.cbsnews.com/news /arrest-warrant-for-iraqi-cleric (accessed February 13, 2018). 58. Sharon Otterman, Iraq: Sunni and Shiite Unrest, Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, February 16, 2005, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/iraq-sunni-and-shiite-unrest (accessed February 13, 2018). 59. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 219. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid., 220. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., 224. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibid., 224–225. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid., 225. 68. Ibid. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid. and Cockburn, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq, 164–166. 71. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 227. 72. Marc A. Lemieux, “Iraq’s Conflicted Transition to Democracy: Analyzing Elections in a Violent Society,” in Elections in Dangerous Places: Democracy and the Paradoxes of Peacebuilding, ed. David Gillies (Montreal and Kingston, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011), 34. 73. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 227. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid., 228. 76. Reidar Visser, “Iraq: Democracy and Electoral Politics in the Post-Saddam Era” in Elections and Democratization in the Middle East: The Tenacious Search for Freedom, Justice, and Dignity, eds. Mahmoud Ahmad and Khalil al-Anani, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014), 137.

Iraq from 1990 and Beyond

149

77. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 228. 78. Ibid. 79. Ryan Chilcote, “Iraq’s New Unity Government Sworn In,” CNN, May 20, 2006, http:// www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/20/iraq.main/ (accessed February 15, 2018). 80. Christopher Anzalone, “Ibrahim al-Jafari,” in The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts, vol. 1: A-D, ed. Spencer C. Tucker (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2010), 650–651. 81. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 230. 82. Ibid. 83. Barry Turner, ed., The Statesman’s Yearbook 2007: The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006), 673, and Anthony H. Cordesman with Adam Mausner and Elena Derby, Iraq and the United States: Creating a Strategic Partnership (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2010), 268. 84. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 230. 85. Ibid. 86. Peter W. Galbraith, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 204. 87. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 234. 88. Richard M. Edwards and Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr., “Iraqi Front for National Dialogue,” in The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars, vol. 1: A-D, 615. 89. Barry Turner, ed., The Statesman’s Yearbook 2008: The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 669. 90. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 236. 91. Ibid., 236–237. 92. Ibid. 93. Ibid., 237. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid., 238. 96. Ibid., 238–239. 97. Ibid., 239. 98. Joseph Logan, “Last U.S. Troops Leave Iraq, Ending War,” Reuters, December 17, 2011, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-withdrawal/last-u-s-troops-leave-iraq-endingwar-id USTRE7BH03320111218 (accessed February 17, 2018). 99. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 239. 100. Ibid., 266. 101. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 267. 102. Ibid., 279. 103. Ned Parker, “Divided Iraq Has Two Spy Agencies,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2007, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/15/world/fg-intel15 (accessed February 17, 2017). 104. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 280. 105. Ibid. 106. Stanford University, Mapping Militant Organizations, “Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq,” Updated: August 5, 2012, http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmili tants/cgi-bin/groups/view/405?highlight=Mahdi+Army (February 17, 2018). 107. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 280. 108. Ibid. 109. Ibid. 110. Ibid., 281. 111. Ibid. 112. Tareq Y. Ismael, Jacqueline S. Ismael, and Glenn E. Perry, Government and Politics of the Contemporary Middle East: Continuity and Change, 2nd ed., (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016), 287. 113. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 289.

150

Chapter 5

114. Karl DeRouen Jr. and Paul Bellamy, eds., International Security and the United States: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1 (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2008), 365. 115. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 289. 116. Marina Calculli, “The Liberation of Mosul in the Middle Eastern Balance of Power” in After Mosul: Re-Inventing Iraq, ed. Andrea Plebani (Milan, Italy: Ledizioni LediPublishing, 2017), 116. 117. Mohammed A. Salih, “More Than a Year On, Who is to Blame for the Fall of Mosul?” al-Monitor, August 25, 2015, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/08/iraq-report -mosul-fall-maliki-abadi.html (accessed February 19, 2018). 118. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 289–290. 119. Ibid., 290. 120. Ibid. 121. Ian Black, “ISIS Breach of Iraq-Syria Border Merges Two Wars into One ‘Nightmarish Reality’” The Guardian, June 18, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/18/isis -iraq-syria-two-wars-one-nightmare (accessed February 19, 2018). 122. The World Factbook, “Land Boundaries: Iraq,” https://www.cia.gov/library /publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2096.html (accessed February 20, 2018). 123. Michael Kerr, “Introduction: For ‘God, Bashar and Nothing Else’?” in the Alawis of Syria: War, Faith, and Politics in the Levant, Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 2. 124. Jack Watling, “The Shia Militias of Iraq,” The Atlantic, December 22, 2016 https:// www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/shia-militias-iraq-isis/510938/ (accessed February 20, 2018). 125. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 299. 126. Ibid. 127. Afshon Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), 225. 128. Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam, 227. See also Rebecca Collard, “Liberated Iraqi Town Vows to Carry On Struggle against ISIS,” Time, August 31, 2014 http://time.com/3239251 /amerli-iraq-shiite-sunni-turkmen-isis/ (accessed February 20, 2018). 129. Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam, 227. 130. Ibid. 131. Tim Arango and Thomas Erdbrink, “U.S. and Iran Both Attack ISIS, but Try Not to Look Like Allies” New York Times, December 3, 2014. 132. Ostovar, Vanguard of the Imam, 228. See also Zaid al-Ali, “Can Anyone Stop Iran from Taking over Iraq?” The Independent, August 17, 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/voices /mosul-fighting-conflict-isis-iran-taking-over-iraq-a7898576.html (accessed February 20, 2018). 133. Eric Schmitt, “Thousands of ISIS Fighters Flee in Syria, Many to Fight Another Day,” New York Times, February 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/world/middleeast /isis-syria-al-qaeda.html?login=email&auth=login-email. 134. “Iraq Bombs Meeting of Daesh Leaders in Syria—Military,” Daily Star (Lebanon) and Reuters, June 23, 2018, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2018/Jun-23/454130 -iraq-conducts-air-strike-on-daesh-position-in-syria.ashx (accessed June 26, 2018). 135. Anchal Vohra, “The Arab World’s Revolution against Sectarianism: Lebanon and Iraq Are Rising Up against Constitutions that Have Empowered Religious Factions—And Enabled Their Corruption,” Foreign Policy, October 24, 2019 https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/24/leb anon-iraq-arab-world-wants-to-overthrow-sectarianism/ (accessed November 10, 2019). 136. Augustus Richard Norton, “Al-Najaf: Its Resurgence as a Religious and University Center,” Middle East Policy 18, no. 1 (Spring 2011), 132–145. 137. Ibid., 133. 138. Marr and al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed., 341–343. 139. Norton, “Al-Najaf,” 143. See also Laurence Louë r, Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 69–102.

Chapter Six

Lebanon

Shia religious and political mobilization in Lebanon is connected, in part, to France’s colonial history in that country, Shia intellectual life in Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq, as well as religious diversity in Lebanon, which is comprised of Shias, Sunnis, Christians, and Druze. In this vein, as a result of the SykesPicot agreement of 1916, France received colonial mandate over the territory that was later to be divided into the nation-states of Lebanon and Syria. On September 1, 1920, French general Henri Gouraud, who was representative of the French government in the Middle East and commander of the French Army of the Levant from 1919 to 1923, proclaimed the creation of Greater Lebanon. That entity would become the Lebanese Republic in May 1926, whose independence was declared in November 1943. Lebanon’s 1932 census, which was the country’s last, showed that in a total population of 861,399, Maronite Christians (who are Catholic and whose church has limited autonomy with respect to the Vatican) comprised 28.7 percent of Lebanon’s population; Sunni Muslims comprised 22.4 percent; Shia Muslims comprised 19.5 percent; Greek Orthodox comprised 9.7 percent; Druze comprised 6.7 percent; and Greek Catholics comprised 5.9 percent. According to that census, each of the following groups comprised slightly less than 1 percent of the population: Armenian Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Chaldean Catholics, Chaldean Orthodox, Jews, Protestants, Syriac Catholics, and Syriac Orthodox. A category which the census termed “Miscellaneous” also constituted slightly less than 1 percent of the population. 1 FRENCH COLONIALISM AND MARONITE CHRISTIANS One of General Gouraud’s goals was to protect the Maronite Christians (in what would later become the independent country of Lebanon) by preventing 151

152

Chapter 6

them from becoming absorbed into the majority-Muslim population of what would later become the independent country of Syria. 2 Greater Lebanon was established, in part, in order to provide the Maronite Christians with a distinct political entity, in which they were the single largest minority but did not necessarily constitute over 50 percent of the population. The French added several predominantly Muslim areas to Greater Lebanon, thus reducing the Maronite Christians to approximately 30 percent of Greater Lebanon’s population. 3 This action increased the likelihood that the Maronite Christians would depend on French support if they wanted to maintain political dominance in Greater Lebanon. In other words, the French colonialists believed that if the Maronite Christians were to have comprised more than 50 percent of Lebanon’s population, they could have acted much more independently of France than if they constituted the largest group as a statistical minority of Greater Lebanon’s population. 4 This apportionment also helped ensure a situation where various religious groups in Greater Lebanon, including the Christians, would compete with each other for power. That kind of competition, and at times conflict, could have benefited the French colonialists, in that it would have enabled them to maintain their power as the Lebanese fought each other, verbally or physically. This French colonialist policy could be viewed as one of divide and conquer. Maronite Christians viewed Lebanon as their Christian homeland, and believed that they had a right to political and economic dominance. With the support of the French, Maronite Christians hoped that eventually the Lebanese nation-state would be a Christian territory, oriented culturally to France. 5 The Sunni Muslims became part of Lebanon by French decree, not necessarily by their own volition. Some of them demanded unity with majority-Sunni Muslim Syria and they looked toward Muslims there and other parts of the majority-Muslim world as one way of strengthening their religious and cultural identities. LEBANON’S SHIAS Lebanon’s Shias, much like members of Lebanon’s other religious groups, operated under a zaim (plural: zuama) system. This system involved a family giving its loyalty to a group of traditional leaders, in return for protection and benefits from those leaders. This system, which may have existed for centuries, fostered deep allegiances between each of the families and their respective traditional leaders. This system provided each individual leader with undisputed leadership of families, communities, or even all the people in a religious group. 6 Lebanon’s Shias lived under the domination of a relatively small number of traditional leaders, whose political power stemmed from land wealth and the fact that their Shia political clients were relatively inef-

Lebanon

153

fectual politically at the time. Urban and small-town-based families in and near such Lebanese cities as Sidon, Tyre, and Nabitiya, who operated lucrative businesses, gained their influence in the late nineteenth century when they became tax agents for the Ottoman rulers in the region that was later to become the independent states of Lebanon and Syria. 7 There were other Shia families, who represented historically powerful clans or tribes, and reinforced their traditional leadership roles by working as Ottoman tax agents, for example. After Lebanese independence in 1943, these traditional leaders dominated communal politics, frequently winning seats in Lebanon’s parliament and in cabinet ministries. 8 This zaim system was one of several factors within Lebanon’s political structure that, while beneficial to Lebanese in certain ways, could also contribute to tensions and conflict, by hardening people’s loyalties to their own clan or religion, while militating against shared nationalism in a Lebanese nation-state. Adding to this complex scenario is the fact that the people in Lebanon’s various religious and clan groups are scattered throughout the country, living virtually side-by-side, which at times can foster understanding and, at other times, can raise tensions. 9 DEVISING CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY In 1926, a constitution was approved, creating the Lebanese Republic. 10 That constitution provided for a single chamber of deputies (or parliament) that was elected on the basis of religious representation. 11 A formula for determining the representation was later articulated in the National Pact of 1943. The 1926 constitution also provided for a president who was elected by the chamber of deputies. 12 The president’s authority included the right to appoint the prime minister and cabinet. 13 However, the 1926 constitution did not imply Lebanese independence, nor was it accompanied by a treaty between Lebanon and France. 14 France’s colonial mandate remained fully in force, and that country maintained its control of Lebanese foreign relations and military affairs. France’s colonial high commissioner also had the authority to dissolve parliament and suspend the constitution, a power he exercised twice, once from 1932 to 1934 and again in 1939. In addition, during the French colonial period in Lebanon, French advisers within each government ministry further limited the Lebanese’s freedom to control their domestic affairs. In spite of these encumbrances, Lebanon had a framework within the 1926 constitution which enabled it to practice electoral politics and limited self-governance. One significant challenge, which Lebanon faced during the 1930s, was the need to reconcile the differing interests of the Christians as well as the Shia and Sunni Muslims, while creating a political structure that would en-

154

Chapter 6

able members of those groups to work together constructively. The positions of two high-profile Maronite Christian politicians, Emile Edde and Bishara al-Khuri, on the issue of Muslim-Christian relations in Lebanon manifested a few of the reasons that some Muslims resisted accepting the Lebanese state, in that those Muslims felt threatened by the possibility of Maronite Christians dominating the state. During the French colonial mandate period in Lebanon, Edde, who was a lawyer trained in France, served in Lebanon’s legislature in 1922, as prime minister from 1929 until 1930, and as Lebanon’s president from 1936 until 1941. 15 Edde was somewhat empathetic to France’s colonial mandate in Lebanon because he believed that France’s presence in that country would benefit Lebanon’s Christians, in light of what appeared to be France’s support of them. For Edde, the idea of Lebanon as a Maronite Christian homeland was significant, and he believed that one purpose of Lebanon was to preserve the Maronite Christians. 16 Bishara al-Khuri, who was Edde’s main political rival, was also a Pariseducated lawyer, who served in Lebanon’s legislature in 1922 and established Lebanon’s Constitutional Bloc political party in the early 1930s. 17 Although al-Khuri shared Edde’s belief in Lebanon’s place as a homeland for Maronite Christians, al-Khuri was more sensitive to the needs of Muslims. 18 Al-Khuri was also more strident than Edde in demanding that France end its colonialist mandate in Lebanon. Al-Khuri tried to build alliances with Muslims based on their shared opposition to France’s colonialist presence in Lebanon. His Constitutional Bloc party actively worked toward Lebanese independence from France. Al-Khuri hoped that by forming a united front against France, Muslims and Christians in Lebanon would bridge the gaps that separated them, and establish common goals in an independent Lebanon. Yet, Emil Edde took a significant step in terms of helping to bring a Sunni Muslim to the center of political power in Lebanon. In 1936, Lebanese and French representatives agreed on the Franco-Lebanese treaty which stated that there should be representation of the country’s religious groups in the government and high administration. 19 Lebanon’s parliament, expecting independence from France to come soon, elected Edde as Lebanon’s president, and he took office in 1936. Edde selected Khayr al-Din al-Ahdab, who was a Sunni Muslim, as prime minister, and he took office in 1937. 20 This was a pivotal decision in Lebanon’s political history, in that it established the practice that Lebanon’s president would be a Maronite Christian and the prime minister would be a Sunni Muslim. 21 One important political purpose, which Lebanese president Emile Edde’s appointment of Khayr al-Din al-Ahdab as prime minister served, was that it prompted some Shia and Sunni leaders to realize that they could obtain more advantages for themselves and their religious communities by working within Lebanon’s political system than remaining outside it. 22 This political system allowed for representation of Muslims and Christians. With a Sunni

Lebanon

155

Muslim prime minister, some Sunni Muslim zuama had readier access to the high commissioner’s office, acquired more opportunities to provide political patronage, and obtained increased governmental support for their business ventures. While Greater Lebanon’s political system allowed for participation by members of various religious groups, interreligious group tensions did not simply vanish. Throughout the 1930s and for some time afterward, Maronite Christians continued to regard Lebanon as a specifically Christian homeland. At the same time, these Christians emphasized their ties to France and other European countries in their attempts to secure themselves politically and culturally within Lebanon. Shia and Sunni Muslims resisted the ideas that Lebanon should be considered exclusively as a homeland for Christians and that its connections to Europe should be emphasized, in view of the fact that these viewpoints would have marginalized Shia and Sunni Muslims. 23 SHIAS AND GREATER LEBANON In this context, Lebanon’s Shias generally accepted the French colonialists’ notion of Greater Lebanon, because the boundaries of this Lebanese political entity (and eventually the independent country of Lebanon) gave the Shias more influence than if Lebanon would have been absorbed into Syria, where the Shias would have been a relatively small minority compared to the Sunnis. 24 Thus, during the 1930s and 1940s some of Lebanon’s Shias supported the Christian-led political parties and groups, which the Maronite Christians dominated, because the Shias believed that a Shia-Maronite Christian alliance against the Sunnis could potentially benefit the Shias. 25 In this context, al-Khuri’s Constitutional Bloc had support from various local Shia groups in Lebanon with some Shias having prominent positions in that party. 26 The Shias in these particular local regions believed that they could benefit from their alliance with the Constitutional Bloc because, in part, these Shias believed that this Bloc could potentially represent their interests. 27 In contrast, there were rank-and-file Shias in the Mount Lebanon region that supported Emile Edde’s National Bloc. 28 These Shias did so partly because, in their view, the zuama to which they affiliated seemed adequately well-positioned with respect to that party in order to represent their interests. 29 On November 8, 1943, Lebanon’s Chamber of Deputies passed a series of constitutional revisions which abolished the clause stating that the French colonialist authority was the only source of political authority and jurisdiction in Lebanon. 30 These constitutional revisions also reinstated Arabic as that country’s only official language and adopted a new design for Lebanon’s flag. On November 9, 1943, Lebanon’s president, Bishara al-Khuri, approved and ratified these revisions.

156

Chapter 6

However, French colonialist delegate-general, Jean Helleu, declared the constitutional revisions null and void. Helleu made that declaration in view of his and the French government’s view that those revisions were unilaterally executed by the Lebanese without prior consultation with the French authorities. On November 11, 1943, several Lebanese political leaders were arrested and imprisoned. In opposition to France’s repressive actions against Lebanese independence, a country-wide general strike was decreed. At the same time, the Lebanese government officials, who supported independence and had not yet been arrested by the French, formed a temporary government, and called on the Lebanese to resist the French. Major political movements in Lebanon formed a united organization to resist the French, and demonstrators occupied Lebanon’s parliament building demanding the liberation of the Lebanese resistance leaders who had been imprisoned. Helleu imposed a curfew and ordered French and Senegalese soldiers to repress the demonstrations which left eighteen protestors dead and sixty-six wounded. British prime minister Winston Churchill intervened with French general Charles de Gaulle who was the leader of Free France, which was that country’s government in exile and military that opposed the Axis countries during World War II, who ordered a French general be sent to Lebanon in order to solve the crisis. 31 On November 19, British general Edward Spears, who was military mission chief for Britain in Lebanon and Syria and a high-level liaison officer between British and French military forces, took action in support of the Lebanese pro-independence activists. 32 He submitted an ultimatum from his government to the Free French in Lebanon demanding the liberation of all the Lebanese political officials who had been imprisoned by the French. Otherwise, according to this ultimatum, British soldiers would liberate them. On November 22, 1943, French general Georges Catroux ordered the liberation of the Lebanese political leaders who had been imprisoned, and declared the end of the French colonialist mandate in Lebanon. 33 One of several reasons Britain was able to exert its influence in this way was because of the enormous colonial, military, and political power, which it wielded in the Middle East and North Africa. 34 In addition, Germany’s occupation of France during this World War II period substantially weakened France’s power in Lebanon and other regions that France had colonized. AN INDEPENDENT LEBANON AND THE NATIONAL PACT Lebanon’s independent republic was initially based on two founding documents. One was a formal constitution. The other was an informal verbal understanding, which is called the National Pact, to which Bishara al-Khuri

Lebanon

157

and Riad al-Sulh, who was born into a Sunni family and was Lebanon’s prime minister from 1943 until 1945, and again from 1946 until 1951, agreed. 35 One of the few written traces of that Pact appears in al-Sulh’s ministerial declaration of October 7, 1943. 36 According to practices relating to Lebanon’s constitution, the president of Lebanon has to be a Maronite Christian and that person names cabinet ministers, chooses a prime minister, and has the authority to dismiss the cabinet. 37 The president also has the power to initiate and veto legislation, which is passed by parliament. 38 Although the president is elected by parliament, he can dissolve it and call for new elections. 39 In addition to those presidential powers, Lebanon’s constitution states, “While performing his functions, the President of the Republic cannot be accountable except in his violation of the Constitution, or in case of high treason,” which is yet another provision in which Lebanon’s constitution ascribes significant power to the president. 40 The constitution also stipulates apportionment of seats in Lebanon’s parliament in such a way that provides for Christian and Muslim members of parliament. 41 The National Pact of 1943 supplemented Lebanon’s constitution in several ways. It confirmed the power-sharing formula among the religious groups already established in the constitution while stating that Lebanon would have a Maronite Christian president, a Shia speaker of parliament, and a Sunni prime minister. 42 The Pact also defined Lebanon’s identity, relations, and obligations with the outside world. Whereas Article 1 of Lebanon’s constitution states “Lebanon is an independent state, with indivisible unity, and complete sovereignty,” 43 the National Pact suggests that Lebanon is a country with an Arab profile which assimilates the beneficial aspects of Western civilization. 44 The National Pact’s use of the term “Arab profile” may have been intended to address the desire of some of Lebanon’s Sunnis to unite with Syria, where they would have been part of a Sunni majority, instead of being part of a Sunni minority in Lebanon. 45 At the same time, the National Pact’s reference to “Western civilization” was intended to address Lebanon’s Christians, who may have desired a French military presence in Lebanon or Western protection in general. 46 One of the National Pact’s major principles, which related to foreign policy, suggests that Lebanon should not be a base or passageway for colonialist endeavors. 47 This principle addressed the deep concerns, which Lebanese had, about France or another colonialist country occupying Lebanon. The principles of Lebanon’s constitution and the National Pact attempt to express the aspirations for political collaboration between and among Muslims and Christians within a democratic framework. Yet, the fact that the National Pact was not a written document and the fact it contained ambiguities and potential contradictions with respect to Lebanon’s constitution was a catalyst of conflict and tension in Lebanon in later years. 48

158

Chapter 6

MARGINALIZED SHIAS Historically, Lebanon’s Shias had been one of the most disadvantaged religious groups in that country. According to 1971 data, for example, the average Shia’s family income was approximately $1,510, in comparison with the national average of $2,082. 49 The Shias also constituted the highest percentage of families earning less than $500; they were the most poorly educated (50 percent with no schooling in contrast to 30 percent nationwide); and the Shias were the least likely, in comparison with their cohorts from other religious groups in Lebanon, to list their occupation as professional/technical, business/managerial, clerical or crafts/operatives, and the most likely to list their occupations as farming, peddling, or labor. 50 A 1968 study found that in specific southern and eastern areas of Lebanon, where Shias have predominated, the percentage of students in the population (approximately 13 percent) lagged by as much as 5 percent behind other regions in Lebanon. 51 In 1971, only 6.6 percent of Shias in Lebanon had at least a secondary education, compared to at least 15 and 17 percent for the Sunnis and Christians, respectively. According to official Lebanese government statistics for 1974, although the southern part of Lebanon, which has a high Shia population, had about 20 percent of the national population, it received less than 0.7 percent of the state’s budget. One scholar describing southern Lebanon in the 1970s stated that it had the fewest paved roads per person per acre and had no running water in a large number of villages and towns. Electricity was inoperative most of the time and sewage facilities were available only in large towns and cities. Outside the larger centers, telephone service was completely absent. Physicians visited the villages once per week, and sometimes only once per month. Clinics were maintained only in large villages and did not function regularly, while pharmacies were present only in the larger population centers. 52 During that period, the Shias in Lebanon relied heavily on their zuama, who either spoke for their communities or purported to do so. Communist ideas had a tangible influence. 53 SHIA ISLAM AND COMMUNISM Shia adaptations of communism were significant factors that influenced Shia religious and political perspectives among the Shia clerics who were to lead enormous segments of Lebanon’s Shias politically and religiously, beginning in the mid-1970s and throughout the subsequent decades. 54 Future leaders of Hezbollah, such as Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Sheikh Subhi al-Tufayli, and Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, who had studied in Shia seminaries in Najaf, Iraq, were influenced by certain communist ideas. All of these Shia clerics

Lebanon

159

were to have leadership positions in Hezbollah, which is one of the largest Shia parties in Lebanon. Communist concepts which influenced these and other Lebanese Shia leaders related to the ideas that 1. the middle and upper class (the petty bourgeoisie) were exploiting the underprivileged (the proletariat); 2. there was a class struggle between the middle and upper class, on the one hand, and the underclass on the other; 3. the members of the underclass had to engage in a revolution against the middle- and upper-class oppressors; 4. the underclass’s revolution would succeed and ultimately lead to a society that would be economically and politically equitable. 55 These communist ideas resonated deeply with some of Lebanon’s Shia leaders because a very high percentage of Lebanon’s Shia population was underclass and because these ideas were consistent with principles that were already present in Shia Islam. The Lebanese Shia leaders, who had studied in Najaf, integrated those and other communist concepts into Shia ideas of equality and justice, and what was to become Shia ideas of political revolution. At the same time, those Shia leaders wholly rejected the atheistic aspects of communism. 56 The Shia intellectual Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah’s concept of the “perpetual transformation of reality” against an unjust power through physical jihad (or Islamically-justified war) was inspired by Karl Marx’s concept of “radical negation of social reality,” which involved the underclass’s obligation to revolt against the social realities of economic oppression and injustice. 57 For Marx (who can be considered an intellectual founder of communism), the underclass had the responsibility to transform (or negate) social reality in a manner that was almost exclusively economic and material in such a way that would eventually benefit the underclass. For Fadlallah, Shias had the responsibility of transforming social reality in a manner that was religious, political, economic, and material, in line with the teachings about justice and equality in Shia Islam’s sacred texts. 58 MUSA AL-SADR AND THE SHIA AMAL MOVEMENT Musa al-Sadr, who was one of the founders of the Amal movement, established in 1974, which is one of Lebanon’s largest Shia political parties, was opposed to some of Communism’s principles. 59 For al-Sadr, Marxism’s negation of God involved diminishing the person and denying her or his freedoms. 60 Parts of Sadr’s position on Communism can be expressed in two principles, which he frequently repeated (1) his movement is neither the right nor the left, and it follows the path of justice; and (2) the person who sleeps

160

Chapter 6

while having a needy neighbor is not a believer, which is a hadith verse that for al-Sadr expresses his belief about what the communists did. 61 At the same time, some Communist ideas about social equality and revolutionary mobilization seem to have influenced Sadr’s ideas. An exploration of aspects of Sadr’s biography provides a background for his religious and political worldviews and the early history of the Amal movement. Musa al-Sadr was born in Qom, Iran, in 1928, the son of an important Shia leader Ayatollah Sadr al-Din al-Sadr. He attended secondary and primary school in Qom and college at the Tehran Faculty of Law and Political Economy. He did not intend to become a cleric, planning to pursue a secular career. 62 After al-Sadr’s father urged Musa al-Sadr to become a Shia cleric, he set aside his secular ambitions and pursued an education in Islamic law. In 1954, Sadr moved to Najaf, Iraq, where he studied Islamic law. During alSadr’s first visit to Lebanon in 1957, he made a strong impression on his fellow Shias there. Following the death in 1958 of the Shia religious leader of the southern coast of Tyre, al-Sayyid Abd al-Husain Sharaf al-Din, al-Sadr was invited by the Shia community of south Lebanon to replace him. In late 1959 or early 1960, al-Sadr moved to Tyre, which is one of Lebanon’s regions with a high Shia population. One of al-Sadr’s first significant actions involved establishing a vocational institute in southern Lebanon, which was built at a cost of $165,000, with funding provided by Shia benefactors and other individuals and entities. The institute provided vocational training to hundreds of orphans and became a significant symbol of al-Sadr’s leadership. Al-Sadr was a man of intelligence, courage, personal charm, energy, and strong physical stature. One of his former assistants claims that Sadr frequently worked twenty hours per day. Al-Sadr attracted a wide range of Shia supporters, ranging from diaspora Lebanese Shia businesspeople, some of whom were generating large profits from their businesses in West Africa, to middle-class and upper-class Shia young people in Lebanon. Musa al-Sadr wanted to establish himself as the most influential leader of Lebanon’s Shias, and his arrival in Lebanon was timely. He arrived when some of Lebanon’s Shias began considering organizing themselves politically and religiously as Shias, and as they were thinking about how to implement their Shia religious and political priorities within Lebanon’s democratic system. Al-Sadr played a substantial role in invigorating and expanding the Shias’ religious and political objectives, while providing foundational ideas regarding how Shias could move forward with those endeavors. 63 When alSadr arrived in Lebanon, there were several indications of the early stages of political organizing among the Shias. These indications included an expansion of family organizations, small religious and political discussion groups, and various social organizations that were motivated by the Shias’ religious and political interests. 64

Lebanon

161

One of several strengths, which al-Sadr brought to Lebanon, involved his playing a role in uniting some of Lebanon’ s Shias, who in addition to being underprivileged, were fragmented with respect to each other, and marginalized from Lebanon’s political process. 65 In spite of the sociological differences between and among the Shias in the economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in south Beirut, the agrarians in southern Lebanon, and the various Shias in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, al-Sadr gave those and other Shias in Lebanon an inclusive communal identity. He imparted to his followers the ideas that they should not fatalistically accept their marginalized circumstances and that Shia Islam provided them with a vision for hope and the primary means for mobilizing themselves. Al-Sadr stated that whenever the underprivileged participate in a successful revolution against oppressive structures, it confirms that injustice is not predestined. While al-Sadr arrived in Lebanon as an Iranian, he was accepted in various ways as a Lebanese. For example, Lebanon’s president, Fuad Chehab, who was a Maronite Christian, granted al-Sadr Lebanese citizenship in 1963. 66 Al-Sadr, who was born and raised in Iran and had Farsi as his native language, learned to speak Arabic with elegance. In al-Sadr’s speeches and writings, he used the texts, images, and symbols of Shia Islam in a manner which mobilized his audiences to religious and political action that unified substantial numbers of Lebanon’s Shias in their efforts to improve their standing in Lebanese society. Much like Khomeini and other Shia clerics, al-Sadr used the imagery of the martyrdom of the seventh century Shia martyr Imam Husayn in Karbala, Iraq, as one way to express his religious and political message. In al-Sadr’s sermons and speeches, he portrayed Imam Husayn as the righteous leader who stood for justice and equality, as he fought against the unjust and corrupt enemies who eventually killed him and almost everyone else in his family. In al-Sadr’s discourse, Husayn’s battles against his unjust enemies constituted a paradigm for Lebanese Shias’ battles against the unjust persons in their country, who may have attempted to oppress the Shias there. Al-Sadr catalyzed participation in Shia religious rituals in small towns and other parts of Lebanon where Shias may not have engaged in these rituals at all. 67 He expressed Shia political demands in a religiously and culturally authentic context which expanded and strengthened the support for his movement. Al-Sadr’s use of speeches, sermons, Shia symbols and rituals, as well as grassroots mobilization were very similar to the ways which Shia leaders in Iran and Iraq had been using those entities with respect to their own movements. Al-Sadr’s relationship with Lebanon’s Maronite Christians was positive in certain respects and negative in others. Like the Maronite Christians in Lebanon, the Shias in that country are a minority within a broader region where Sunnis are in the majority. For both the Maronite Christians and the Shias, Lebanon is a possible refuge in which their respective religious com-

162

Chapter 6

munities could potentially be preserved and their security enhanced. Within this situation, some Maronite Christians viewed al-Sadr as an ally, especially before he formed his own militia in 1974. One of several ways that al-Sadr attempted to maintain peaceful relations with the Maronite Christians before Lebanon’s civil war began in 1975 was by declining a call for a new census in Lebanon, even though he believed that Lebanon’s Shias substantially outnumbered the Maronites. The results of such a census could have given Shias more seats in Lebanon’s parliament and in the cabinet. One of the reasons that al-Sadr declined the census was probably in view of his concern that its results could lead to conflict between Lebanon’s Shias and Maronites. 68 AlSadr recognized the Maronites’ insecurity about their hold on power in Lebanon, and their desire to maintain their community’s control of Lebanon’s presidential seat. 69 Yet, al-Sadr was critical of what he perceived to be some of the Maronites’ negative attitudes toward Muslims, particularly toward the Shias. AlSadr argued that Lebanon’s Maronite-dominated governments had neglected southern Lebanon since Lebanon gained independence in 1943. He also argued that the Maronites had helped cause Lebanon’s Shias to become a disinherited underclass in the country. 70 Some of the factors that led to Lebanon’s civil war, which took place between 1975 and 1990, were the tensions between Shias and Christians in that country. While that civil war was terribly damaging to Lebanon as a whole, during that war Shias gained greater influence and solidarity with each other, primarily through both Amal and Hezbollah, a Shia militia and political party, which was formed in the early 1980s in large part through Iran’s support. LEBANON’S CIVIL WAR Amal became one of several militias which fought in Lebanon’s civil war. One of the reasons for that civil war involved the fact that Lebanon’s Shias believed that they were grossly underrepresented in Lebanon’s government, especially given their significant numeric growth in Lebanon since 1943. Urbanization of Lebanon’s Muslim population and large numbers of Lebanese Christians emigrating to the West were also some the causes for that civil war in which over 140,000 died, over 197,000 people were wounded, and over 17,000 were missing. 71 Urbanization occurred with the expansion of Beirut and its suburbs. 72 In 1959, 27.7 percent of all Lebanese lived in Beirut and its suburbs, and this figure increased to more than 50 percent in 1975. Beirut’s growth intensified interactions between Shias, Sunnis, Christians, and Druze while compounding competition between and among these groups for access to services, resources, housing, jobs, and political and economic power. The middle and upper class in Beirut benefited from the

Lebanon

163

substantial economic activity which took place in and near that city. However, a substantial percentage of Lebanon’s Shias, a large percentage of whom continued to be underprivileged, and others who were lower class, did not benefit from the increased economic activity. Shias and other Lebanese, who were marginalized, felt increasingly marginalized. Lebanese’s economic, political, and social grievances intensified as the gaps between and among socioeconomic classes widened. These problems were reinforced by consecutive Lebanese governments’ neglect of rural development, which were areas where many Shias lived, in favor of Beirut. The Lebanese, who lived in rural areas, grew increasingly resentful of the amassed wealth, prestige, and privilege of the city dwellers who held access to capital and power in Beirut. These were some of the factors which led to the polarization within and among different groups in Lebanon. 73 The presence of Palestinians in that country also exacerbated tensions and conflicts. Ever since the 1920s, the Palestinians had been displaced from the land of Palestine through the efforts of Jews, who supported the creation of a Jewish state, which came to be the modern state of Israel. The Jews who supported the creation of the Jewish state of Israel in Palestine received the support, over time, of Britain, the United States, and other powerful countries. Israel declared independence in 1948. Virtually all of the Palestinians, almost all of whom are Sunni Muslims or Christians, fought very hard against the creation of Israel because the settlement of Jews on the Palestinian’s land, and Israel itself, caused a large percentage of Palestinians to lose almost everything they had, including their homes, properties, livelihoods, and in some cases, their lives. Israel is directly to the south of Lebanon and shares a border with it. As Palestinians were displaced from their homes and properties, they fought battles and wars with Israel, with the hope that they, as Palestinians, could establish their own independent country named Palestine. Southern Lebanon was one of the areas that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and similar organizations, which fought against the Israelis, used as military bases for their operations against Israel. After the 1967 Six-Day War, which primarily involved Israel on one side, and Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria on the other, Israel captured several areas including the Sinai Peninsula (which is part of Egypt) and the Golan Heights (which is part of Syria and is occupied by Israel), as well as the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, all of which were occupied by Israel after the Six-Day War and they have large Palestinian populations. After this war and a series of events in Jordan before and during 1970, which had been an important base for Palestinian military operations, Palestinian military organizations, including the PLO, moved their bases to Lebanon, which they used to launch their attacks against Israel. By the time these Palestinian organizations established their bases, mostly in southern Lebanon beginning around 1970, there were

164

Chapter 6

already approximately three hundred thousand Palestinian refugees, many of whom were Sunni Muslims, living in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. 74 A high percentage of the Palestinian refugees, who lived in Lebanon, lived in refugee camps in the southern part of that country. 75 The Palestinian soldiers in southern Lebanon had great freedom in undertaking their military operations against Israel largely because of a 1969 agreement in which the Lebanese government gave the supervision of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to the PLO in exchange for the PLO’s pledge to obtain the Lebanese government’s consent for any of its invasions of Israeli territory. The Palestinian soldiers in Lebanon did not comply with that restriction. Beginning in 1970, Palestinian attacks on Israel, and Israeli retaliation against the Palestinians repeated itself on numerous occasions. The Israeli bombings of the Palestinian bases in southern Lebanon affected both the Palestinians and the Shias living in southern Lebanon. Thousands of those Shias left their homes in southern Lebanon and migrated to suburbs of Beirut, where some of them lived as squatters. These and other Shias in Lebanon became deeply frustrated with Lebanon’s government, as they viewed it as unable to protect them from the Palestinians and Israelis. 76 Some of Lebanon’s Christians felt threatened by the Palestinians’ presence in Lebanon because those Christians believed that because a high percentage of those Palestinians were Muslims they may side with Lebanon’s Sunnis, and even the Shias, against the Christians so as to increase the Muslims’ political and economic power in Lebanon, at the Christians’ expense. When some of Lebanon’s Christian politicians came to the conclusion that the Lebanese government and military could not take decisive action against the Palestinians, they decided to do so themselves. During the run-up to the beginning of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975, a large number of militias, including those of the Lebanese Christians, Druze, Sunnis, and Shias, as well as the Palestinian resistance groups, purchased large amounts of weapons, enabling those militias to be heavily armed. 77 A spark that ignited Lebanon’s civil war occurred in Beirut on April 13, 1975, when an attempt on the life of Pierre Gemayel, a Maronite Christian who was the founder of Lebanon’s Kataeb Party (which is primarily Maronite and is also known as the Phalangist Party), by masked gunmen killed two Phalangists. The Phalangists believed that these assassins were Palestinians, and the Phalangists retaliated later the same day against a bus carrying Palestinian passengers across a Christian neighborhood, killing approximately twenty-six of the occupants. 78 These events caused large-scale fighting between Maronite militias and the PLO that lasted until the end of June 1975, and set the stage for what was to become Lebanon’s fifteen-year civil war. 79 During that war, a large number of Lebanese militias, the Lebanese government and military, and several foreign countries, such as France, Iran, Israel, Italy, Syria, and the United States were also involved. 80

Lebanon

165

LEBANON’S CIVIL WAR ENDS: THE TAIF AGREEMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH As Lebanon’s civil war continued, and as the late 1980s approached, the Lebanese public’s opposition to the war and support for a peace settlement continued to grow. 81 Yet, conflicts within and among religious groups continued to escalate and included increasing acts of retaliatory and, at times, senseless violence. There were Lebanese citizens, as well as a large number of social, cultural, and popular organizations, who questioned the separation of Lebanese citizens, regions, and cities along religious lines. These Lebanese expressed their desire for unity within Lebanon and openly opposed the militias, as demonstrated by a massive labor-organized joint Christian-Muslim protest against the war, which took place in Beirut in 1987. By that point in the war, many Lebanese believed that none of the warring groups could decisively win the civil war, and that a viable option was the formation of a political compromise that ensured Lebanon as a nation under a democratic system. 82 The Taif Agreement constituted a significant accord that was to bring Lebanon’s civil war to an end on October 22, 1989. 83 After approximately three weeks of discussion in Taif, Saudi Arabia, the sixty-two surviving members of Lebanon’s parliament, which was elected in 1972 and was Lebanon’s last parliament before the civil war, reached this agreement. These accords were based on a document that had been prepared largely by the Arab Tripartite Committee comprised of Algeria, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia after much consultation with various Lebanese leaders as well as the Syrian and American governments. The signing of the Taif Agreement, which was officially named the “Document of National Accord,” by the warring Lebanese groups on October 22, 1989, and its ratification on November 4, 1989, under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian and Syrian governments, provided a significant basis for ending Lebanon’s civil war and the eventual return to a measure of political stability. 84 Upon the Lebanese parliamentarians’ return to Lebanon, they ratified the Taif Agreement on November 4, 1989, and they elected Rene Moawad, a Maronite Christian, as president the following day. 85 President Moawad was assassinated seventeen days after his inauguration and Elias Hrawi, a Maronite, was elected president and served until 1998. The following are some of the ways that the Taif Agreement provided a foundation for Lebanon’s political future: 1. It introduced into the preamble of the ratified constitution a clause asserting Lebanon as the final homeland of all its inhabitants, as an Arab, parliamentary, and democratic country based on the separation of powers and the declarations of human rights; 86

166

Chapter 6

2. It reallocated several presidential powers to the parliament and the cabinet. The Maronite Christian president lost several of his presidential powers and retained certain symbolic roles. This was done in light of the fact that Shia and Sunni Muslims constituted a significantly higher percentage of Lebanon’s population than they did when Lebanon’s previous constitution was written; 87 3. It attempted to redistribute important public offices, including those of parliament, the cabinet, general directors, and other high-level government officials somewhat evenly between Muslims and Christians; 88 4. It recognized the potential instability of Lebanon’s laws and constitution which utilized Lebanese citizens’ religious affiliations as a basis for representation in government. Thus, it required the formation of a national committee to examine alternate ways to represent Lebanese in government, including Lebanon’s parliament; 89 5. It required taking all the steps necessary to liberate all Lebanese territories from the Israeli occupation (primarily in southern Lebanon), to spread the Lebanese state’s sovereignty over all the territories, and to deploy the Lebanese army in the border area adjacent to Israel. It also required making efforts to reinforce the presence of the UN forces in southern Lebanon in order to insure Israeli withdrawal from that area and to provide the opportunity for the return of security and stability to the Israeli-Lebanese border area. These stipulations were in response to the fact that Israeli soldiers had been occupying a large segment of southern Lebanon since Israel had invaded Lebanon in 1982. 90 6. It gave the Syrian government and military a guardianship status within Lebanon for an unspecified period of time. It also provided de facto permission for Syrian military forces to remain in Lebanon for an unspecified period. 91 Acting Lebanese prime minister and military general Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, refused to accept the Taif Agreement and denounced the election of Rene Moawad as president of Lebanon. One of Aoun’s objections to the Taif Agreement involved the authority which it gave to the Syrian government and military in Lebanon. 92 Beginning in 1989, Aoun launched what became a two-year war of liberation against the Syrian military in Lebanon, hoping to completely eject Syria from that country. After a series of long and bloody battles, which killed over one thousand civilians and involved Lebanese Muslims and Christians in addition to the Syrian military, that portion of Lebanon’s civil war came to an end in October 1990 when Aoun took asylum in France’s embassy in Lebanon, as the Syrian military took control of Beirut. 93 Aoun and his family then took exile in France. 94 Aoun returned to Lebanon in 2005 after Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon. 95 In 1990, the Taif Agreement, Aoun’s departure, relative peace among Leba-

Lebanon

167

non’s militias, and other factors set the stage for Lebanon’s postwar rebuilding process. 96 AMAL AND LEBANON’S CIVIL WAR In the 1970s, Musa al-Sadr, the leader of Lebanon’s Shia Amal movement, claimed to support the Palestinian resistance movement, but his relations with the PLO were tense and uneasy at best. 97 During the clashes, which took place in 1973 between the Palestinian resistance soldiers in southern Lebanon and the Lebanese military, al-Sadr criticized Lebanon’s Sunnis, who supported the Palestinians, because he believed that those Sunnis were contributing to religious divisions within Lebanon. Al-Sadr may have also believed that an alliance between Lebanese Sunni Muslims and the Palestinians, most of whom were Sunnis, could have been harmful to Lebanon’s Shias because those Sunnis could have aligned themselves against Lebanon’s Shias. Musa al-Sadr strongly criticized the Lebanese government for failing to defend southern Lebanon and the Shias who lived there, while at the same time he chastised the PLO for shelling Israel from southern Lebanon and provoking Israeli retaliation against southern Lebanon as a result. 98 While alSadr often expressed empathy with the Palestinians’ cause, he was unwilling to support actions by them that exposed Lebanese citizens, especially Shias in southern Lebanon, to additional suffering. By way of background, in 1967, Lebanon’s parliament passed a law— with all but one of the nineteen Shia deputies voting in favor—establishing a Supreme Shia Council, which would for the first time provide a representative body for Lebanon’s Shias that would be independent of the Sunnis. 99 The establishment of this council, with a mandate to articulate growing Shia demands within the political system, introduced a new and significant factor into Lebanon’s systems of political power. The Supreme Shia Council came into existence on May 18, 1969, with Musa al-Sadr as its elected chairperson for a six-year term. His election to this office was an important confirmation of his status as (1) a leading Shia cleric in Lebanon and (2) one of the most high-profile political leaders in that country’s Shia community. Al-Sadr’s status in that community is particularly notable in light of the fact that he was born in Iran, and not in Lebanon. The Supreme Shia Council expressed its demands with respect to the religious, political, military, social, and economic realms of Lebanese society. These demands included improved measures for the military defense of southern Lebanon, requests for development funds, support for the construction and improvement of schools and hospitals, and an increase in the number of Shias, who would be appointed to senior governmental positions. 100

168

Chapter 6

Al-Sadr capitalized on his new position. In the spring of 1970, after a particularly destructive Israeli raid against Palestinians in southern Lebanon, al-Sadr organized a general labor strike in order to protest what he believed to be the negligence that the Lebanese government was showing with respect to southern Lebanon and the dangers which threatened it. Al-Sadr also wanted the labor strike to dramatize to the Lebanese government the vulnerability of southern Lebanon with respect to Israel’s threat. 101 Al-Sadr criticized the Lebanese government for acting solely as a relief agency, coming to the aid of the Lebanese citizens in southern Lebanon with relief tents only after those Lebanese, most of whom were Shias, had been harmed by the attacks, instead of maintaining security with respect to Lebanon’s borders. One week after the labor strike, which al-Sadr had organized, the Lebanese government responded by creating the Council of the South (in reference to southern Lebanon), which received a substantial financial investment, and was commissioned to support economic development in that region. Unfortunately, that council became a locus of corruption. While al-Sadr was a significant figure in that council’s creation, al-Sadr’s main political rival Kamel alAsaad, who was a southern Lebanese Shia politician, came to dominate the council’s operation. In spite of that, al-Sadr’s labor strike and the Lebanese government’s response to it embody the increasing political influence of Lebanese Shias in that country’s political life. They were clearly no longer a relatively quiescent minority. Rather, under al-Sadr’s leadership the Shias were organizing themselves and making their voices heard politically and economically. 102 With the Lebanese government increasingly unable to protect its citizens, particularly in southern Lebanon beginning in the early 1970s, al-Sadr began emphasizing armed struggle in his efforts to mobilize Lebanon’s Shias. 103 Following the 1973 October War (which involved Israel on one side, and Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Syria, and some other Arab countries on the other) al-Sadr declared that there was no alternative for Lebanon’s Shias except revolution and weapons. 104 In one of al-Sadr’s most famous speeches, which he delivered on March 17, 1974, in the city of Baalbek, he criticized Lebanon’s government again for failing to meet the most basic needs of its citizens, particularly the Shias. 105 Standing before an estimated seventy-five thousand people, many of whom were armed, al-Sadr stated that Baalbek still had only one government school, which was established when Lebanon was under French colonial mandate. He stated that education is at the beginning of life’s path and he questioned the Lebanese government for placing a daunting obstruction on that path. He assailed the government for being ineffectual in promoting economic development and in protecting Lebanon’s sources of water. He reminded his audience that thousands of Lebanese, particularly Shias, throughout the country were deprived of national identity cards, and as a

Lebanon

169

result, could not receive government services and were blocked from voting. Declaring that arms are crucial for the Shias’ self-defense, al-Sadr asked everyone in the audience to join him in an oath to reclaim their rights as Lebanese citizens or to face martyrdom, as Shias, in their attempts to do so. Al-Sadr believed that his only viable choice was to call for an armed revolution in that, in his view, the Lebanese government’s neglect of the Shias was rampant, while the Baathists and Communists in that country had the potential of gaining increased support among Lebanon’s Shias. Al-Sadr also believed that his earlier, restrained approach had not been as effective as he had hoped. During this March rally, al-Sadr launched his popular mass movement named Harakat al-Mahrumin (often translated as “Movement of the Deprived”), which later became the Amal movement and political party. 106 AlSadr promised that, within this movement, he would work relentlessly until the security needs and the social grievances of the deprived, namely Lebanon’s Shias, were properly addressed by the government. 107 Al-Sadr even warned that he would call on the members of the Movement of the Deprived to attack and occupy the mansions of Lebanon’s powerful political leaders, if the needs of Lebanon’s oppressed people were not adequately met by the government. 108 Musa al-Sadr’s ability to mobilize his fellow Shias prior to Lebanon’s civil war set the stage for the increased political, military, and religious actions of Lebanon’s Shias during and after that war. 109 At the same time, during al-Sadr’s life he led a segment of Lebanon’s Shias population, not all of it. During the early stages of Lebanon’s civil war, various other parties and militias, and eventually the Shia organization Hezbollah, after its founding in approximately 1983, attracted large numbers of Shias. During that stage, more Shias carried arms under the banners of those other groups than under the banner of Amal. 110 In the course of Lebanon’s civil war, the Shias experienced, by a large measure, more casualties than any other single religious group in Lebanon. 111 The work of Musa al-Sadr in strengthening Lebanon’s Shias, together with the labors of Hezbollah and the destructive force of Lebanon’s civil war, played significant roles in lessening the influence of Lebanon’s zuama. In private, al-Sadr stated that he did not like violence and that he had never heard a gunshot fired in anger until he came to Lebanon. He viewed words and symbols as his primary means of expressing his message. While Lebanon’s civil war may have hindered al-Sadr from achieving some of his objectives, his disappearance in 1978 retrieved the promise of his earlier efforts. Three events, which occurred between March 1978 and January 1979, strengthened Amal’s political mobilization and influence (the name Movement of the Deprived having fallen into disuse). First, in March 1978, Israel launched a major invasion of southern Lebanon, named Operation Litani,

170

Chapter 6

which had, as one of its goals, the destruction or severe weakening of Palestinian resistance forces in southern Lebanon. Second, in August 1978 Musa al-Sadr disappeared in a visit to Libya. Third, in 1979, Iran’s king, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was overthrown as a result of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. ISRAEL AND OPERATION LITANI Israel’s Operation Litani had as one of its goals the pushing of the Palestinian militants, who had been shelling Israel from southern Lebanon, farther north and thus a greater distance from the Lebanese-Israeli border. This military operation, which claimed approximately one thousand lives in southern Lebanon and had destroyed a large number of homes in that part of the country, demonstrated the destruction which the Israelis were ready to bring upon the Lebanese Shia, non-Shia residents of that region, and the Palestinians because of the armed Palestinian presence there. The Israelis’ aggressive actions in that and other military operations in Lebanon, indicated the initial stages of an accelerated Israeli military campaign which attempted to create hostility on the part of the Shias in southern Lebanon against the Palestinians who were in their midst. 112 During and after Operation Litani, the Israeli military engaged in a long series of attacks in southern Lebanon, which worked to keep the PLO and its supporters continuously on the defensive with relentless air attacks, ground raids, kidnappings, and house bombings. 113 One consequence of the Israeli military’s offensives against southern Lebanon is that it reminded the Lebanese who lived there that a continued Palestinian presence in that region would probably prevent any end to the Israeli military campaign. 114 As the Israeli military engaged in raids, Amal’s militia, both on its own and in conjunction with informal Shia militias in southern Lebanon, provided a modicum of protection to Lebanese in that part of the country. These efforts strengthened Shia support of Amal. 115 At the same time, the Israeli raids, and the feelings of danger which Lebanese Shias, Christians, and others who lived in southern Lebanon felt about those raids, increased the negative feelings of those Lebanese toward the Palestinians who were in Lebanon. 116 As these Shias’ feelings of alienation with respect to the Palestinians increased and as the Shias felt more threatened by Israel’s raids, Amal attempted to position itself to provide those Shias with security. 117 MUSA AL-SADR DISAPPEARS The second set of events which, in an unexpected and unfortunate way, strengthened the Amal movement was the disappearance of Musa al-Sadr. 118

Lebanon

171

After arriving in Libya on August 25, 1978, al-Sadr vanished under mysterious circumstances and his fate is unknown. Most Amal leaders believe that former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi played a significant role in alSadr’s disappearance. Musa al-Sadr, who was accompanied by two associates, arrived in Libya for a visit of an unspecified length and purpose. One of al-Sadr’s close confidants has suggested that al-Sadr’s visit was in response to an invitation from Gaddafi, which would have enabled them to discuss the return of peace in Lebanon and to work toward that goal. According to one account, al-Sadr had decided to leave Libya on August 31, 1978. During his visit, al-Sadr met the chief of Libya’s Foreign Relations Office and, presumably, Gaddafi, who stated that al-Sadr and his associates had departed from Libya on a commercial flight to Rome, Italy. Al-Sadr’s followers deny that assertion, and state that al-Sadr never departed from Libya. 119 This denial was substantiated by an official Italian inquiry. A senior associate of al-Sadr, who urged him not to go to Libya, stated that the Libyan government sent three people, posing as al-Sadr and his two associates, with their luggage to Rome. Most observers assume that al-Sadr is deceased. There are other hypotheses regarding al-Sadr’s disappearance. 120 In any case, while the mystery of al-Sadr’s fate remains, his disappearance has been a source of great symbolic importance to Amal’s members and other Shias in Lebanon. He is considered a martyr in the eyes of Shias and portraits of him appear in various Shia areas throughout Lebanon. Shia members of Amal find, in the vanishing of al-Sadr, a compelling and religiously authentic symbol for their discontentment with the hardships that they have suffered in Lebanon and other places. 121 The Shias in Amal liken al-Sadr’s disappearance to that of Shia’s Twelfth Imam (also known as the “Hidden Imam”), who went into hiding in the ninth century and, according to Shias’ beliefs, is still miraculously alive and will reappear in the future to lead the Shias in an apocalyptic battle against the forces of evil, purify Islam, and restore peace and justice to the world. 122 In this spirit, Amal’s members hold religious and political commemorations every August 31 in remembrance of the day when Musa al-Sadr disappeared. These commemorations constitute some of the ways that Amal has continued its religious and political mobilization, firmly within the context of Shia Islam. 123 As one member of the Amal movement stated, unfortunate as al-Sadr’s disappearance was, it may have been one of the most important events in that movement’s history. 124 IRAN’S ISLAMIC REVOLUTION, AMAL, AND THE RISE OF HEZBOLLAH Iran’s Islamic Revolution had a profound impact on Lebanon’s Shias. The overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979 served as an important mod-

172

Chapter 6

el, demonstrating that committed and well-organized Shia clerics could successfully depose a government in the face of oppression and injustice. Some of Lebanon’s Shias also hoped that Iran’s Shia Islamic government would be a source of religious, political, and financial support, which came to be the case. During the course of decades, there had been significant exchanges of ideas between Lebanese and Iranian Shias, who had studied at Shia seminaries in such cities as Najaf and Qom. 125 These relationships, and the cooperative atmosphere in which they were pursued, enabled certain members of Amal to play roles in Iran’s Islamic Revolution while some members of Amal were influenced by their Iranian counterparts’ ideas and actions. 126 A number of Iranians including Ayatollah Khomeini’s son, Ahmad, and his brother-in-law, Sadiq Tabatabai, received training in Lebanon under Amal’s auspices. 127 Musa al-Sadr’s and Amal’s religious and political ideology, its political mobilization of Lebanon’s Shias, and Amal’s ties with Iran were factors that created the groundwork for the emergence of Hezbollah, which is one of Lebanon’s largest Shia political parties and military organizations. Hezbollah has some of its origins in Israel’s massive invasion of Lebanon, which began on June 5, 1982, seven years after Lebanon’s civil war began. 128 One of Israel’s most important goals in this invasion involved its hope to completely destroy the PLO, which was using Beirut as its headquarters and Lebanon as a base for its attacks against Israel. 129 Ariel Sharon, Israel’s defense minister at the time, also hoped that Israel’s invasion would result in a government being installed in Lebanon that would welcome establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, which Israel and Egypt had accomplished in 1978 through the signing of the Camp David Accords. 130 By 1982, there were young Shias in Lebanon who wanted to emulate Iran’s revolution in their own country. Israel’s invasion pushed them even further in that direction, creating some of the conditions for the establishment and growth of Hezbollah. 131 Hezbollah’s leading members refer to 1982 as the year that the group was founded, and it became increasingly active during that decade. 132 The Lebanese, who comprised the first cadre, of what was to become Hezbollah, such as Ragheb Harb, who had a significant leadership role in that organization’s early years; Subhi al-Tufayli, who would become the organization’s first secretary general; Sayyid Abbas al-Musawi, who would become its second secretary general; and Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, who would become the third person in that position, were all in their twenties or thirties in the mid-1980s, and were originally from Shia areas in southern Lebanon or the Beqaa Valley. Iran and Syria supported these Shia revolutionaries, while Iran had the leading role. For Iran, the establishment of Hezbollah constituted the initial attainment of an important objective, in that high-level Iranian officials in the Islamic Republic wanted to spread Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Syrian government officials hoped that Hezbollah would be a means by which Syria could maintain its alliance with Iran and gain

Lebanon

173

leverage to strike at both Israel and the United States, both of which viewed Syria as hostile to Israel’s interests. At the same time, the Syrian government wanted to maintain some influence with respect to Amal. 133 In spite of Hezbollah’s connections with Syria, during much of the 1980s, Hezbollah’s ideology was similar to the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 134 Hezbollah’s “Open Letter Addressed to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World,” which was published on February 16, 1985, expresses some crucial aspects of this Shia revolutionary ideology. 135 That document emphasizes that Iran’s Islamic Revolution was an inspiration to action and evidence that Shias can transform societies when the faithful gather under the banner of Shia Islam and work to break the oppression of tyrannical governments. 136 While affirming the superiority of Shia Islam over all other worldviews, the open letter criticizes Western ideologies, declaring that they cannot respond to humans’ aspirations or rescue them from ignorance. 137 According to the open letter, Shia Islam is the answer, in that it can bring renewal, progress, and creativity to human beings. 138 The open letter excoriates the United States, Israel, and the Soviet Union for their expansionism and their attacks against Muslims. In addition, the secularism of Western-style democracies and capitalism, on the one hand, and communism, on the other, pose a grave danger to all Muslims. 139 According to the open letter, Hezbollah was positioning itself as a force which fought against the United States, Israel, and the Soviet Union, all of which have oppressed large numbers of people in their colonialist spheres of influence. 140 One unanswered question in the open letter involves Hezbollah’s political goals for Lebanon. 141 The letter states, somewhat vaguely, that when Lebanon is freed from external and internal domination, the Lebanese will be able to determine their destiny, and if they choose freely, they will choose Islam. The letter does not make clear whether or not Hezbollah’s religious and political goal involves an Islamic republic similar to that of Iran. 142 Even before that open letter was released, Hezbollah is believed to have engaged in a series of attacks and hijackings in its attempts to fulfill some of its goals, which involved the expulsion of American soldiers from Lebanon and the eventual freeing of Shia prisoners from Israeli and Kuwaiti prisons. On April 18, 1983, a militant, believed to be a member of Hezbollah, who was driving a pickup truck which was loaded with explosives, drove into the US Embassy in Beirut, where the truck exploded. Sixty-three people were killed, including seventeen Americans, eight of whom were employees of the US Central Intelligence Agency. 143 This attack had several goals, one of which was to cause the withdrawal of US Marines, who had landed in Beirut, in August 1982 and had, among other objectives, to maintain security at Beirut International Airport. 144 With a similar goal in mind, on October 23, 1983, a militant, believed to be a member of Hezbollah, drove a truck loaded

174

Chapter 6

with explosives that detonated at a US Marine barracks located at Beirut International Airport. Two-hundred and forty-one Marines were killed and more than one hundred others wounded. 145 Partly as a result of these attacks, the US Marines withdrew from Lebanon; that withdrawal took place on February 26, 1984. In March of that year, the United States announced that it was abandoning its work in the multinational security effort in Lebanon. 146 During Lebanon’s civil war, Hezbollah and groups linked to it kidnapped foreigners and held them hostage for as long as seven years. 147 One of several reasons for these kidnappings was to use the hostages as leverage for the freeing of Shias held illegally, in Hezbollah’s view, in Israeli and Kuwaiti prisons. The Israeli government had imprisoned Shias who had engaged in attacks against Israelis. 148 The Kuwaiti government had imprisoned Shias whom it believed were empathetic to Iran’s Islamic Revolution and may have attempted a Shia revolution in that country. 149 The Hezbollah kidnappers believed that by kidnapping Americans and other Westerners, mostly in Lebanon, they could then negotiate with the United States, which would use its influence with countries such as Israel and Kuwait, to free the prisoners, who were held in those countries, in exchange for the hostages which Hezbollah and related groups were holding. 150 Hezbollah had some success in meeting its objectives, in that over time Israel gradually released Shia prisoners, which it was holding. By December 1991, Hezbollah had released the last hostages in return for Israel’s release of imprisoned Shias. 151 Through a series of events, which related in part to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, sixteen of the Shias, who had been held in Kuwaiti prisons, were released relatively soon after that invasion. 152 Another event, in which Hezbollah participated that played a role in the release of Shia prisoners from Israeli prisons, was the hijacking of Transworld Airlines (TWA) flight 847 from Athens, Greece, to Rome, Italy, soon after takeoff from Athens, on the morning of June 14, 1985. TWA was an American-owned airline, which is significant because one of the hijackers’ goals was to send an anti-American message through their actions. Among other demands, the hijackers were seeking the release of 766 Shia Muslims from Israeli custody. 153 Some of those prisoners had participated in resistance operations against Israel, and others were suspects who Israel was holding as prisoners. These prisoners experienced extremely difficult conditions and had no recourse to international law. 154 In what was widely perceived as a deal, the hijackers started releasing hostages on the TWA flight, following a few days later, Israel began to free some of its hundreds of Lebanese Shia and Palestinian prisoners. Eventually, all of the 766 prisoners, which Israel had held, were released. 155 At the time, US officials denied that there was a deal, and said Israel had already committed to releasing the prisoners. 156

Lebanon

175

After Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Israeli soldiers had, by 1985, withdrawn from all of Israel except for approximately four hundred square miles of territory in southern Lebanon. Almost all Lebanese considered that area to have been occupied illegally by Israel. In addition, several UN Security Council Resolutions recognized the illegality of Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon, while calling for Israel’s immediate withdrawal from that country. 157 Within months of Israel’s June 1982 invasion, when people in Lebanon believed that Israel’s occupation of substantial portions of Lebanon would last for a significant period, several different Lebanese groups engaged in attacks against Israel’s military in Lebanon. 158 Such groups included factions of the Baath and Communist parties in Lebanon and other groups which were secularist and nationalist. By the 1990s, Hezbollah was engaging in most of the attacks against the Israeli military in Lebanon, with each of those attacks being characterized by careful planning, training, and execution. One of Hezbollah’s early, large-scale post-invasion operations took place in Lebanon’s southern city of Tyre on November 11, 1982, where Hezbollah member Sheikh Ahmad Qasir drove a bomb-laden car into an Israeli headquarters and intelligence center. 159 At least seventy-five Israeli officials and soldiers were killed in the attack. 160 IMAM HUSAYN’S MARTYRDOM AND HEZBOLLAH This attack by Hezbollah was one of a long series of attacks in which that organization engaged against Israeli military forces and the South Lebanon Army (which cooperated with Israel) in southern Lebanon until the Israeli military withdrew from Lebanon, except for Shebaa Farms and other areas, in May 2000. 161 The members of Hezbollah, who engaged in these attacks, justified them on religious and political grounds. Religiously, as Shia Muslims, one of their most important role models was the seventh century Shia Muslim Imam, Husayn, who fought hard in the city of Karbala, Iraq, against the Sunni Muslims who sought to kill him and everyone in his family. According to members of Hezbollah, as Imam Husayn, who fought righteously for the Shias against their Sunni enemies who tried to destroy the Shias during the seventh century, so too the twentieth and twenty-first century Lebanese Shias, whose cause was also righteous and just, were fighting for the Shias against the Israelis and South Lebanon Army who sought to destroy the Shias there. According to this perspective, much like Imam Husayn died a glorious and heroic martyr’s death in an ultimate cause for righteousness and against evil, so too the members of Hezbollah, who died in the martyrdom operations against Israel and the South Lebanon Army, died glorious and heroic martyrs’ deaths in an ultimate cause for righteousness and against evil. The members of Hezbollah, who engaged in those martyrdom

176

Chapter 6

operations, as Hezbollah calls them, and other members of that organization believed that resistance to Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon was a matter that was both religious and political. The resistance was religious in that Israel’s occupation constituted a major threat to the Shias’ existence as Shias. That is, if the Israelis had continued to occupy southern Lebanon, then they would have continued to kill Shias and destroy the Shias’ identity in every way. Hezbollah’s resistance was political, in that Israel’s military occupation involved that country’s direct encroachment upon four hundred square miles of the land of a politically sovereign state, namely Lebanon. 162 While Hezbollah was one of the main groups to engage in militant resistance against the Israeli military and the South Lebanon Army, other Lebanese groups did so also, with the hope of ending Israel’s military occupation. 163 One of several catalysts, which intensified Hezbollah’s already strong opposition to Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, took place on October 16, 1983, when an Israeli military patrol made an incursion in Nabatiya, Lebanon, during the Shia Ashura ritual commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, killing one man and wounding seven others. 164 Another significant event, which caused enormous frustration on the part of Lebanese Shias against the United States and its ally Israel was the unsuccessful assassination attempt against Lebanon’s grand ayatollah, Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, which took place on March 8, 1985, in a suburb of Beirut, killing eighty people, and was organized, in large part, through the efforts of the US Central Intelligence Agency, and was funded by the government of Saudi Arabia. 165 The assassinations of Sayyid Abbas al-Musawi, who was Hezbollah’s second secretary general, his wife, and young son by Israeli warplanes on February 16, 1992, was yet another cause for grief and consternation among Hezbollah’s members. 166 Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 was one of Hezbollah’s most monumental victories, in the view of that organization’s members. 167 Ehud Barak, who took office as Israel’s prime minister on July 6, 1999, campaigned on a promise to withdraw Israeli soldiers from Lebanon, particularly in view of the fact that by 1984 the pace of attacks against Israeli soldiers in Lebanon was so intense that one Israel soldier was dying every third day. 168 From the perspectives of members of Hezbollah, Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was sudden, far more sudden than most Lebanese anticipated. This withdrawal of approximately 1,000 to 1,500 soldiers took place almost overnight because Israeli political and military leaders feared that a moderate or slow withdrawal would have provided Hezbollah’s soldiers and others, who resisted Israel’s military, opportunities to kill and injure Israeli soldiers as they departed. 169 Members of the South Lebanon Army (who numbered approximately 2,500), almost all of whom withdrew to Israel at the same time as the Israeli military, departed from Lebanon so

Lebanon

177

quickly that they left behind, in their military posts, fully-prepared dinners because news of the Israeli withdrawal came to them unexpectedly. 170 Members of Hezbollah view the withdrawal of Israel and the South Lebanon Army as a divine blessing and an honor bestowed by God on people, who were devoted to God, many of whom had been oppressed. For the members of Hezbollah, all of the people who had been martyred in the struggle against the occupation had received their vindication in part as a result of Israel’s withdrawal. 171 Indeed, the names and photographs of those persons appear frequently on al-Manar, which is Hezbollah’s television station, and on thousands of posters in Shia areas of Lebanon. 172 The Hezbollah members who died in attacks against Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon are frequently honored and remembered as religious and political heroes by their families, friends, and loved ones. A large outdoor museum in the town of Mleeta, which is in southern Lebanon, commemorates Hezbollah’s war against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and Hezbollah’s success. Some of the artifacts in that museum include at least one captured Israeli tank and a large numbers of weapons. 173 HEZBOLLAH: GOALS FOR THE FUTURE AND SHIA MILITANCY During the summer following Israel’s withdrawal, a debate arose among senior officials in Hezbollah about whether Hezbollah should focus its attention on (1) politics and themes within Lebanon, such as corruption within the Lebanese government, or (2) political and military resistance against political parties and forces opposed to Hezbollah within and outside Lebanon. Political forces within Lebanon, which opposed Hezbollah, were comprised of the Lebanese who criticized the presence of approximately fifteen thousand Syrian soldiers in Lebanon, who had, as one of their purposes, maintained peace in Lebanon after the end of that country’s civil war in 1990. Syria was Hezbollah’s ally. 174 One of several political entities outside Lebanon, which continued to oppose Hezbollah, was, of course, Israel. After Hezbollah’s internal party discussions settled on the strategy of political and military resistance against political parties and forces opposed to Hezbollah within and outside Lebanon, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, consulted with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was Iran’s supreme ayatollah, and as such was at the top of Iran’s political structure. 175 Khamenei supported Hezbollah in its decision to continue its resistance against the Israelis and to support the Palestinians. Hezbollah attempted to capitalize on its victories in southern Lebanon by continuing to attack Israeli soldiers in a relatively small area within that region near the Golan Heights, named Shebaa Farms, which Israel had con-

178

Chapter 6

quered in the1967 War, and from which Israel had not withdrawn. 176 Israel’s occupation of Shebaa Farms, which is approximately nine miles long and 1.5 miles wide, enabled Hezbollah to maintain its military posture in that area, with the justification that Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was not complete. 177 During the approximately six-year period between Israel’s withdrawal in May 2000 and the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel War, which took place between July 13 and August 14, a total of seventeen Israeli soldiers were killed, mostly in areas within or near Shebaa Farms and the Lebanese-Israeli border. 178 That number contrasts with an average of approximately twentyfive soldiers who died annually during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. The period between 2000 and 2006 was characterized by gunfire between Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers, aggressive patrolling of the Lebanese-Israeli border and areas in and near Shebaa Farms, and heated public verbal exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli officials. On the Lebanese side of the border, billboards facing Israel carried statements in Hebrew, stating, “If you come back [to Lebanon], [then] we will come back [at you].” 179 Hezbollah encouraged various acts of protest against the Israelis, including the chanting of anti-Israeli slogans and stone-throwing at Israeli military positions near Shebaa Farms and the Lebanese-Israeli border area. In fact, Hezbollah made piles of stones available near Fatima Gate on the Lebanese-Israeli border, which the Israeli military used as an entrance into Lebanon for Israel’s ground attacks in Lebanon. Stone-throwing against Israelis became an almost ritualized action. 180 In October 2000, Hezbollah launched an operation in the Shebaa Farms area which led to the capture of three Israeli soldiers. 181 All three of the Israeli soldiers died, either immediately or from their wounds. Their bodies were returned to Israel in a prisoner exchange, which took place in January 2004 and was brokered by Germany. 182 After Hezbollah’s operation, Israel resumed its frequent violations of Lebanese airspace and territorial waters, which it had ceased during and soon after its withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. 183 Beginning in October 2000, Israeli warplanes flew regularly over Lebanon, with sonic booms over Beirut. Israel also flew intelligencecollecting drones over Lebanon and made other incursions. In response, Hezbollah used its anti-aircraft weapons to fire at the Israeli warplanes, which were violating Lebanese airspace. As the Hezbollah soldiers fired southward, which was the direction from which the Israeli warplanes were coming, the spent ammunition rounds often landed in Israel. These depleted ammunition rounds served as tangible reminders to Israeli citizens of the threat, which they believed that Hezbollah posed to Israel, much as members of Hezbollah and others in Lebanon believed that Israel posed a threat to them. Hezbollah also fired Katyusha rockets, with most being targeted at the Israel-occupied

Lebanon

179

Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 War, and being targeted at Israel itself. HEZBOLLAH AND THE PALESTINIANS Hezbollah continued to support the Palestinians, in a manner which was consistent with the strategy that the leaders of that organization had expressed, in consultation with Iran’s government, after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. The second Palestinian intifada or uprising against Israel’s occupation of the majority-Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began in late September 2000 because of spiraling Palestinian frustrations about the Israeli occupation, its brutality, and the oppressive measures which Israel had been deploying against the Palestinians since Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1967 War. The Palestinian uprising, which began in September 2000, was partly inspired by Hezbollah’s success in ousting Israel from Lebanon. Indeed, in 2000 and 2001 Hezbollah flags were flown in Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At the same time, Hezbollah had a role in training anti-Israeli Palestinians in resistance and military tactics, which those Palestinians used against the Israelis during and after the second intifada, which ended around February 2005. Hezbollah was also one of the organizations that supplied the Palestinian resistance. Yet, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, emphasized that even though Hezbollah fully supported Palestinian liberation and opposed Israel, the task of liberating Palestine belonged, at least in part, to the Palestinians. 184 Al-Manar provided virtually nonstop television coverage of the second intifada, making it one of the most-watched regional and transnational broadcasters with one of the largest audiences in the region at the time. 185 Throughout the days of the second intifada, al-Manar announced the times of its programs with respect to “occupied-Jerusalem time” and the station commissioned fifty special music videos for the Palestinian intifada. 186 When Israel bombed the Palestinian television station in Ramallah, on the West Bank, al-Manar added the logo of that television station to its own as a symbol of support for the intifada and the Palestinian resistance as a whole. 187 THE ASSASSINATION OF RAFIC HARIRI AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Within Lebanon, Lebanese Sunni politician Rafic Hariri, who was a leader in Lebanon’s Sunni Future Movement, was the prime minister of Lebanon from 2000 until 2004. He was one of several figures in Lebanon who had a leader-

180

Chapter 6

ship role in Lebanon’s economic redevelopment after that country’s civil war ended in 1990. He and twenty-two others were killed in Beirut in a massive car bomb explosion, which took place on February 14, 2005. The person or persons who may have assassinated Hariri is a subject of enormous controversy among Lebanese. While there are various viewpoints among them regarding who may have killed Hariri, some of the institutions and persons who are alleged to have been responsible for his assassination include members of Hezbollah, the Syrian government, and the Israeli government. During this period, thousands of Syrian soldiers maintained an active military presence throughout Lebanon. In the wake of Hariri’s assassination, while feeling threatened by the possibility of strong anti-Syrian sentiment among the Lebanese population partly as a result of that assassination, Hezbollah and its allies expressed gratitude to Syria and its opposition to Western interference in Lebanon through a large demonstration which took place in Beirut on March 8, 2005, where, according to some journalists’ estimates, hundreds of thousands of people participated. 188 Six days later, on March 14, 2005, a large demonstration that involved hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, who opposed Syria’s presence in Lebanon, took place. 189 Partly in response to public pressure against the presence of Syrian soldiers in Lebanon, on April 26, 2005, the last Syrian soldiers withdrew from Lebanon. 190 In the wake of that Syrian withdrawal, there were six months of political negotiations between Hezbollah and former Lebanese general (and Maronite Christian) Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, on the one hand, and Hezbollah, on the other, which were intended to establish a political alliance between those two parties. 191 On February 6, 2006, a memorandum of understanding between these two political parties was made public, which became a crucial foundation of their alliance. 192 Among other principles, the memorandum called for a national dialogue, the continuation of consensual democracy in Lebanon, reform of Lebanon’s electoral law, building of state institutions, the continued functioning of constitutional institutions, abolishing or substantially reducing corruption, reforms in Lebanon’s security services, establishment of sound and normal Lebanese-Syrian relations, and emphasizing Palestinians’ respect for the authority of the Lebanese state and compliance with its laws, on the one hand, while affirming solidarity with the Palestinian cause on the other. 193 One of several reasons that the agreement was a historic landmark was because it formalized an alliance between Hezbollah, one of Lebanon’s strongest Shia political parties, with the Free Patriotic Movement, which was one of Lebanon’s strongest Maronite Christian political parties. It also aligned the two powerful heads of those respective parties, Nasrallah and Aoun, as leaders in an influential Lebanese political alliance which would be termed the March 8 Coalition in commemoration of the pro-Syrian demonstrations of March 8, 2005. The Shia Amal party, which was led by Shia politician Nabih Berri, who began a long tenure as

Lebanon

181

Lebanon’s speaker of parliament in 1992, also usually aligned itself with that coalition. One of the opposing coalitions was the March 14 Coalition (which was named after the anti-Syrian demonstrations of March 14, 2005) and included the Sunni Future Movement, which was led by Saad Hariri, the son of the late Rafic Hariri, and the Maronite Lebanese Forces party, which was led by Samir Geagea. DEMANDS ON HEZBOLLAH AND ITS RESPONSES After Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon, leaders of the March 14 Coalition and others in Lebanon, who were opposed to Hezbollah, repeatedly demanded that Hezbollah disarm. 194 These opponents of Hezbollah gave several reasons for their demands, which included: 1. Hezbollah possessed a disproportionately large supply of arms and soldiers, when compared to Lebanon’s other political parties and even Lebanon’s military, which gave Hezbollah a disproportionate amount of military power domestically, making it an enormous threat to almost every other political party and group in Lebanon; according to this argument, this imbalance in Hezbollah’s favor, by threatening other Lebanese groups and parties, could increase the probability of another civil war in Lebanon; 2. Hezbollah’s large number of soldiers and weapons could undermine the sovereignty of the Lebanese government because Hezbollah could use its military to oppose Lebanon’s military, or Hezbollah could use its military as a means of advancing its own domestic or foreign policy; 3. Hezbollah’s soldiers, weapons, and military force have been so extensive that they threaten Israel, and, as a result, Israel would attack Hezbollah and Lebanon in order to reduce Hezbollah’s military strength. The leaders of Hezbollah have responded to those arguments by stating that (1) Hezbollah is fully committed to using its military and arms to defend all Lebanese, not only Hezbollah’s interests; (2) Hezbollah has no desire to cause another civil war in Lebanon because all Lebanese, including Shias, would be terribly harmed by it; (3) Hezbollah has a strong interest in supporting the sovereignty of the Lebanese state and the Lebanese military because they are essential to Lebanon’s peace and security; and (4) Hezbollah has an obligation to all Lebanese, and to itself, to maintain all of its arms and the strength of its military in order to protect Lebanon from Israel. 195

182

Chapter 6

THE 2006 HEZBOLLAH-ISRAEL WAR In the run-up to Israel’s massive attacks on Lebanon which began on July 12, 2006, and ended around August 14, 2006, that country’s government expressed deep concerns about the strength of Hezbollah’s military and the arms it had, especially its rockets which could target Israel, and the threat which that organization posed to Israel. 196 Israeli officials were also becoming increasingly anxious about Hezbollah’s support of the anti-Israeli, Palestinian Sunni Islamist resistance organization Hamas, which operated in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the coordination of those two organizations in opposing Israel. One of several sources for the Israeli officials’ worry was a series of secretly-monitored communications between Hezbollah and Hamas during the spring and early summer of 2006. 197 In these communications, Hezbollah’s leaders urged the Palestinians to maintain a strong, hardline stance in their negotiations with Israel over Hamas’s return to Israel of Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas had captured as a prisoner of war on June 25, 2006; Hamas was holding him until Israel agreed to the release of Palestinians, whom it had imprisoned. 198 In the communications between Hezbollah and Hamas, Nasrallah referred to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz as weak. 199 When Israeli leaders learned about the content of these communications and reports that Hezbollah was developing a first-strike capacity to engage in large-scale, preemptive attacks on Israel, the Israeli governmental leaders’ desire to attack and attempt to destroy Hezbollah intensified. Israeli and American officials consulted with each other in Washington, DC, during the early summer of 2006 about an Israeli war on Hezbollah. While it is unclear how much operational coordination may have been discussed at that meeting, those consultations seemed to indicate a level of American cooperation with Israel with respect to that war. Adding to the tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, in November 2005, Hezbollah tried to capture several Israeli soldiers in the town of Ghajar, which is in the border region between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. This operation, which was blocked by the Israeli military, was part of Hezbollah’s attempt to secure the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli prisons, including Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese man who executed an attack on Israelis in 1979. 200 Another event that precipitated Israel’s massive attack against Hezbollah was a dramatic operation in which Hezbollah engaged on July 12, 2006, that was part of its attempt to negotiate the release of Lebanese prisoners, which Israel was holding. 201 Hezbollah soldiers ambushed a motorized Israeli patrol in northern Israel, near that country’s border with Lebanon, and captured two Israeli soldiers, while killing three others. After Israeli soldiers pursued the Hezbollah soldiers into Lebanon with the intention of rescuing the two cap-

Lebanon

183

tured Israeli soldiers, five more Israeli soldiers were killed and an Israeli tank was destroyed. 202 While Hezbollah’s leaders were hoping to use the captured Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips for the release of Lebanese and Palestinians, whom the Israelis were holding, as Hezbollah had done in the past, Israel’s heavyhanded military response may have exceeded the expectations of Hezbollah’s leaders. 203 Within a day, Israel blockaded Lebanon from the Mediterranean Sea, and Israel bombed Beirut’s airport, causing it to close. Soon after that, on July 14, 2006, Israel attacked Nasrallah’s offices. Then, Hezbollah released a recorded statement from Nasrallah where Nasrallah declared to Israel that Hezbollah was ready for open war and, in the same recording, he invited listeners to look toward the Mediterranean Sea. With almost perfect theatrical timing, an explosion on the horizon strongly buffeted the Israeli naval ship Hanit, which was hit by a guided missile that had been produced by Iran. The ship was disabled, and four of its sailors were killed. This was an early indication that Hezbollah may have been better prepared than Israeli military and political leaders may have initially believed. 204 After the initiation of hostilities, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, all of whose citizenries are majority Sunni, criticized Hezbollah, while the US government clearly expressed its support for Israel. 205 Government officials in those majority-Sunni countries were deeply concerned about the increasing power of Iran and its Shia allies in the Middle East, including the Shias in Iraq in the wake of the US invasion of that country, beginning in 2003. 206 The leaders of those majority-Sunni countries were also concerned about what they perceived to be Hezbollah’s increasing power in Lebanon and potentially outside that country. The Hezbollah-Israel war could have had a destabilizing influence within several majority-Muslim countries of the Middle East, in that many rank-and-file Sunnis throughout the Middle East strongly supported any direct opposition to Israel, whether those opponents to Israel were Shia or Sunni. This was the case because very large numbers of people, who live in the Middle East, are deeply troubled by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and the military threat, which many Middle Easterners believe that Israel poses to the entire region. The United States and Israel hoped that Israel’s attacks, which were directed against Hezbollah during that war, would severely weaken Hezbollah militarily and in other ways. Israel’s war plan depended heavily on its air power and its artillery bombardment from northern Israel into Lebanon. Its military objectives involved an attempt to isolate Hezbollah’s military units by blocking the routes which enabled the resupplying of Hezbollah and destroying Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal (especially its rockets which were capable of striking targets deep within Israel), while attacking Hezbollah’s command-and-control facilities and media centers, including its television station al-Manar. 207 With these

184

Chapter 6

objectives in mind, the Israeli military engaged in devastating attacks against roads, bridges, seaports, and airports throughout Lebanon. One of Israel’s main targets included Dahieh, which is a large, predominantly Shia suburb south of Beirut where Hezbollah’s command-and-control centers and other important facilities were located. 208 Israel also struck the broadcast facilities of al-Manar repeatedly during the war, yet the station continued to broadcast throughout the war, except for an interruption of a few minutes. Al-Manar was able to broadcast because it had a relay station in a location which was unknown to the Israelis. 209 Israeli warplanes attacked the homes and offices of Hezbollah’s leaders including the home of Ayatollah Fadlallah, which Israel destroyed. Large numbers of people in southern Lebanon were forced to flee to relative safety, wherever they could find it. Under the Israeli barrages, they attempted to find refuge with friends and relatives, and in schools and parking garages. 210 With Israel’s intent to kill as many people and do as much damage to southern Lebanon as possible, its military attacked gas stations, food stores, and Hezbollah’s military positions with the goal of making it impossible for Lebanese civilians and Hezbollah to endure a military siege. One of Hezbollah’s responses involved its firing of rockets at Israel, usually launching approximately 150 rockets per day, and then launching approximately 250 rockets during the last day of the war. 211 In one of Hezbollah’s most potent military responses, Hezbollah struck a train station in Haifa, one of Israel’s largest cities, with long-range rockets provided by Syria and Iran, killing eight people. 212 The day after the attack on Haifa, Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, addressed the Knesset, which is Israel’s parliament, and stated that his goals in the war against Hezbollah were the return of the two Israeli soldiers, whom Hezbollah had captured on July 12, 2006, a complete cease-fire, the end of Hezbollah’s military deployment in southern Lebanon, and the deployment of Lebanon’s military in that part of the country. 213 Olmert emphasized his hope for the elimination of Hezbollah as a military force and the dismantling of all militias in that country. Dan Gillerman, who was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations at the time, and was a frequent guest on American news programs, echoed Olmert’s perspectives and repeated the Israeli government’s stated belief that Hezbollah could be expunged from Lebanon. 214 Olmert, Gillerman, and other Israeli officials were eager to convince President Bush and others in the White House that this goal was realistic. Future events would show that these Israelis were mistaken. 215 Hezbollah showed itself to be more resilient than Israeli analysts had predicted. Israeli brigadier general, Guy Tzur, who was the commander of Israel’s 162nd Division, which fought in Lebanon, stated that Hezbollah was the greatest guerilla organization in the world. 216 Even after a month of Israeli bombardments, large numbers of Lebanese Shias continued to support

Lebanon

185

Hezbollah. That organization’s rapid and thorough response to the needs of persons, whose homes and lives were severely harmed, was a significant factor in strengthening support among some Lebanese Shias and non-Shias for Hezbollah. During the war with Israel, Hezbollah’s soldiers gave shopkeepers IOUs in exchange for merchandise from those shopkeepers’ stores and consistently repaid those IOUs completely after the war ended. Hezbollah also paid $10,000 to $12,000 to people who lost their homes as a result of the war. Approximately fifteen thousand homeless families received these grants. 217 Architects and engineers, some of whom were supported by Hezbollah, planned the construction of new homes. Physicians, who received funding from Hezbollah, dispensed free medicine, while Hezbollah distributed twenty-five thousand free meals in the weeks following the cease-fire, which was implemented in mid-August of 2006. 218 One centerpiece of that cease-fire involved the passage and implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted on August 11, 2006, which strengthened the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), that had begun its peacekeeping work, mostly in southern Lebanon, in 1978, with the initial task of supervising the Israeli withdrawal after Operation Litani. 219 One of UNIFIL’s responsibilities was to insure that Lebanese civilians were permitted to return peacefully to their often devastated towns in order to rebuild them. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 also called for the deployment of the Lebanese military to southern Lebanon, which was one of Israel’s demands. 220 Both Hezbollah and Israel claimed victory in the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel War. Nasrallah stated that the war was the fiercest in Lebanon’s history and he praised Hezbollah’s work in that war as bringing a strategic, historical, and divine victory to Lebanon and the global Islamic community. 221 Nasrallah’s claim to victory was convincing to his supporters in view of the fact that Hezbollah remained largely intact after that war, and Israel did not conquer any Lebanese territory as a result of it. In addition, Hezbollah successfully repelled the Israeli military, which is one of the most powerful in the world and until the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War seemed, to many observers, to be virtually invincible. Most members of Hezbollah believed that its success in that war seriously questioned the possibility of Israel’s military invincibility. Ehud Olmert emphasized that in addition to Israel’s military victory in that war, Israel won a great diplomatic victory through the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which the Israeli government claimed had placed serious restrictions on Hezbollah and enhanced the position of the Lebanese military, particularly in southern Lebanon. Israelis who believed that Israel had won the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War also claimed that Hezbollah had been severely weakened as a result of that war. 222 The war lasted over thirty days, and during that time approximately 915,762 Lebanese (which is roughly 25 percent of the Lebanese population)

186

Chapter 6

were displaced, as were five hundred thousand Israelis (which is 50 percent of Israel’s northern population). 223 By the time that war ended, 1,109 Lebanese civilians, 28 Lebanese soldiers, 250 to 530 Hezbollah soldiers, 116 Israeli soldiers, and 43 Israeli civilians were killed. 224 Yet, in spite of the Israeli government’s claims that Hezbollah had been weakened, since the end of the Israel-Hezbollah war, Hezbollah has both rebuilt its arsenal and acquired more military capabilities than it had before that war. 225 For instance, Hezbollah constructed large fortifications, north of the Litani River in Lebanon, for its long-range missiles. Hezbollah built those fortifications north of that river because UN Security Council Resolution 1701 forbids the placement, between the Lebanese-Israeli border and the Litani River, of “armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL.” 226 Hezbollah has successfully linked its main Shia constituencies in southern Lebanon with the Beqaa Valley by purchasing land and entire villages, making some of those properties restricted military areas for its own military endeavors. 227 Although UN Security Council Resolution 1701 forbids Hezbollah from military activity between the Litani River and the Lebanese-Israeli border, it seems that Hezbollah has attempted to keep its soldiers and weapons in that area hidden. While Resolution 1701 brought a cessation to hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, the absence of a comprehensive military and political agreement between Hezbollah, on the one hand, and Israel, on the other, is one of several factors that makes the situation between those two entities fragile, like a volcano that could erupt at any time. HEZBOLLAH’S POST-2006 MILITARY STRATEGY One of the major changes in Hezbollah’s military approach after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War was that Hezbollah began to emphasize its offensive military strategy in addition to its defensive one. The offensive aspect of this military strategy involves Hezbollah’s goal of occupying most or all of northern Israel, in the event of another war with Israel. Thus, if Israel were to attack Lebanon, Hezbollah would attempt to make northern Israel one of the centers of that war, potentially placing Israel on the defensive. 228 Hezbollah’s strategy was partially tested in November 2007 when, in what some have viewed as Israel’s preparation for another war in Lebanon, it conducted military maneuvers, which involved fifty-thousand Israeli soldiers, near the Lebanese-Israeli border. Hezbollah responded quickly with its own three-day military maneuvers, which involved the mobilization of 120,000 Hezbollah soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes, south of the Litani River, where approximately 12,500 UNIFIL and 15,000 Lebanese military soldiers were stationed. Hezbollah’s large-scale military maneuvers were intended to send a

Lebanon

187

message to (1) Israeli military and political leaders, in case they were considering the possibility of attacking Lebanon again; (2) other countries throughout the world, indicating that Iran and Syria would support Hezbollah in the event of another war with Israel; and (3) local politicians in Lebanon, indicating the military power that Hezbollah wielded so it could potentially increase its political influence within that country. 229 Nasrallah, in his continuing efforts to capitalize on what he believed was Hezbollah’s victory in the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, stated in a speech, which he delivered on September 14, 2009, commemorating the third anniversary of Hezbollah’s victory in that war, that Hezbollah’s military capabilities were three times greater than they were in 2006. In that speech, he also introduced a balance of power formula which was aimed at deterrence against Israel. He stated that if Israel were to bomb Beirut or the suburb of Dahieh south of Beirut, where Hezbollah’s most important offices are located, Hezbollah would attack Tel Aviv, which is one of Israel’s largest and most significant cities. 230 Eight days later, on September 22, 2009, Hezbollah held a Divine Victory Parade, commemorating its victory in the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, which attracted an audience of approximately eight hundred thousand people. Nasrallah stated that Hezbollah would surrender its arms if Israel would withdraw from Shebaa Farms, release Lebanese prisoners of war, and provide Hezbollah of maps, which indicated the locations of the landmines that Israel had planted in Lebanon, most of which are in southern Lebanon. Nasrallah stated that Hezbollah held thirty-three thousand rockets, compared to twenty thousand before the beginning of the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel War. 231 These kinds of large rallies, where Nasrallah usually appears on large video screens from secret locations in order to protect himself from assassination attempts, have become one significant hallmark of Hezbollah’s religious and political mobilization in Lebanon. HEZBOLLAH, SOCIAL SERVICES, EDUCATION, AND THE MEDIA At the same time, Hezbollah’s leadership has worked to enable that organization to provide social services and education to large numbers of Lebanese Shias. Unfortunately, Lebanon’s government offers limited social welfare services to its citizens. 232 Historically, the residents of Dahieh, for instance, where per capita income is 15 to 20 percent of the national average, have needed various types of social services, which Lebanon’s government has not adequately provided. Without state-provided social services, life has been difficult for Lebanese who do not have prosperous extended families. The distressing lack of non-family-based social services began to ease somewhat among Lebanon’s Shias, beginning in the 1980s, because of the vision of

188

Chapter 6

Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who was an influential leader of Hezbollah. During Lebanon’s civil war, he spoke about the importance of Lebanon’s Shias creating a “human nation-state,” which would provide the resources for Shias to help themselves and one another. 233 Fadlallah’s idea has inspired the establishment of private Shia social service associations, which serve mostly Shias in Lebanon. 234 Some of these associations were founded by Fadlallah himself, other Shia clerics or other Shias, who were not clerics. Hezbollah, the Musa al-Sadr Foundation, the Supreme Islamic Shia Council, and the Amal movement are some of the organizations which have established and operate Shia social service associations in Lebanon. 235 Shia mosques and properties, which are near them, are some of the sites where such Shia social service organizations serve their communities. The relative abundance of these associations among Lebanon’s Shias constitute a crucial aspect of Shias’ confidence and identity. The religious and political activism, which these associations catalyze, stand in sharp contrast to the passive acceptance of deprivation among Lebanese Shias in earlier decades. Fadlallah was particularly effective as a builder of Shia institutions in Lebanon. In 1976, he was appointed as deputy of the prominent Najaf-based Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, who until his passing in 1992, was one of the most highly-regarded Shia interpreters of Islamic law. As al-Khoei’s deputy, Fadlallah was entrusted to collect donations on al-Khoei’s behalf and to apply those donations to beneficial purposes in Lebanon. Thus, Fadlallah supervised cooperatively with Musa al-Sadr and other Shia leaders the Imam Khoei orphanage in Beirut and the Bahman Hospital, which is a major medical center in Dahieh. After Fadlallah’s senior colleagues died, these institutions came under the umbrella of Fadlallah’s large-scale Benevolent Charity Society. 236 These institutions together employ several thousand people and include volunteers. Although wealthy Shias in various parts of the Middle East and the Iranian government are important financial donors to Hezbollah and Fadlallah’s foundations, which are affiliated with Hezbollah, most of those foundations also depend on donations from Lebanese Shias or they generate income themselves. The wide range of institutions which Fadlallah has established or has supported include businesses such as gas stations, a publishing house, a photocopy store, a factory for animals slaughtered in accordance with Islamic dietary regulations (which are termed halal), and a computer store. Shia Muslims make both monetary and nonmonetary donations to Fadlallah’s and Hezbollah’s institutions. Nonmonetary donations could include the giving of food to underprivileged persons, for instance. In Shia Islam, khums is onefifth of certain items, which a person acquires as wealth, and this is an obligatory annual donation which a Shia would make to a Shia mosque or

Lebanon

189

organization. Fadlallah’s institutions and Hezbollah benefit substantially from these kinds of donations also. Rabab al-Sadr, the sister of Musa al-Sadr, who was the founder of Amal, heads a vocational school for boys and a vocational institute for women, both in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, which are funded by significant donations from Shias. 237 Somewhat independently of the other Shia foundations, Hezbollah offers a wide array of social services to its constituents, which include medical clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, schools, and Islamic financing and loans, which are in compliance with Sharia law, for starting and maintaining small- or medium-sized businesses. 238 These institutions are usually in predominantly Shia areas. The staff at Hezbollah’s medical clinics and hospitals usually treat all patients regardless of their religion or political views. Patients are usually charged a small fee for these services. Patients, who cannot afford to pay, may receive some basic medical services free of charge. The Martyrs’ Organization provides financial and other forms of support to the families of Hezbollah soldiers who have died in various battles and wars. At the same time, the Association for the Wounded provides financial and other forms of support to wounded Hezbollah soldiers and their families. 239 The Hezbollah Women’s Committee addresses the needs of women, particularly those who are underprivileged, while Hezbollah’s building and construction committee has repaired much of the damage, which has been caused by war. 240 Hezbollah also devotes significant amounts of money and other valuable resources to its educational institutions. 241 Hezbollah’s Mobilization for Education Committee coordinates all of the educational institutions which Hezbollah has founded and operates. 242 These educational institutions include (1) Shia seminaries, which educate and train future Shia clerics; (2) Shia mosques, which often include schools on their properties; and (3) elementary and high schools, which sit on their own properties. All of those schools have Shia Islam as the foundations for their curricula, and they are considered as the first of three types of Hezbollah’s educational institutions. 243 A second type of schools, which Hezbollah operates, combine content from classic and contemporary Shia sources with nonreligious sources in curricula that are structured in accordance with modern frameworks. A third type of school is run by Shia organizations other than Hezbollah; the Shia curricula of those schools and their missions are consistent with Hezbollah’s goals. The recruitment of teachers for the first and second types of schools follow two sets of criteria: professional qualifications, which are consistent with qualifications for teaching in Lebanon’s schools more broadly, and religious commitments which are compatible with those of Hezbollah’s understanding of Shia Islam. 244 The graduates of these Shia educational institutions attend a variety of colleges and universities in Lebanon, such as Lebanese University, Beirut Arab University, and the Islamic University of

190

Chapter 6

Lebanon. Students who have received their education in elementary schools and secondary schools, which are affiliated with Hezbollah, are eligible for scholarships and grants for their college and university education through Shia educational foundations in Lebanon. 245 The Shia elementary and secondary schools nurture their students’ religious commitments in a variety of ways including (1) through their curricula; (2) requiring students to participate in the obligatory Muslim prayers during the proper prayer times; (3) encouraging compliance with Shia morals; and (4) requiring fasting during Ramadan and observance of Shia religious holidays, for example. 246 In addition to educational institutions, another significant way that Hezbollah communicates its messages is through the media. Hezbollah’s weekly political periodical entitled al-Ahd (The Oath) was founded in June 1984. Its circulation, which had been five thousand, tripled during the 1990s. In 2001, it changed its name to al-Initiqad (the Critique) and revised its format. In 1988, in addition to Hezbollah’s two other radio stations, it added Radio alNur, which is one of Hezbollah’s most important radio stations. 247 This station broadcasts news, interviews, sermons, hymns, and other content which is religious and political. Al-Manar television station was launched in June 1991. This station provides a variety of programming including news, analysis, interviews, and religious instruction. 248 Hezbollah’s forms of mass communication enable it to provide news, information, and religious teachings from its perspectives, while keeping its members and people who are empathetic with its goals informed and educated. 249 HEZBOLLAH IN LEBANESE POLITICS Hezbollah first formally entered the Lebanese political system in the 1992 elections and has also participated in Lebanese elections since that time. 250 Before Hezbollah’s participation in the 1992 elections, it had rejected Lebanese institutions and the 1990 Taif Accords, which have formed a significant basis of Lebanese political life, because its leaders had wanted to generate a Shia Islamic revolution in Lebanon, which would have been similar to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, in order to bring into existence in Lebanon a Shia Islamic nation-state similar to that of Iran. The end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990 and a belief among Hezbollah’s political leaders that Hezbollah itself and its Shia supporters would benefit from that organization’s participation in Lebanon’s democratic political process were crucial factors that led to Hezbollah becoming a full-fledged political party in Lebanon. In addition, Hezbollah’s leaders did not want Amal to become the primary or exclusive political party for Lebanon’s Shias, partly because Hezbollah’s leaders believed that their understandings of Shia Islam were far closer to what Shia Islam actually taught than the beliefs represented by Amal.

Lebanon

191

Some of Hezbollah’s leaders and rank-and-file members believed that many of Amal’s leaders and members were too secular in their beliefs and were not adhering to Shia Islam’s true teachings. Some members of Hezbollah also view Amal as corrupt. Related to these beliefs, members of Hezbollah felt a sense of rivalry with respect to Amal for the religious and political loyalty of Lebanon’s Shias. During the early 1990s, Hezbollah’s religious and political leaders consulted with Iran’s religious and political leaders about the possibility of Hezbollah participating in Lebanon’s political process, and received approval from Iran’s government to do so. After those consultations, twelve of Hezbollah’s leaders discussed the possibility of that organization entering Lebanon’s political process, and they voted in favor of Hezbollah doing so by a vote of ten to two. 251 In Lebanon’s 1992 parliamentary elections, Hezbollah’s own candidates won eight seats in Lebanon’s 128-seat parliament, while other candidates affiliated with that party won an additional four seats, overtaking Amal in Hezbollah’s first election. 252 In several of Lebanon’s subsequent elections, Hezbollah has ordinarily remained at this 10-percent level in terms of its representation in parliament. In addition to emphasizing an expansion of its own electoral base, Hezbollah has also developed strong alliances with other parties, such as the Maronite Christian Free Patriotic Movement and eventually with Amal. These alliances have been among the factors that have enabled Hezbollah to play a significant role in Lebanon’s government. 253 In the 1996 elections, Hezbollah’s seats in parliament slipped to seven (from the previous eight) with Amal moving from three seats in the previous election to eight seats in the 1996 election. In 2000, Hezbollah and Amal tied at ten parliamentary seats per party. In 2005, Amal and its allies received fourteen parliamentary seats while Hezbollah and its allies received the same number. In 2009, there was little change with Amal winning thirteen seats and Hezbollah winning twelve. In the 2018 parliamentary elections, Amal won fifteen seats while Hezbollah won thirteen. 254 The eventual alliance between Hezbollah and Amal was initially brokered in part by the Syrians, who may have seen it to be to their advantage to have the two main Shia parties in an alliance, because such a coalition could increase Syria’s influence over both of those parties. 255 In 2005, 2009, and 2018 one of the results of the Hezbollah-Amal coalition was a series of joint Hezbollah-Amal candidate lists for those elections. 256 These kinds of lists appeared mainly in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley. Consistent with Hezbollah’s alliances with the Maronite Christian Free Patriotic Movement and the Shia Amal Party, Hezbollah has attempted to broaden its political constituency in other ways. 257 For example, one of the significant ideological changes, which Hezbollah’s leaders have implemented since that organization’s decision to participate in Lebanon’s 1992 parliamentary elections, involves Hezbollah repositioning itself as both the protector of Lebanon’s Shias and as a Leba-

192

Chapter 6

nese political party that cares for the entire nation, although there are some non-Shia Lebanese who are deeply skeptical of Hezbollah’s attempts to project itself as defending all Lebanese. These opponents of Hezbollah believe that Hezbollah’s leaders are using the idea of inclusion as yet another way of manipulating Lebanon’s political system in order to increase Hezbollah’s political power. Indeed, these opponents of Hezbollah believe that Hezbollah’s only concern involves protecting itself at the expense of all other Lebanese. 258 Hezbollah’s 2009 Manifesto, which emphasizes Hezbollah’s commitment to all of Lebanon’s citizens and is more inclusive than its Open Letter of 1985, states that the organization wants a unified Lebanon for all Lebanese and that it wants Lebanon to be sovereign, free, independent, strong, and competent. According to this document, one of the most important conditions for the establishment of a home for all Lebanese and its persistence is “having a strong, capable and just state, in addition to a political system which truly represents the will of the people and their aspirations for justice and freedom, security and stability, well-being and dignity.” 259 The document also states that this is what all the Lebanese people seek and work to achieve and that Hezbollah is a part of them. 260 The manifesto rejects sectarianism and affirms the importance of national dialogue. 261 It also states that democracy is the fundamental basis for governance in Lebanon because, in the view of Hezbollah’s leadership, democracy is the epitome of the spirit of Lebanon’s constitution and the core of coexistence in that country. The manifesto declares the importance of Lebanese living together in dignity and equal rights while emphasizing the importance of beneficial collaboration among all Lebanese in order to foster the principle of true partnership, which constitutes “the most suitable formula” for protecting diversity and stability within the country. 262 These inclusive ideas within the manifesto seem to indicate Hezbollah’s embrace of democracy and pluralism, which constitutes a more expansive ideology than the one represented by the 1985 open letter, which was more specific to Shias and more revolutionary in its intentions than the 2009 Manifesto. Yet, in contrast to the 2009 Manifesto’s inclusivity, there are members of Hezbollah who still strongly support Hezbollah’s leading a Shia Islamic revolution in the spirit of Iran’s revolution and establishing a Shia government in Lebanon. Thus, there are debates among Hezbollah’s leaders and its rank-and-file members about the extent to which Hezbollah should or should not be a Shia revolutionary movement, and whether or not Hezbollah has compromised its Shia principles by participating in Lebanon’s democratic political process. The hardline members of Hezbollah support an Islamic revolution, while the more inclusive members support Hezbollah’s participation in Lebanon’s political process. 263

Lebanon

193

Hezbollah has also had a significant influence on local politics, which operates on the level of municipalities. It is in a strong position to dominate certain municipalities, which have large numbers of Shias. As a result of local elections, Hezbollah controls approximately two-thirds of predominantly Shia municipalities, including large Beirut suburbs with sizable Shia populations. 264 In Hezbollah’s manifestos for local governments, it has emphasized its existing capabilities in delivering services for its constituents while focusing on practical matters. Consistent with these realities, Hezbollah has the following priorities in terms of its work in localities: 1. encouraging citizens to play a more active role in the selection of development projects in their communities; 2. increasing the functions and powers of municipalities in providing education, health care, and social services; 3. financing development projects from both municipal revenues and charitable donations to Hezbollah; 4. exercising control over public works and preventing embezzlement; 5. renovating the physical and administrative structures of municipalities, which includes computerization. Attempts to implement these priorities, together with Hezbollah’s local alliance with Amal in the 2010 local elections which included joint candidate lists, led to a very strong showing for both parties. This local alliance between Hezbollah and Amal in 2010 departed from Hezbollah’s previous practice of running its local candidates independently from Amal and further demonstrates Hezbollah’s pragmatism in spite of earlier competition between those two parties at the local level. REVOLUTIONARY PATTERNS Amal and Hezbollah constitute significant religious and political institutions which have embedded themselves deeply into Lebanon’s religious and political life, in general, and into the lives of Lebanon’s Shia Muslims, in particular. While Hezbollah has some of its roots in Amal, both of those parties originated as revolutionary movements, which consolidated Lebanon’s Shias religiously and politically, and provided those Shias with a thoroughgoing sense of communal religious and political identity, while offering them robust opportunities to participate in Lebanon’s political life. Both groups grew from several historical, religious, political, and ideological roots, parts of those roots being in the active intellectual life in Lebanon; in Iraq, particularly Najaf, Karbala, and Baghdad; and in Iran, particularly Qom and Tehran. Both Amal and Hezbollah were part and parcel of one general pattern of

194

Chapter 6

religious and political life in the Middle East and other parts of the world in the modern era which has included the fusion of religion and politics, and religious mobilization under the leadership of one or more charismatic intellectual religious and political leaders. This kind of mobilization has taken place in various religions and geographic spheres, manifested by Hassan alBanna and Sayyid Qutb who led the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Usama Bin Laden who led al-Qaida, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who led ISIS, Ayatollah Khomeini who led Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Mahatma Gandhi who led India’s nonviolent anticolonialist movement against Britain, Martin Luther King who led the nonviolent civil rights movement in the United States, and Desmond Tutu who was one of the leaders of South Africa’s anti-Apartheid movement, which are a few of several examples. Within the context of Amal and Hezbollah, Shia religious and political leaders such as Musa al-Sadr, Ragheb Harb, Subhi al-Tufayli, Abbas al-Musawi, Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, and Hassan Nasrallah have operated within this pattern of the fusion of religion and politics, and religio-political mobilization, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These figures mobilized religio-political movements, whose leaders and rank-and-file members, based on their understandings of the sacred texts within their religious traditions, generated concrete goals for their religiopolitical communities, while actively rejecting aspects of the status quo, which they believed contradicted the religious, political, economic, and social principles that their religions taught. Within this milieu, Amal and Hezbollah will continue to operate as active parties and institutions within the Lebanese political framework, having moved from revolutionary movements to institutions, serving the needs of their Shia constituencies. Hezbollah, in particular, under its leadership in both Lebanon and Iran, has established vast religious, political, social, educational, and economic institutions which, with the support of Iran and Hezbollah’s own rank-and-file members, has the potential of serving its constituencies in Lebanon for decades in the future. Both Hezbollah and Amal have exhibited remarkable flexibility in terms of adapting themselves to Lebanon’s democratic system. They have also played a crucial role over the decades in transforming much of Lebanon’s Shia population to one that was politically and economically marginalized near the beginning of the twentieth century to one that is politically influential and economically strong in the early portion of the twenty-first century. Yet, Hezbollah’s use of military force and its leaders’ adamant opposition to Israel constitute both a strength and weakness. They constitute a strength in the sense that those ideological positions enable Hezbollah to mobilize significant aspects of its military in opposition to what Hezbollah’s leaders depict as a common enemy. That ideological stance constitutes a weakness in that it is one of several factors which alienates Hezbollah from several countries, including Western European countries, the United States, and Israel,

Lebanon

195

and also in places where Hezbollah is in a potentially vulnerable position economically and militarily. Hezbollah is in a vulnerable position economically in part because of economic sanctions imposed against it by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and several Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, for example. 265 One crucial question that remains unanswered with respect to Hezbollah’s and Iran’s future is whether or not both of those entities, partly under the pressure of economic sanctions and partly because of the quicklychanging political landscape in the Middle East, may at some point in the future recognize Israel and engage in diplomacy with it, as Egypt and Jordan have done, for example. While this question remains unanswered, Hezbollah will continue to remain influential in Lebanese politics for the foreseeable future. At the same time, Amal with its secularist and apparently more moderate Shia approach to Lebanese politics will have a significant role also. In this context, what remains to be seen are the results of Lebanon’s crosssectarian mass protests in 2019 against high unemployment, a weak economy, and government corruption. The outcomes of those protests and their effects on Lebanon’s government and citizens are uncertain. 266 NOTES 1. Rania Maktabi, “State Formation and Citizenship in Lebanon: The Politics of Membership and Exclusion in a Sectarian State,” in Citizenship and the State in the Middle East: Approaches and Applications, eds. Nils A. Butenschon, Uri Davis, Manuel Hassassian, (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 149–150. See also Rania Maktabi, “The Lebanese Census of 1932 Revisited. Who Are the Lebanese?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 26, no. 2 (November 1999), 219–241; and Cedomir Nestorovic, Islamic Marketing: Understanding the Socio-Economic, Cultural, and Politico-Legal Environment (Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2016), 61. 2. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2016), 213. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid., 213–214. 5. Ibid., 214. 6. Thomas Collelo, “Lebanon: A Country Study” in Lebanon: Current Issues and Background, ed. John C. Rolland (Hauppauge, New York: Nova Publishers, 2003), 70. 7. Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi`a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988), 15. 8. Ibid. See also Rula Jurda Abisaab and Malek Abisaab, The Shi`ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism, and Hizbullah’s Islamists (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2014), 9–11. 9. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 214. 10. Ibid. 11. “Lebanon’s Constitution of 1926 with Amendments through 2004,” Article 24, www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Lebanon_2004.pdf?lang=en (accessed February 22, 2018). 12. “Lebanon’s Constitution of 1926 with Amendments through 2004,” Articles 73–75. 13. Ibid., Article 53. 14. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 214–215. 15. Ibid. See also D. K. Fieldhouse, Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914–1958 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006), 320.

196

Chapter 6

16. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 215. 17. Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2nd ed. (London: Pluto Press, 2012), 94. 18. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 215. 19. Ibid. 20. R. Hrair Dekmejian, Patterns of Political Leadership: Egypt, Israel, Lebanon (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), 36. 21. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 215–216. 22. Ibid., 216. 23. Ibid. 24. Rodger Shanahan, The Shi`a of Lebanon: Clans, Parties and Clerics (London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 89. 25. Ibid., 89. 26. Ibid., 90. 27. Ibid., 89–91. 28. Ibid., 90–91. 29. Ibid., 90. 30. Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2nd ed., 108. 31. Ibid. 32. Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2nd ed., 105, 108. 33. Ibid., 108. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 110. 36. Ibid. 37. Lebanon’s Constitution of 1926 with Amendments through 2004, Article 53. 38. Ibid., Article 57. 39. Ibid., Article 55. 40. Ibid., Article 60. 41. Ibid., Article 24. 42. Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2nd ed., 111. 43. Lebanon’s Constitution of 1926 with Amendments through 2004, Article 1 https://www .constituteproject.org/constitution/Lebanon_2004.pdf?lang=en (accessed August 12, 2019). Constituteproject.org is part of the Comparative Constitutions Project which is a scholarly endeavor that produces comprehensive data about the world’s constitutions. See “About the CCP” at http://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/about-ccp/ (accessed August 12, 2019). 44. Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2nd ed., 111. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., 111–112. 49. Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 17. 50. Ibid., 17–18. 51. Ibid., 18. 52. Ibid. See also Hasan Sharif “South Lebanon: Its History and Geopolitics” in South Lebanon, eds. Elaine Catherine Hagopian and Samih K. Farsoun (Detroit, Michigan: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1978), 10–11. 53. Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 18–19. 54. Abisaab and Abisaab, The Shi`ites of Lebanon, xvii. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid., xvii–xviii. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Shi`ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 106. See also Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 42. 60. Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 42.

Lebanon

197

61. Ibid. 62. Ibid., 39. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid., 39–40. 65. Ibid., 40. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid., 40–41. 68. Ibid., 41–42. 69. Ibid., 42. 70. Ibid. 71. Kanan Makiya, Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994, 305). 72. Imad Salamey, The Government and Politics of Lebanon (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2014), 40. 73. Ibid., 40. 74. Ibid., 40–41. 75. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 389. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid., 391. 78. Salamey, The Government and Politics of Lebanon, 41. 79. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 391. 80. Salamey, The Government and Politics of Lebanon, 41–47. 81. Ibid., 54. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid., 56. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid., 57. 86. The Taif Agreement, I. General Principles, website of Permanent Missions to the United Nations, https://www.un.int/lebanon/sites/www.un.int/files/Lebanon/the_taif_agreement_ english _version.pdf (accessed March 5, 2018). That document has no page numbers. See also Salamey, The Government and Politics of Lebanon, 57. 87. The Taif Agreement, II. Political Reforms, A. Chamber of Deputies, B. President of Republic. 88. Ibid., II. Political Reforms, A. Chamber of Deputies. 89. Ibid., II. Political Reforms, G. Abolition of Political Sectarianism. 90. Ibid., G. Information, Liberating Lebanon from the Israeli Occupation. 91. Ibid., G. Information, Lebanese-Syrian Relations. 92. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 396–397. 93. Ibid. 94. Associated Press, “Aoun Family Goes to France,” The Journal Times, October 20, 1990, http://journaltimes.com/news/national/aoun-family-goes-to-france/article_6f46006e-89db -59db-a1b3-c204ef0cb6f1.html (accessed March 6,2018). 95. Marius Deeb, “The Christians of Lebanon: Surviving Amidst Chaos” in The Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East, ed. John Eibner (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2018), 187. 96. Cleveland and Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th ed., 397–398. 97. Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 43. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid., 44. 100. Ibid. 101. Ibid., 45. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid., 46. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid., 47.

198

Chapter 6

106. Ibid. 107. Ibid. 108. Ibid., 47–48. 109. Ibid., 48. 110. Stanford University, Mapping Militant Organizations, “Hezbollah,” Updated: August 5, 2016, http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/81?highlight= hezbollah (accessed March 7, 2018). 111. Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 49. 112. Ibid. 113. Ibid., 49–50. 114. Ibid., 50. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid., 51. 117. Ibid. 118. Ibid., 52. 119. Ibid. 120. Ibid., 53–55. 121. Ibid., 55–56. 122. Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai, Shi`ite Islam, trans. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1977), 212. 123. Anja Peleikis, Lebanese in Motion: Gender and the Making of a Translocal Village, (Piscataway, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2003), 118. 124. Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 56. 125. Laurence Louë r, Shiism and Politics in the Middle East, trans. John King. (London: Hurst, 2012), 7–10. 126. Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 56. 127. Ibid., 56–57. 128. Augustus Richard Norton, Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007), 32. 129. Norton, Hezbollah, 32–33. See also Hemda Ben-Yehuda and Shmuel Sandler, The ArabIsraeli Conflict Transformed: Fifty Years of Interstate and Ethnic Crises (State University of New York Press, 2002), 133–134. 130. Norton, Hezbollah, 33. 131. Ibid., 33–34. 132. Ibid., 34. 133. Ibid. 134. Ibid., 35–36, 135. Hezbollah, “Text of Open Letter Addressed by Hizb Allah [Hezbollah] to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World,” February 16, 1985, trans. Augustus Richard Norton, in Norton, Amal and the Shi`a, 167–187. 136. Hezbollah, “Text of Open Letter,” 183–184. 137. Ibid., 184. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid., 178. 140. Ibid., 173. 141. Norton, Hezbollah, 39. 142. Ibid. 143. “Terrorist Attacks on Americans: 1979–1988; April 18, 1983: Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut” Frontline, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service in the United States) https://www .pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html#12.12.1983 (accessed March 10, 2018). 144. W. Eugene March, Israel and the Politics of Land: A Theological Case Study (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1994), 38. See also Rod Paschall, “Lebanon, U.S. Military Involvement In,” in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, ed. John Whiteclay Chambers II (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999), 387.

Lebanon

199

145. “Terrorist Attacks on Americans: 1979–1988; October 23, 1983: Bombing of Marine Barracks in Beirut,” Frontline, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service in the United States) https:// www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html#12.12.1983 (accessed March 10, 2018). 146. Rod Paschall, “Lebanon, U.S. Military Involvement In,” 387. 147. Norton, Hezbollah, 41. 148. Alireza Jafarzadeh, The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 71. 149. Christin Marschall, Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy: From Khomeini to Khatami (London, UK: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 218, n. 77. 150. Norton, Hezbollah, 41–42. 151. Karen A. Feste, Terminate Terrorism: Framing, Gaming, and Negotiating Conflicts (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016), 154. See also “Israel Releases 15 Prisoners Despite New Violence in Lebanon,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 22, 1991, https://www.jta.org /1991/10/22/archive/israel-releases-15-prisoners-despite-new-violence-in-lebanon. 152. “16 Terrorists are Reported Freed from Kuwaiti Prison,” Deseret News, August 19, 1990, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/118049/16-terrorists-are-reported-freed-fromkuwai ti-prison.html (accessed March 13, 2018). 153. Norton, Hezbollah, 42. 154. Ibid. 155. “Israel Releases Final Group of Lebanese Detainees,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1985, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oFV5jteJ3KsJ:articles.latimes .com/1985-09-11/news/mn-7182_1_israel-releases-lebanese+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (accessed March 10, 2018). 156. “Terrorist Attacks on Americans: 1979–1988; June 14, 1985: Hijacking of TWA Flight 847,” Frontline, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service in the United States) https://www.pbs.org /wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html#12.121 983 (accessed March 10, 2018). 157. United Nations Security Council Resolution 520 (1982) on the official website of the United Nations, https://documents-dds-ny .un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN /NR0/435/44/IMG /NR043544.pdf?OpenElement (accessed March 13, 2018). United Nations Security Council Resolution 520 (1982) explicitly reaffirmed United Nations Security Council Resolutions 508 (1982), 509 (1982), and 516 (1982). The full texts of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 508 and 509 are on the official website of the United Nations at https://documents-dds-ny. un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/435/32/IMG/NR043532.pdf?OpenElement (accessed March 13, 2018). United Nations Security Council Resolution 516 (1982) is on the official website of the United Nations at https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/ NR0/435/40/IMG/NR043540.pdf?OpenElement (accessed March 13, 2018). 158. Norton, Hezbollah, 80. 159. Ibid. See also Naim Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story from Within, trans. Dalia Khalil (London, UK: Saqi Books, 2005), 89. 160. Norton, Hezbollah, 80. 161. Marjorie Miller, John Daniszewski, and Tracy Wilkinson, “Pullout from Lebanon: Israel Leaves South Lebanon after 22 Years,” Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2000, http://webcache .googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4uK7FH3SEJgJ:articles.latimes.com/2000/may/24 /news/mn-33497+&cd=18&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (accessed March 14, 2018). 162. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbullah: Politics and Religion (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2002), 127. 163. Norton, Hezbollah, 80–81. 164. Thomas L. Friedman, “Snipers in Beirut Kill a U.S. Marine and Hit 3 Others,” New York Times, October 17, 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/17/world/snipers-in-beirut-kill-a -us-marine-and-hit-3-others.html.

200

Chapter 6

165. Qassem, Hizbullah, 99. See also Richard Zoglin, Jay Peterzell, and Bruce van Voorst, “Did a Dead Man Tell No Tales? A Furor Erupts over the Disclosures in a Book about Bill Casey’s CIA,” Time, October 12, 1987, vol. 130, issue 15, 28. 166. Qassem, Hizbullah, 99. 167. Miller, Daniszewski, and Wilkinson, “Pullout from Lebanon: Israel Leaves South Lebanon after 22 Years,” op. cit. 168. Norton, Hezbollah, 81. See also Qassem, Hizbullah, 128. 169. Qassem, Hizbullah, 128. See also Gal Luft, “Israel’s Security Zone in Lebanon: A Tragedy?” Middle East Quarterly, September 2000, http://www.meforum.org/70/israels -security-zone-in-lebanon-a-tragedy (accessed March 14, 2018). 170. Qassem, Hizbullah, 129; Gal Luft, “Israel’s Security Zone in Lebanon: A Tragedy?” op. cit. 171. Qassem, Hizbullah, 130–131. 172. Lina Khatib, Dina Matar, and Atef Alshaer, The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014), 60. 173. The official website of the “Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark—Lebanon” is at https://mleeta.com/mleeta/eng/index.html (accessed March 15, 2018). 174. Esther Pan, “Middle East: Syria and Lebanon,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 22, 2005, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/middle-east-syria-and-lebanon (March 15, 2018). 175. Norton, Hezbollah, 90. 176. Ibid. See also Dominique Avon and Anais-Trissa Khatchadourian, Hezbollah: A History of the “Party of God,” trans. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012), 57–58. 177. Raffi Berg, “Israeli Views on Shebaa Farms Harden,” BBC News, August 25, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5281178.stm (accessed March 15, 2018). 178. Norton, Hezbollah, 91. 179. Ibid. 180. Ibid. 181. Ibid., 92. 182. “Israel, Hezbollah Swap Prisoners,” CNN, January 29, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2004 /WORLD/meast/01/29/prisoner.exchange/ (accessed March 16, 2018). 183. Norton, Hezbollah, 92. 184. Ibid. 185. Khatib, Matar, and Alshaer, The Hizbullah Phenomenon, 76. 186. Ibid. 187. Ibid. 188. Norton, Hezbollah, 128. See also Tobias Schwerna, Lebanon: A Model of Consociational Conflict (Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang, 2010), 53–55. 189. Schwerna, Lebanon, 53–55. 190. “Syrian Troops Leave Lebanon after 29-Year Occupation,” New York Times, April 26, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/international/middleeast/syrian-troops-leave -lebanon-after-29year-occupation.html (accessed March 17, 2018). 191. Avon and Khatchadourian, Hezbollah, 78. 192. “Memorandum of Understanding by Hezbollah and Free Patriotic Movement by General Michel Aoun [and] Hassan Nasrallah,” Voltaire Network, February 6, 2006, https://www .voltairenet.org/article163916.html (accessed November 20, 2019). 193. Ibid. 194. Norton, Hezbollah, 132–133. 195. Ibid. 196. Ibid., 133–134. 197. Ibid., 133. 198. Ibid., 133–134. 199. Ibid., 134. 200. Ibid. 201. Ibid., 135. 202. Ibid.

Lebanon

201

203. Ibid., 136. 204. Ibid. 205. Ibid., 136–137. 206. Ibid., 137. 207. Ibid. 208. Ibid., 138. 209. Avon and Khatchadourian, Hezbollah, 84. 210. Norton, Hezbollah, 138. 211. Ibid. 212. Human Rights Watch, “Why They Died: Civilian Casualties in Lebanon during the 2006 War,” September 2007, vol. 19, no. 5(E), 74–75, https://www.hrw.org/reports/2007 /lebanon0907/lebanon0907webwcover.pdf (accessed March 20, 2018). 213. Norton, Hezbollah, 139. 214. Ibid. 215. Ibid., 140. 216. Norton, Hezbollah, 140. 217. Ibid. 218. Ibid., 141. 219. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) on the website of The Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process at https://unsco .unmissions.org/sites/default/files/s_res_17012006.pdf (accessed March 20, 2018). 220. Norton, Hezbollah, 141. 221. Joseph Alagha, Hizbullah’s Identity Construction (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011), 127. 222. Ibid., 127–128. 223. “Middle East Crisis: Facts and Figures,” BBC News, August 31, 2006, http://news.bbc .co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5257128.stm (accessed March 22, 2018). See also Ali M. Kanso, Joseph Ajami, and Abdul Karim Sinno, “Lebanon; Risk Perception and Change Management: Strategic Efforts to Restore Lebanon’s Tourism Sector,” in Case Studies in Crisis Communication: International Perspectives on Hits and Misses, eds. Amiso M. George and Cornelius B. Pratt (New York: Routledge, 2012), 406. 224. “Middle East Crisis: Facts and Figures,” BBC News, August 31, 2006. 225. Alagha, Hizbullah’s Identity Construction, 128. 226. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006), 2–3. 227. Alagha, Hizbullah’s Identity Construction, 128. 228. Ibid. 229. Ibid., 128–129. 230. Ibid., 129. 231. Ibid. 232. Norton, Hezbollah, 107. 233. Ibid. 234. Ibid. 235. Ibid., 108. 236. Ibid. 237. Norton, Hezbollah, 109. See also Lamia Rustum Shehadeh, “Impact of Armed Conflict on Gender Roles in Lebanon,” in Gender and Violence in the Middle East, eds. Moha Ennaji and Fatima Sadiqi (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011), 84. 238. Norton, Hezbollah, 109–110. 239. Ibid., 110. 240. Ibid. 241. Catherine Le Thomas, “Socialization Agencies and Party Dynamics: Functions and Uses of Hizballah Schools in Lebanon,” in Returning to Political Parties? Partisan Logic and Political Transformations in the Arab World, eds. Myriam Catusse and Karam Karam (Beirut, Lebanon: Presses de l’Ifpo and the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, 2013), 217–249. See also Catherine Le Thomas, “Mobiliser la communauté: L’emergence d’un secteur éducatif

202

Chapter 6

chiite depuis les années 1960 au Liban” (doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Gilles Kepel, Institute d’Études Politiques, Paris, 2009), 16–23. 242. Avon and Khatchadourian, Hezbollah, 61. 243. Catherine Le Thomas, Les écoles chiites au Liban: construction communautaire et mobilisation politique (Paris: Karthala and Beirut, Lebanon: IFPO, 2012), 12–19. See also Catherine Le Thomas, Etudiants chiites à Beyrouth: trajectoires, aspirations, strategies (graduate thesis under the supervision of Gilles Kepel, Institut d’études politiques, Paris: 2003), 15–23. 244. Avon and Khatchadourian, Hezbollah, 61. 245. Ibid., 61–62. 246. Ibid., 62–64. 247. Ibid., 64. 248. Ibid., 64–65. 249. Avon and Khatchadourian, Hezbollah, 64–65. See also Khatib, Matar, and Alshaer, The Hizbullah Phenomenon, 1–12. 250. James Worrall, Simon Mabon, and Gordon Clubb, Hezbollah: From Islamic Resistance to Government (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2016), 92. 251. Ibid. 252. Ibid., 94. See also Taku Osoegawa, Syria and Lebanon: International Relations and Diplomacy in the Middle East (London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2013), 122. 253. Worrall, Mabon, and Clubb, Hezbollah, 94. 254. Yakshof, graph entitled “Elections, Official Results, Seats’ History,” https://www .lebaneseelections.com (accessed May 24, 2018). Yakshof is a news and data analytics firm based in Beirut, Lebanon. See https://www.corporate.yakshof.com (accessed May 24, 2018). 255. Worrall, Mabon, and Clubb, Hezbollah, 94. 256. Ibid. See also “Hezbollah, Amal Announce South Electoral List,” The Daily Star (Lebanon), March 25, 2018, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2018/Mar-25 /442930-hezbollah-amal-announce-south-electoral-list.ashx (accessed May 25, 2018). 257. Worrall, Mabon, and Clubb, Hezbollah, 97. 258. Authors’ conversations and observations in Lebanon between 2012 and 2019. 259. Hezbollah, “The New Hezbollah Manifesto: November 2009,” Lebanon Renaissance Foundation, http://www.lebanonrenaissance.org/assets/Uploads/15-The-New-Hezbollah-Mani festo-Nov09.pdf, 4–5 (accessed August 12, 2019). According to the Lebanon Renaissance Foundation’s website, it is a nonprofit organization which was established in Washington, DC as an independent, nongovernmental and nonsectarian educational organization. 260. Hezbollah, “The New Hezbollah Manifesto,” 5. 261. Ibid., 6. 262. Ibid. 263. Authors’ conversations and observations in Lebanon between 2012 and 2019. 264. Worrall, Mabon, and Clubb, Hezbollah, 97–98. 265. “U.S. and Gulf States Impose More Sanctions on Hezbollah Leaders,” Middle East Eye, May 16, 2018, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-gulf-states-sanction-hezbollah-leaders -492203809. 266. Anchal Vohra, “The Arab World’s Revolution against Sectarianism: Lebanon and Iraq are Rising Up against Constitutions that Have Empowered Religious Factions and Enabled their Corruption,” Foreign Policy, October 24, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/24 /lebanon-iraq-arab-world-wants-to-overthrow-sectarianism/ (accessed November 10, 2019).

Chapter Seven

Future Prospects—Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the United States

What are the prospects of the US relationships with Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon as well as Shias in those countries? In a related matter, what are the prospects of Iran protecting its own borders as well as its allies in the Middle East? With respect to the first question, although US influence in the Middle East and the world has been waning, it will continue to play a substantial role in Middle East politics in the future and matters related to Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon as well as Shias in those countries. IRAN Iran and the United States have sharp differences with each other, yet they also have areas of common interest. Ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution and that country’s taking of hostages in the US Embassy in Tehran beginning in 1979, the two countries have not had diplomatic relations and their relationship has usually been hostile. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, on May 21, 2018, US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, stated twelve demands that the United States would make on Iran, if the two countries were to negotiate a new deal about Iran’s nuclear program. He made this speech in the wake of President Trump’s announcement on May 8, 2018, declaring US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. Secretary Pompeo’s speech contains US grievances with Iran. Pompeo stated that Iran must:

203

204

Chapter 7

1. declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity; 2. stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, including Iran closing its heavy water reactor; 3. provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country; 4. end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems; 5. release all US citizens, as well as citizens of that country’s partners and allies, all of whom, from the perspective of the US government, Iran has held on spurious charges; 6. end support to militant groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad; 7. respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias; 8. end its military support for the Shia Houthi militia in Yemen and work toward a peaceful political settlement in that country; 9. withdraw all forces under Iranian command throughout Syria; 10. end support for the Taliban and other militant organizations in Afghanistan and the region, and cease harboring senior al-Qaida leaders; 11. end the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force’s support for Iran’s militant partners around the world; and 12. end its threatening behavior against its neighbors, many of whom are the US allies, including Iran’s threats to destroy Israel, and its firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as threats to international shipping and cyberattacks. 1 Yet, on July 30, 2018, two months after Pompeo announced the above principles, President Trump stated that he would meet with Iran’s leaders without preconditions and on June 30, 2019, Pompeo stated that the Trump administration was ready to negotiate with Iran’s leaders with “no preconditions.” 2 These circumstances create ambiguity with respect to the Trump administration’s stance on whether there are preconditions with respect to potential negotiations with Iran. 3 In response, the Iranian government states that 1. it has complied with all the terms of the JCPOA and the US withdrawal from that agreement was illegal; 2. its ballistic missile system exists so that Iran can defend itself against its adversaries which include Israel, the United States, and Saudi Arabia;

Future Prospects—Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the United States

205

3. it is holding US citizens, and citizens of that country’s partners and allies, on legitimate charges which include spying on Iran and attempting to do harm to that country; 4. it supports Hezbollah because it is a Shia ally which protects the interests of Lebanese Shias, and Lebanon as a whole, as well as the Syrian people in its alliance with Iran, Russia, and the Syrian government against Sunni Islamist groups such as ISIS; 5. it supports Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinians’ legitimate battles against Israel’s oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem; 6. it does recognize the sovereignty of Iraq’s government and supports the Iraqi Shia militias in that country in their struggles against ISIS, alQaida, and other Sunni Islamist organizations; 7. it supports the Shia Houthis in Yemen because they are defending themselves against Saudi Arabia’s, the United Arab Emirates’, alQaida’s, and ISIS’s Sunni aggression against the Houthis and other Shias in Yemen; 8. it has actively opposed the Taliban and al-Qaida and Sunni Islamist organizations, which are similar to them, because they are committed to overthrowing Iran’s Shia government; The Iranian government’s grievances against the United States include: 1. The US violation of the JCPOA by (a) withdrawing from it although Iran was complying; (b) maintaining certain sanctions against Iran that it promised to suspend; (c) encouraging other countries, who were parties to the JCPOA to not do business with Iran; and (d) blocking Iran’s access to international markets in areas of trade, technology, finance, and energy. 4 2. The US military presence in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, other Arab states in the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan, all of which pose threats to Iran; 3. The US support of Israel, which according to the Iranian government, is hostile to Iran and its allies in the Middle East; 4. The US support of spying and other clandestine activities in Iran; 5. The US policy of overthrowing Iran’s Islamic government (known as regime change) and replacing it with one that is friendly to the United States; While the differences between Iran and the United States are significant, the two sides have negotiated or cooperated with each other, directly or indirectly, on several occasions since the beginning of Iran’s Islamic Revolution which included (1) the two countries negotiating in 1970 and 1989 over the release of the American hostages, whom the Iranian government was

206

Chapter 7

holding; (2) the United States sending military supplies to Iran in the mid1980s in exchange for Iran using its influence to free American hostages, whom Shia groups were holding in Lebanon, in a deal known as the Iran–Contra Affair; 5 (3) Iran’s apprehending hundreds of al-Qaida members, sending them to Arab countries, and cooperating with the United States in its fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan after al-Qaida’s attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2011; 6 and (4) Iran and the United States negotiating between 2006 and 2015, in the context of the P5+1 countries, with respect to Iran’s nuclear program, which led to the JPCOA. On more than one occasion, President Trump has stated that he is willing to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran’s government, while Mike Pompeo has expressed a desire to engage Iran in negotiations for a comprehensive agreement leading to normalization of relations. 7 In spite of President Trump’s strident statements about Iran and other matters, he has shown a willingness to engage in diplomacy as his meetings with North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un on June 12, 2018, and Vladimir Putin on July 16, 2018, indicate. Although Iran’s leaders have categorically rejected such a meeting in view of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA and their overall distrust of the United States, the pressures which economic sanctions may place on Iran and political and economic protests in that country may compel the Iranian government to renegotiate the nuclear deal. Another potential threat which may encourage the Iranians to renegotiate could be the threat of the United States, Israel, or Saudi Arabia bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities as well as its ballistic missile and other military sites, which are significant threats that Iran faces with respect to its borders. 8 IRAQ While Iraq faces many threats including sectarian friction, violence, a weak economy, and a damaged infrastructure, ISIS reconstituting itself in that country is also posing a significant risk. The majority of remaining ISIS militants are Iraqis, not foreigners, which makes it difficult for the Iraqi government and the United States, which had fifty-two hundred soldiers in the country as of December 2017, to provide them with an incentive to leave Iraq. 9 ISIS reconstituted itself, in part, because it has capitalized on the dissatisfaction of Iraqi Sunnis in rural areas, which is where ISIS militants remained after the American, Iranian, and Iraqi militaries ejected them from urban areas. 10 Other factors, which contribute to ISIS’s strength include its robust national and international organization, a persuasive and unified religious and political worldview, and its promises to solve Iraq’s and the Middle East’s problems through a strong Sunni Islamic government and the implementation of a strict Sunni version of Islamic law. A weak Iraqi state author-

Future Prospects—Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the United States

207

ity, government corruption, and unreliable Iraqi state security forces may contribute to ISIS’s strength. ISIS has built its strategies on four geographic areas in Iraq where ISIS militants can hide without the local populations’ support. In the first area, ISIS has used the Hamrin Mountains in northeast Iraq as a base for ambushes and attacks on Iraqi state security forces. ISIS’s second operational area includes Samarra which ISIS uses as a fallback position when attacked. ISIS uses its third operational area, between Baghdad and Damascus, to engage in kidnappings and bombings, while disrupting trade and seizing commercial goods. ISIS’s fourth area is in the vast desert on Iraq’s borders with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, which it also uses to conduct operations. In contrast to ISIS’s 2014–2015 strategy, which targeted occupying Iraqi cities and areas along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, its subsequent strategy has involved ISIS operating as a guerilla force. ISIS is working in an environment where it can appeal to local Iraqi populations because, even though Iraq possesses large oil reserves, widespread smuggling in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan diverts money that could go to Iraq’s central government to ISIS. ISIS presents itself and its form of Sunni Islamic government as an honest and credible alternative to Iraq’s problems. A resurgent ISIS would pose serious problems for both the United States and Iran because that organization’s expansive network in Iraq, the Middle East, and other parts of the world would position it to continue its attacks on the United States, other Western targets, and Iran. As the US government considers the level of its military strength in Iraq and its relationships to the country as a whole, it must take into account ISIS’s continuing influence. 11 With respect to Iran, in view of the fact that in the 2018 Iraqi elections, Muqtada al-Sadr and other Iraqi Shia religious and political leaders used criticisms of Iran as ways of gaining votes, Iranian governmental officials may be considering how to maintain their influence in Iraq and defend against ISIS without continuing to alienate segments of Iraq’s Shia populations. LEBANON While Hezbollah has integrated itself into the governmental, social, religious, and educational fabric of Lebanon, it faces at least three significant threats: (1) a large-scale Israeli military attack against Hezbollah’s members and infrastructures in Lebanon and Syria; (2) sanctions which Hezbollah is currently experiencing at the hands of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States; and (3) Sunni Islamic militant groups such as ISIS, al-Qaida, and the Nusra Front which have been operating in Lebanon and Syria. 12 Israeli governmental leaders have repeatedly threatened to engage in military attacks against Lebanon and

208

Chapter 7

portions of Syria where Hezbollah soldiers are present because those governmental leaders believe that Hezbollah could use its military and the thousands of rockets and missiles, which it possesses, in an attack against Israel. Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah’s strident statements about Israel have intensified Israelis’ fears. 13 While Hezbollah and the Lebanese military may be able to defend Lebanon, an Israeli attack would severely weaken Hezbollah and Lebanon for several years, as both would invest finances, time, and effort into reconstruction. The sanctions against Hezbollah could impair all its activities. At the same time, because Hezbollah holds large assets and is deeply embedded in Lebanon’s economy, including its banks, the sanctions effect any Lebanese bank doing business with Hezbollah and could hamper Lebanon’s already slow economy. 14 Finally, Sunni Islamist groups in Syria, who have allies in Lebanon and want to continue violent militant attacks in that country, are a threat to substantial portions of Lebanon’s population, including Hezbollah, because of their desire to (1) retaliate against Lebanon and Hezbollah for siding with Syria’s government and its allies during Syria’s civil war and (2) establish a Sunni Islamic state that would include Lebanon. As the United States implements its policies toward Lebanon, to which the United States provided $1.5 billion in military assistance between 2007 and 2017, it must consider the negative effects which sanctions against Hezbollah will have on stability on Lebanon as a whole, given the significant impact which that organization has on Lebanon’s economy and politics. 15 Although Amal is separate from Hezbollah, it may face similar threats as that organization. Iran’s ability to maintain its interests in Lebanon and its support of Hezbollah depend on the effects that US sanctions against Iran will have on that country and Iran’s ability to sustain itself economically and politically in the face of those sanctions. While Hezbollah and Amal possess funding models, which may enable them to sustain themselves in the future, if sanctions against Iran, corruption within that country, and other factors weaken it politically and economically, Iran may find itself in a compromised position with respect to supporting Hezbollah and Amal thus creating potential financial problems for those organizations. The fear that Saudi Arabia, its mostly Sunni Middle Eastern allies, and the United States have of Iran’s creating an Iranian sphere of influence (or Shia Crescent)—including Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—and the strong military and political actions, which Iran’s adversaries have taken against Iran and its allies, also pose threats to Iran and its allies. 16 Deep-rooted hostilities in the region combined with the absence of diplomatic relations between the United States, on the one hand, and Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, on the other, portend a dire future for Sunni-Shia relations in the Middle East.

Future Prospects—Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the United States

209

NOTES 1. Mike Pompeo, “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy,” a speech to the Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, May 21, 2018, U.S. Department of State, https://www.state.gov/after -the-deal-a-new-iran-strategy/ (accessed August 5, 2018). 2. Edward Wong, “Trump Administration Says It Will Negotiate with Iran with ‘No Preconditions,’” New York Times, June 2, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/world/ middle east/us-iran-mike-pompeo.html (accessed July 2, 2019). 3. Ibid. 4. Darius Shahtahmasebi, “Iran Isn’t Violating the JCPOA Nuclear Agreement—America Is,” Global Research: Centre for Research on Globalization, May 2, 2018, https://www .globalresearch.ca/iran-isnt-violating-the-jcpoa-nuclear-agreement-america-is/5639055 (accessed August 5, 2018). 5. Jeffery Delviscio et al., “Iran, the United States and a Political Seesaw,” New York Times, April 7, 2012, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/07 /world/middleeast/iran-timeline.html#/#time5_211 (accessed August 5, 2018). 6. “Iran Gave U.S. Help on Al Qaeda after 9/11,” CBS News, October 7, 2008 https:// www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-gave-us-help-on-al-qaeda-after-9-11/ (accessed August 5, 2018). 7. Michael D. Shear and Rick Gladstone, “Trump Says He Would Meet with Iranian Leader, but Iran Rules It Out,” New York Times, July 30, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018 /07/30/us/politics/trump-iran-rouhani.html (accessed August 5, 2018). See also Zalmay Khalilzad, “Why Iran Will Choose to Negotiate with Trump,” Washington Post, June 13, 2018 https:/ /www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/06/13/heres-what-trump-should -do-next-on-iran/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.70834d8918fe (accessed August 5, 2018). 8. Khalilzad, “Why Iran Will Choose to Negotiate with Trump.” 9. Mohammed Tawfeeq, “U.S. Will Reduce Troop Levels in Iraq, Baghdad Says,” CNN, February 6, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/06/middleeast/american-troops-iraq-intl/in dex.html. 10. Geneive Abdo, “The Reality of Daesh [ISIS] in Iraq: Far from Dead,” Daily Star and Reuters, July 21, 2018, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2018/Jul-21/457349 -the-reality-of-daesh-in-iraq-far-from-dead.ashx (accessed August 5, 2018). 11. Ibid. 12. “U.S. and Gulf States Impose More Sanctions on Hezbollah Leaders,” Middle East Eye, May 17, 2018, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-gulf-states-sanction-hezbollah-leaders -492203809 (accessed August 5, 2018). 13. Ellen Francis and Laila Bassam, “Hezbollah Says Future War Would Be on Israeli Territory,” Reuters, May 11, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-hez bollah/hezbollah-says-future-war-would-be-on-israeli-territory-idUSKBN18728W (accessed August 5, 2018). 14. Nicholas Blanford, “U.S. Sanctions on Hezbollah Cause Fallout on Lebanon’s Economy,” The Arab Weekly, June 4, 2017, https://thearabweekly.com/us-sanctions-hezbollah-cause -fallout-lebanons-economy (accessed August 5, 2018). 15. Lisa Barrington, “Lebanese Army to Get $120 Million in U.S. Aid,” Reuters, December 13, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-military-usa/lebanese-army-to-get-120 -million-in-u-s-aid-idUSKBN1E72J6 (accessed August 6, 2018). 16. Anchal Vohra, “Threat of US Sanctions Looms over Lebanon’s Hezbollah Allies,” Al Jazeera, April 7, 2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/threat-sanctions-looms-leba non-hezbollah-allies-190407065855195.html (accessed June 15, 2019).

Bibliography

Abbas, Shemeem Burney. Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws: From Islamic Empires to the Taliban (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013). Abdo, Geneive. “The Reality of Daesh [ISIS] in Iraq: Far from Dead.” Daily Star and Reuters, July 21, 2018. Abdul-Raof, Hussein. Theological Approaches to Qur'anic Exegesis: A Practical Comparative-Contrastive Analysis (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2012). Abisaab, Rula Jurda and Malek Abisaab. The Shi`ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism, and Hizbullah's Islamists. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2014. Abrahamian, Ervand. The Coup, 1953, the CIA, and the Modern Roots of Modern U.S.— Iranian Relations. New York: The New Press, 2013. Abrahamian, Ervand. A History of Modern Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982). Adamec, Ludwig W. Historical Dictionary of Islam. 3rd ed. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. Adebahr, Cornelius. Europe and Iran: The Nuclear Deal and Beyond. London: Routledge, 2017. Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin, ed. A Critical Introduction to Khomeini. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Ahmad, Mahmoud and Khalil al-Anani, eds. Elections and Democratization in the Middle East: The Tenacious Search for Freedom, Justice, and Dignity. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014. Ahmadi, Kourosh. Islands and International Politics in the Persian Gulf: Abu Musa and the Tunbs in Strategic Perspective. London: Routledge, 2008. Ahmed, Nafeez. “Iraq Invasion Was about Oil,” The Guardian, March 20, 2014. Ajami, Riad A., Karel Cool, G. Jason Goddard, and Dara Khambata, International Business: Theory and Practice. 2nd ed. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2006. Alagha, Joseph. Hizbullah’s Identity Construction. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011. Alikhani, Hossein. Sanctioning Iran: Anatomy of a Failed Policy. London: I.B. Tauris, 2000. Alsultan, Fahad Mohammad and Pedram Saied. The Development of Saudi-Iranian Relations since the 1990s: Between Conflict and Accommodation. London: Routledge, 2017. Amanat, Abbas. Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi`ism. London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Amanat, Abbas. Iran: A Modern History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017.

211

212

Bibliography

Amineh, M. Parvizi, ed. The Greater Middle East in Global Politics: Social Science Perspectives on the Changing Geography of the World Politics. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Amirahmadi, Hooshang. Revolution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Experience. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. Amnesty International. “Iran 2016/2017.” https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east -and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/. Anderson, Liam and Gareth Stansfield. The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy, or Division? Updated ed. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. Apodaca, Clair. Understanding U.S. Human Rights Policy: A Paradoxical Legacy. New York: Routledge, 2006. Arango, Tim and Thomas Erdbrink. “U.S. and Iran Both Attack ISIS, but Try Not to Look Like Allies.” New York Times, December 3, 2014. Arjomand, Said Amir. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). Armajani, Jon. Dynamic Islam: Liberal Muslim Perspectives in a Transnational Age. University Press of America / Rowman and Littlefield Publishing, 2004. Armajani, Jon. Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Armajani, Yahya and Thomas M. Ricks. Middle East Past and Present. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1986. Associated Press, “Aoun Family Goes to France.” The Journal Times, October 20, 1990. Astarjian, Henry D. The Struggle for Kirkuk: The Rise of Hussein, Oil, and the Death of Tolerance in Iraq. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2007. Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Public Law 107–243.https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-116/pdf/STATUTE-116-Pg1498.pdf. Avon, Dominique and Anais-Trissa Khatchadourian. Hezbollah: A History of the “Party of God.” Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012. Axworthy, Michael. Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic. London: Allen Lane, 2013. Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura in Twelver Shi`ism. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978. Azad, Shirzad. Iran and China: A New Approach to Their Bilateral Relations. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2017. Baath Party. The 1968 Revolution in Iraq (The Political Report of the Eighth Congress of the Arab Baath Socialist Party in Iraq, January 1974). Translated by Iraq Ministry of Information. London: Ithaca Press, 1979. Bakhash, Shaul. The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution. Revised ed. New York: Basic Books, 1990. Baram, Amatzia, Achim Rohde, and Ronen Zeidel, eds. Iraq between Occupations: Perspectives from 1920 to the Present. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. Barker, A. J. The First Iraq War, 1914–1918: Britain's Mesopotamian Campaign. New York: Enigma Books, 2009. Barrington, Lisa. “Lebanese Army to Get $120 Million in U.S. Aid.” Reuters, December 13, 2017. Barrington, Lowell. Comparative Politics: Structures and Choices. 2nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth / Cengage Learning, 2013. Barrington, Lowell, Michael J. Bosia, Kathleen Bruhn, Susan Giaimo, and Dean E. McHenry Jr. Comparative Politics: Structures and Choices. Boston: Wadsworth / Cengage Learning, 2010. Ben-Yehuda, Hemda and Shmuel Sandler. The Arab-Israeli Conflict Transformed: Fifty Years of Interstate and Ethnic Crises. State University of New York Press, 2002. Bennett, Clinton. In Search of Muhammad. London, UK: Cassell, 1999. Berg, Raffi. “Israeli Views on Shebaa Farms Harden.” BBC News, August 25, 2006. “Israel, Hezbollah Swap Prisoners.” CNN, January 29, 2004.

Bibliography

213

Biddle, Stephen. Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004. Black, Ian. “ISIS Breach of Iraq-Syria Border Merges Two Wars into One ‘Nightmarish Reality.’” The Guardian, June 18, 2014. Blake, Kristen. The U.S.-Soviet Confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962: A Case in the Annals of the Cold War. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group / University Press of America, 2009. Blanford, Nicholas. “U.S. Sanctions on Hezbollah Cause Fallout on Lebanon’s Economy.” The Arab Weekly, June 4, 2017. Brenchley, Frank. Britain and the Middle East: An Economic History, 1945–1987. London: I.B. Tauris, 1989. Brockman, Norbert C. Encyclopedia of Sacred Places. 2nd ed. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Butenschon, Nils A. Uri Davis, Manuel Hassassian, eds. Citizenship and the State in the Middle East: Approaches and Applications. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Caraccilo, Dominic J. Beyond Guns and Steel: A War Termination Strategy. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger / ABC-CLO, 2011. Cashman, Greg and Leonard C. Robinson. An Introduction to the Causes of War: Patterns of Interstate Conflict from World War I to Iraq. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2007. Catusse, Myriam and Karam Karam, eds. Returning to Political Parties? Partisan Logic and Political Transformations in the Arab World. Beirut, Lebanon: Presses de l’Ifpo and the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, 2013. Censer, Jack R. Debating Modern Revolution: The Evolution of Revolutionary Ideas. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Cesari, Jocelyne. The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity, and the State. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Chambers II, John Whiteclay, ed. The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. Chernus, Ira. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. Chilcote, Ryan. “Iraq's New Unity Government Sworn In.” CNN, May 20, 2006. Christopher, Warren and Paul H. Kreisberg, eds. American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Clarke, J. I. and W. F. Fisher, eds. Populations of the Middle East and North Africa. London: University of London Press, 1972. Cleveland, William L. and Martin Bunton. A History of the Modern Middle East. 6th ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2016. Cockburn, Patrick. Muqtada al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq. New York: Scribner, 2008. Cohen, Amnon and Noga Efrati, eds. Post-Saddam Iraq: New Realities, Old Identities, Changing Patterns. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2011. Cole, Juan R. I. and Nikki Keddie, eds. Shi`ism and Social Protest. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Corboz, Elvire. Guardians of Shi`ism: Sacred Authority and Transnational Family Networks. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Cordesman, Anthony H. Iran’s Military Forces in Transition: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1999. Cordesman, Anthony H. with assistance from Emma R. Davies. Iraq’s Insurgency and the Road to Civil Conflict. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2008. Cushman Jr., John H. “U.S. Warships Set to Begin Escorts of Gulf Tankers.” New York Times, July 22, 1987. Daniel, Elton L. The History of Iran. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001. Danishjuyan-i musalman-i payraw-i khatt-i imam. Asnad-i lanah-i jasusi. Tehran: Danishjuyan-i musalman-i payraw-i khatt-i imam, n.d. [Muslims Students who Follow the Line of the

214

Bibliography

Imam, Documents from the Den of Espionage, Tehran: Muslim Students who Follow the Line of the Imam, n.d.]. De Groot, Joanna. Religion, Culture and Politics in Iran: From the Qajars to Khomeini. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. Debs, Alexandre and Nuno P. Monteiro. Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Dekmejian, R. Hrair. Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World. 2nd ed. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1995. Dekmejian, R. Hrair. Patterns of Political Leadership: Egypt, Israel, Lebanon. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975. Delviscio, Jeffery et al. “Iran, the United States and a Political Seesaw.” New York Times, April 7, 2012. Demir, Idris. Turkey’s Foreign Policy towards the Middle East: Under the Shadow of the Arab Spring. Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. Denny, Frederick Matthewson. An Introduction to Islam. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1994. DeRouen Jr., Karl and Paul Bellamy, eds. International Security and the United States: An Encyclopedia. Volume 1. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2008. Diggins, John Patrick. Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007. Dimaggio, Anthony R. Mass Media, Mass Propaganda: Examining American News in the “War on Terror.” Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2009. “Document 5: Talking Points, State Department, [for Alexander Haig meeting with Ronald Reagan], Top Secret/Sensitive, circa April 1981.” 2, National Security Archive. “Document 29: United States Interests Section in Iraq Cable from William L. Eagleton, Jr. to the United States Embassy in Jordan. ‘Talking Points for Amb. [Ambassador] Rumsfeld’s Meeting with Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein,’ December 14, 1983.” 2, National Security Archive. D’Souza, Diane. Partners of Zaynab: A Gendered Perspective of Shia Muslim Faith. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2014. Ebrahimi, Mansoureh. The British Role in Iranian Domestic Politics, 1951–1953. Switzerland: Springer, 2016. Ehteshami, Anoushiravan and Raymond A. Hinnebusch. Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System. London: Routledge / Taylor and Francis E-Library, 2002. Eibner, John, ed. The Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2018. Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘Atoms for Peace’ (8 December 1953).” University of Maryland, Voices of Democracy: The U.S. Oratory Project. http:// voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/eisenhower-atoms-for-peace-speech-text/. Elliot, Matthew. “Independent Iraq”: The Monarchy and British Influence, 1941–1958. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1996. Ennaji, Moha and Fatima Sadiqi, eds. Gender and Violence in the Middle East. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011. Entessar, Nader. Kurdish Politics in the Middle East. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2010. Epps, Valerie and Lorie Graham. Examples and Explanations for International Law. 2nd ed. New York: Wolters Kluwer Law and Business, 2015. Erdbrink, Thomas. “Iran Moderate Wins Presidency by a Large Margin.” New York Times, June 15, 2013. Farzaneh, Mateo Mohammad. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2015. Fattah, Halla and Frank Caso. A Brief History of Iraq. New York: Facts on File, 2009. Feener, R. Michael, ed. Islam in World Cultures: Contemporary Perspectives. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Feste, Karen A. Terminate Terrorism: Framing, Gaming, and Negotiating Conflicts. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016.

Bibliography

215

Fieldhouse, D. K. Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914–1958. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006. Fleet, Kate, Gudrun Kraemer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson, eds. Encyclopaedia of Islam: Online, Three. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2015. “France, Germany, Britain Formally Request Exemptions from U.S. Iran Sanctions.” Daily Star (Lebanon) and Agence France Presse, June 6, 2018. Francis, Ellen and Laila Bassam. “Hezbollah Says Future War Would Be on Israeli Territory.” Reuters, May 11, 2017. Friedman, Isaiah. British Miscalculations: The Rise of Muslim Nationalism, 1918–1925. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2012. Friedman, Thomas L. “Snipers in Beirut Kill a U.S. Marine and Hit 3 Others.” New York Times, October 17, 1983. Galbraith, Peter W. The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War without End. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006. Ganji, Manouchehr. Defying the Iranian Revolution: From a Minister to the Shah, to a Leader of Resistance. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2002. George, Amiso M. and Cornelius B. Pratt, eds. Case Studies in Crisis Communication: International Perspectives on Hits and Misses. New York: Routledge, 2012. Gillies, David, ed. Elections in Dangerous Places: Democracy and the Paradoxes of Peacebuilding. Montreal and Kingston, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011. Goldman, Jan, ed. The War on Terror Encyclopedia: From the Rise of Al-Qaeda to 9/11 and Beyond. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2014. Goldschmidt Jr., Arthur with Aomar Boum. A Concise History of the Middle East. 11th ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 2016. Gordon, Michael R. and David E. Sanger. “Deal Reached on Iran Nuclear Program; Limits on Fuel Would Lessen with Time.” New York Times, July 14, 2015. Graham, William A. Islamic and Comparative Religious Studies: Selected Writings. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010. Griffin, James M. A Smart Energy Policy: An Economist's Rx for Balancing Cheap, Clean, and Secure Energy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Gwertzman, Bernard. “U.S. Restores Full Ties with Iraq but Cites Neutrality in Gulf War.” New York Times, November 27, 1984. Hackett, Conrad and David McClendon. “Christians Remain World’s Largest Religious Group, but They Are Declining in Europe.” Pew Research Center, April 5, 2017. Hagopian, Elaine Catherine and Samih K. Farsoun, eds. South Lebanon. Detroit, Michigan: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1978. Halloran, Richard. “Iran Said to Use F-14's to Spot Targets.” New York Times, June 7, 1984. Hamoudi, Haider Ala. Negotiating in Civil Conflict: Constitutional Construction and Imperfect Bargaining in Iraq. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014. Harrison, Trevor W. and Slobodan Draculic, eds. Against Orthodoxy: Studies in Nationalism. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press (UBC Press), 2011. Heern, Zackery M. The Emergence of Modern Shi`ism: Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran. London: Oneworld, 2015. Hezbollah. “The New Hezbollah Manifesto: November 2009.” Lebanon Renaissance Foundation. http://www.lebanonrenaissance.org/assets/Uploads/15-The-New-Hezbollah-Manifesto -Nov09.pdf, 4–5. “Hezbollah, Amal Announce South Electoral List.” The Daily Star (Lebanon), March 25, 2018. Hinnebusch, Raymond A. The International Politics of the Middle East. 2nd ed. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2015. Hiro, Dilip. Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran after the Gulf Wars. London: Routledge, 2001. Holliday, Shabnam J. Defining Iran: Politics of Resistance. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016. Homayounvash, Mohammad. Iran and the Nuclear Question: History and Evolutionary Trajectory. London: Routledge, 2017. Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991.

216

Bibliography

Human Rights Watch. “Human Rights Watch World Report, 2003; Events of 2002: November 2001–November 2002.” New York: Human Rights Watch, 2003. Human Rights Watch. “Why They Died: Civilian Casualties in Lebanon during the 2006 War.” September 2007, vol. 19, no. 5(E). Hunter, Shireen T. Iran’s Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era: Resisting the New International Order. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2010. Hurst, Steven. The United States and Iraq since 1979: Hegemony, Oil and War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Imam Khomeini (Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini). Islam and Revolution I: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941–1980). Translated by Hamid Algar. N.p.: Mizan Press, 1981. Interim Constitution of the Republic of Iraq, 1970, in the Weekly Gazette of the Republic of Iraq, No. 10, March 10, 1971. Published by the Ministry of Information in Baghdad, Iraq, on the website of Human and Constitutional Rights. Arthur W. Diamond Law Library, Columbia University Law School, New York.http://www.hrcr.org/hottopics/statute/scans/iraq1 .pdf. International Atomic Energy Agency. “List of Member States.” https://www.iaea.org/about /governance/list-of-member-states. International Business Publications. Iraq Country Study Guide: Strategic Information and Developments. Volume 1. Washington, DC: International Business Publications, 2013. International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Military Balance 2010. Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2010. “Iran Gave U.S. Help on Al Qaeda after 9/11.” CBS News, October 7, 2008. “Iran Hostage Crisis Fast Facts.” CNN Library. October 29, 2016. “Iran’s Press TV Taken Off Air in N[orth] America.” Aljazeera, February 9, 2013. “Iraq Bombs Meeting of Daesh Leaders in Syria—Military.” Daily Star (Lebanon) and Reuters, June 23, 2018. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989. https://www .constituteproject.org/constitution/Iran_1989.pdf?lang=en. Ismael, Tareq Y., Jacqueline S. Ismael, and Glenn E. Perry. Government and Politics of the Contemporary Middle East: Continuity and Change. 2nd ed. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016. “Israel Releases 15 Prisoners Despite New Violence in Lebanon.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 22, 1991. “Israel Releases Final Group of Lebanese Detainees.” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1985. Jabar, Faleh A. The Shi`ite Movement in Iraq. London, UK: Saqi Books, 2003. Jachec-Neale, Agnieszka. The Concept of Military Objectives in International Law and Targeting Practice. London: Routledge, 2015. Jafarzadeh, Alireza. The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA]. Vienna, July 14, 2015. https://www.state.gov /documents/organization/245317.pdf. Kamrany, Nake M. and Megan Sieffert. “Estimating War Damages Sustained by Iraq (2003–2010).” Huffington Post, n.d. Katouzian, Homa. Iran: Politics, History and Literature. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013. Kaylan, Muammer. The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2005. Keddie, Nikki R. Iran and the Muslim World: Resistance and Revolution. London: MacMillan, 1995. Keddie, Nikki R. Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. Keddie, Nikki R. Women in the Middle East: Past and Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Kenney, Karen Latchana. Iran. Edina, Minnesota: Abdo Publishing, 2012. Kerr, Michael and Craig Larkin, eds. Alawis of Syria: War, Faith, and Politics in the Levant. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Bibliography

217

Keshavarzian, Arang. Bazaar and the State in Iran: Politics of the Tehran Marketplace. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Khalilzad, Zalmay. “Why Iran Will Choose to Negotiate with Trump.” Washington Post, June 13, 2018. Khatib, Lina, Dina Matar, and Atef Alshaer. The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014. al-Khoei, Hayder. “Moqtada al-Sadr Should Not Be Above the Law.” The Guardian, January 6, 2011. Khomeini, Ruhullah. Islam and Revolution. Translated by Hamid Algar. London: KPI, 1985. Khumayni, Ruh Allah. Islam and Revolution I: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941–1980). Translated by Hamid Algar (n.p.: Mizan Press, 1981). Kingsbury, Damien and Costas Laoutides, eds. Territorial Separatism in Global Politics: Causes, Outcomes and Resolution. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015. Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Times Books / Henry Holt and Company, 2006. Knysh, Alexander. Islam in Historical Perspective. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2017. Kubba, Juman. Meeting the New Iraq: A Memoir of Homecoming and Hope. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishers, 2013. Landler, Mark. “Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned.” New York Times, May 8, 2018. Lawrence, Bruce, ed. Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden. Translated by James Howarth. London: Verso, 2005. “Lebanon's Constitution of 1926 with Amendments through 2004.” Constitute. www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Lebanon_2004.pdf?lang=en. Lentz III, Harris M., ed. Heads of States and Governments since 1945: A Worldwide Encyclopedia of over 2,300 Leaders, 1945 through 1992. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013. Le Thomas, Catherine. Les écoles chiites au Liban: construction communautaire et mobilisation politique. Paris: Karthala and Beirut, Lebanon: IFPO, 2012. Le Thomas, Catherine. Etudiants chiites à Beyrouth: trajectoires, aspirations, strategies. Graduate thesis under the directorship of Gilles Kepel, Institute d’Études Politiques, Paris, 2003. Le Thomas, Catherine. “Mobiliser la communauté: L’emergence d’un secteur éducatif chiite depuis les années 1960 au Liban.” Doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Gilles Kepel, Institut d'études politiques, Paris, 2009. Lin, Shaopei and Zhen Huang. Comparative Design of Structures: Concepts and Methodologies. Heidelberg: Springer, 2016. Lindsay, James E. and Jon Armajani, eds. Historical Dimensions of Islam: Pre-Modern and Modern Periods; Essays in Honor of R. Stephen Humphreys. Princeton, New Jersey: Darwin Press, 2009. Lipka, Michael. “Muslims and Islam: Key Findings in the U.S. and around the World.” Pew Research Center, August 9, 2017. Logan, Joseph. “Last U.S. Troops Leave Iraq, Ending War.” Reuters, December 17, 2011. Loschky, Jay. “Most Iranians Say Sanctions Hurting Their Livelihoods, yet Majority Says Nuclear Power Should Still Move Forward.” Gallup News, November 6, 2013. Louë r, Laurence. Shiism and Politics in the Middle East. Translated by John King. London: Hurst, 2012. Louë r, Laurence. Sunnites et Chiites: Histoire politique d’une discorde. Paris: Seuil, 2017. Louë r, Laurence. Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Luft, Gal. “Israel’s Security Zone in Lebanon: A Tragedy?” Middle East Quarterly, September 2000. Luft, Gal and Anne Korin, eds. Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2009. Lung-chu Chen. An Introduction to Contemporary International Law: A Policy-Oriented Perspective. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

218

Bibliography

Macgregor, Douglas, Marvin Weinbaum, Abdullah Ansary, and Robert Pape. “The ‘Global War on Terror’: What Has Been Learned?” Middle East Policy, 15, Issue 4, (Winter 2008): 1–25. Macris, Jeffrey R. The Politics and Security of the Gulf: Anglo-American Hegemony and the Shaping of a Region. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2010. Makiya, Kanan. Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994. Maktabi, Rania. “The Lebanese Census of 1932 Revisited. Who Are the Lebanese? British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 26, no. 2 (November 1999), 219–241. Maloney, Suzanne. Iran's Long Reach: Iran as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008. March, W. Eugene. Israel and the Politics of Land: A Theological Case Study. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1994. Marcinkowski, Ismail M. Religion and Politics in Iraq: Muslim Shia Clerics between Quietism and Resistance. Singapore: Pustaka Nasional PTE, 2004. Marr, Phebe and Ibrahim al-Marashi. The Modern History of Iraq. 4th ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2017. Marschall, Christin. Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy: From Khomeini to Khatami. London, UK: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. N.p.: Marxists Internet Archive, 2010. Mavani, Hamid. Religious Authority and Political Thought in Twelver Shi`ism: From Ali to Post-Khomeini. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013. McGreevey, Robert M. “The Iranian Crisis and U.S. Law.” Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business, vol. 2, no. 2 (Autumn 1980): 386–388. “Memorandum of Understanding by Hezbollah and Free Patriotic Movement by General Michel Aoun [and] Hassan Nasrallah.” Voltaire Network, February 6, 2006. “Middle East Crisis: Facts and Figures,” BBC News, August 31, 2006. Miller, Marjorie, John Daniszewski, and Tracy Wilkinson. “Pullout from Lebanon: Israel Leaves South Lebanon after 22 Years.” Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2000. Mishal, Shaul and Ori Goldberg. Understanding Shiite Leadership: The Art of the Middle Ground in Iran and Lebanon. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Mistry, Dinshaw. Containing Missile Proliferation: Strategic Technology, Security Regimes, and International Cooperation in Arms Control. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. “Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark—Lebanon.” Official Website, https://mleeta.com /mleeta/eng/index.html Moin, Baqer. Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah. New York: Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press: 2001. Momen, Moojan. Shi`i Islam: A Beginner’s Guide. Oneworld Publications: London, UK: 2016. Moore, Molly. “2 Vincennes Officers Get Medals; Citations Do Not Mention Downing of Iranian Airliner That Killed 290.” Washington Post, April 23, 1990. Mortazavi, Negaro. “Iranian Leaders Declare Victory Over ’Enemies’ after Deadly Protests.” The Independent, November 20, 2019. Mottahedeh, Roy. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. Mousavian, Seyed Hossein with Shahir Shahidsaless. Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. Mufti, Malik. Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1996. Murphy, Sean D. United States Practice in International Law, 1999–2001. Vol. 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Nakash, Yitzhak. The Shi`is of Iraq. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. Nasr, Vali. The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006. Nelson, Michael, ed. Guide to the Presidency. Vols. 1–2. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1996.

Bibliography

219

Nestorovic, Cedomir. Islamic Marketing: Understanding the Socio-Economic, Cultural, and Politico-Legal Environment. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2016. Norton, Augustus Richard. “Al-Najaf: Its Resurgence as a Religious and University Center.” Middle East Policy 18, no. 1 (Spring 2011), 132–145. Norton, Augustus Richard. Amal and the Shi`a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1988. Norton, Augustus Richard. Hezbollah: A Short History. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007. Nuclear Threat Initiative. “Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and Partial Test Ban Treaty Membership.” http://www.nti.org/media/documents/apmctbt.pdf. Nuclear Threat Initiative. “Iran: Overview.” http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/iran/. Orlin, Eric, Lisbeth S. Fried, Jennifer Wright Knust, Michael L. Satlow, and Michael E. Pregill, eds., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions. New York: Routledge, 2016. Osman, Khalil F. Sectarianism in Iraq: The Making of State and Nation Since 1920. London: Routledge, 2015. Osoegawa, Taku. Syria and Lebanon: International Relations and Diplomacy in the Middle East. London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2013. Ostovar, Afshon. Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Otterman, Sharon. Iraq: Sunni and Shiite Unrest. Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, February 16, 2005. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/iraq-sunni-and-shiite-unrest. Paidar, Parvin. Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pan, Esther. “Middle East: Syria and Lebanon.” Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, February 22, 2005. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/middle-east-syria-and-lebanon. Pape, Ilan. Ten Myths about Israel. London, UK: Verso, 2017. Parker, Ned. “Divided Iraq Has Two Spy Agencies.” Los Angeles Times. April 15, 2007. Parsa, Misagh. Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution. New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press: 1989. Peters, F. E. Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pirzadeh, Ali. Iran Revisited: Exploring the Historical Roots of Culture, Economics, and Society. Switzerland: Springer, 2016. Plebani, Andrea, ed. After Mosul: Re-Inventing Iraq. Milan, Italy: Ledizioni LediPublishing, 2017. Pompeo, Mike. “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy.” A Speech to the Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, May 21, 2018, U.S. Department of State. Poulson, Stephen C. Social Movements in Twentieth Century Iran: Culture, Ideology, and Mobilizing Frameworks. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2006. “President Reagan’s Photo Opportunities on November 26–29, 1984: President Reagan Meeting with Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq in Oval Office on November 26.” Reagan Library, published on August 22, 2017. YouTube Video, 0:00-3:34. https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=wircTm08fFk. Qassem, Naim. Hizbullah: The Story from Within. Translated by Dalia Khalil. London, UK: Saqi Books, 2005. Rahnema, Ali. An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shariati. London: I.B. Tauris, 2000. Rajan, V. G. Julie. Al Qaeda’s Global Crisis: The Islamic State, Takfir, and the Genocide of Muslims. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015. Ramazani, Rouhollah K. “Document: Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran [which is the 1979 version of the constitution].” Middle East Journal 34, no. 2 (Spring 1980): 181–182. “Read the Full Transcript of Trump’s Speech on the Iran Nuclear Deal.” New York Times, May 8, 2018. Reardon, Robert J. Containing Iran: Strategies for Addressing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge. Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, 2012.

220

Bibliography

Rezaie, Farhad. Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Study in Proliferation and Rollback. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan / Springer, 2017. Rieffer-Flanagan, Barbara Ann. Evolving Iran: An Introduction to Politics and Problems in the Islamic Republic. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013. Ritter, Daniel P. The Iron Cage of Liberalism: International Politics and Unarmed Revolutions in Middle East and North Africa. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2015. Roberts, Joel. “Arrest Warrant for Iraqi Cleric.” CBS News, April 5, 2004. Robertson, John. Iraq: A History. London: Oneworld, 2015. Rolland, John C., ed. Lebanon: Current Issues and Background. Hauppauge, New York: Nova Publishers, 2003. Roshandel, Jalil with Nathan Chapman Lean. Iran, Israel, and the United States: Regime Security vs. Political Legitimacy. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2011. Rowell, Rebecca. Iraq. Edina, Minnesota: Abdo Publishing, 2012. Ryan, Greg. U.S. Foreign Policy towards China, Cuba and Iran: The Politics of Recognition. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018. Saad-Ghorayeb, Amal. Hizbullah: Politics and Religion. London, UK: Pluto Press, 2002. Saffari, Siavash. Beyond Shariati: Modernity, Cosmopolitanism, and Islam in Iranian Political Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Salamey, Imad. The Government and Politics of Lebanon. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2014. Sanger, David E. “Iran Breaches Critical Limit on Nuclear Fuel Set by 2015 Deal.” New York Times, July 1, 2019. Sardar, Ziauddin and Merryl Wyn Davies. The No-Nonsense Guide to Islam. London, UK: New Internationalist Publications / Verso, 2004. Schmitt, Eric. “Thousands of ISIS Fighters Flee in Syria, Many to Fight Another Day.” New York Times, February 4, 2018. Schwerna, Tobias. Lebanon: A Model of Consociational Conflict. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang, 2010. Sciolino, Elaine. Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran. New York: Touchstone / Simon and Schuster, 2000. Sciolino, Elaine. “7 Years after Embassy Seizure, Iran Still Prints U.S. Secrets.” New York Times, July 10, 1986. Seliktar, Ofira. Navigating Iran: From Carter to Obama. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012. Shaery-Eisenlohr, Roschanack. Shi`ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Shahtahmasebi, Darius. “Iran Isn’t Violating the JCPOA Nuclear Agreement—America Is.” Global Research: Centre for Research on Globalization, May 2, 2018. Shanahan, Rodger. The Shi`a of Lebanon: Clans, Parties and Clerics. London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2005. Shear, Michael D. and Rick Gladstone. “Trump Says He Would Meet with Iranian Leader, but Iran Rules It Out.” New York Times, July 30, 2018. Shultz, George P. Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State. New York: Scribner, 1993. Shuster, Mike. “The Origins of the Shiite-Sunni Split.” NPR, February 12, 2007. Simon, Reeva Spector. Iraq between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny. Updated ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. “16 Terrorists Are Reported Freed from Kuwaiti Prison.” Deseret News, August 19, 1990. Sluglett, Peter. Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. Smith, Saphora. “Foreign Firms Doing Business in Iran May Face Sanctions, U.S. Warns.” NBC News, May 9, 2018. Spellman, Kathryn. Religion and Nation: Iranian Local and Transnational Networks in Britain. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle and Ali Mohammadi. Small Media, Big Revolution: Communication, Culture, and the Iranian Revolution. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

Bibliography

221

Stanford University, Mapping Militant Organizations. “Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.” Updated: August 5, 2012. Stephan, Maria J., ed. Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. “Syrian Troops Leave Lebanon after 29-Year Occupation.” New York Times, April 26, 2005. Tabataba’i, Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn. Shi`ite Islam. Translated by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1977. The Taif Agreement. Website of Permanent Missions to the United Nations. https:// www.un.int/lebanon/sites/www.un.int/files/Lebanon/the_taif_agreement_english _version.pdf. Tawfeeq, Mohammed. “U.S. Will Reduce Troop Levels in Iraq, Baghdad Says.” CNN, February 6, 2018. “Terrorist Attacks on Americans: 1979–1988; April 18, 1983: Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut.” Frontline. PBS. “Text of Agreement between Iran and the U.S. to Resolve the Hostage Situation.” New York Times, January 20, 1981. Thesiger, Wilfred. The Marsh Arabs. London, UK: Penguin Books, 2007. Tiliouine, Habib and Richard J. Estes, eds. The State of Social Progress of Islamic Societies: Social, Economic, Political, and Ideological Challenges. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2016. Traboulsi, Fawwaz. A History of Modern Lebanon. 2nd ed. London: Pluto Press, 2012. Trenta, Luca. Risk and Presidential Decision-Making: The Emergence of Foreign Policy Crises. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016. Tucker, Spencer C., ed. The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2010. Tucker, Spencer C., ed. U.S. Conflicts in the 21st Century: Afghanistan War, Iraq War, and the War on Terror. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2016. Turley, Jeffrey S. and George Bryan Souza. The Commentaries of D. García de Silva y Figueroa on his Embassy to Shah Abbas I of Persia on Behalf of Philip III, King of Spain. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Turner, Barry, ed. The Statesman’s Yearbook 2007: The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. Turner, Barry, ed. The Statesman’s Yearbook 2008: The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007. United Nations Peacemaker, Document Retrieval. “Security Council Resolution 598: IraqIslamic Republic of Iran, Summary.” July 20, 1987. http://peacemaker.un.org/iraqiranresolution598. United Nations Peacemaker, Document Retrieval. “The Situation between Iran and Iraq.” 1987. http://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IQ%20IR_870720_Security %20Council%20Resolution%20598%20%281987%29.pdf. United Nations Security Council Resolutions 508, 509, 516, and 520 (1982). United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002). United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006). United Nations Treaties. “Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water [Signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963].” https://treaties.un.org /pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=08000002801313d9. “US Calls for an End to Iran-Iraq Fighting.” The Christian Science Monitor, July 15, 1982. “U.S. and Gulf States Impose More Sanctions on Hezbollah Leaders.” Middle East Eye, May 16, 2018. Van der Leeuw, Gerardus. Religion in Essence and Manifestation. Translated by J. E. Turner. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986. Vohra, Anchal. “Threat of US Sanctions Looms over Lebanon’s Hezbollah Allies.” Aljazeera, April 7, 2019. Warburg, Gabriel. Islam, Sectarianism, and Politics in Sudan since the Mahdiyya. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. Watling, Jack. “The Shia Militias of Iraq.” The Atlantic, December 22, 2016.

222

Bibliography

Watts, James N. Iranian Influence in Iraqi Shi`a Groups. Master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, June 2012. Wiley, Joyce N. The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi`as. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992. Wilson, Arnold Talbot. Mesopotamia, 1917–1920: A Clash of Loyalties; A Personal and Historical Record. London: Oxford University Press / H. Milford, 1931. Winkler, Carol K. In the Name of Terrorism: Presidents on Political Violence in the Post–World War II Era. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Wintour, Patrick. “Iran Resumes Uranium Enrichment in New Step Away from Nuclear Deal: Nation has Inched Away from 2015 Agreement after Donald Trump Imposed Tough U.S. Sanctions.” The Guardian, November 5, 2019. Wong, Edward. “Trump Administration Says It Will Negotiate with Iran with ‘No Preconditions.’” New York Times, June 2, 2019. The World Bank. “Mortality Rate, Infant (per 1,000 Live Births).” https://data.worldbank.org /indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN. World Health Organization. “New Study Estimates 151,000 Violent Iraqi Deaths since 2003 Invasion.” News Release from World Health Organization, January 9, 2008. http://www .who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr02/en/. “World Must Withstand Law-Breaking U.S. Behavior: Iran FM [Foreign Minister].” Press TV, June 3, 2018. Worrall, James, Simon Mabon, and Gordon Clubb. Hezbollah: From Islamic Resistance to Government. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2016. Wright, Robin. The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran. New York: Vintage Books, 2001. Zaid, al-Ali. “Can Anyone Stop Iran from Taking over Iraq?” The Independent, August 17, 2017. Zoglin, Richard, Jay Peterzell, and Bruce van Voorst. “Did a Dead Man Tell No Tales? A Furor Erupts over the Disclosures in a Book about Bill Casey’s CIA.” Time, October 12, 1987, vol. 130, issue 15, 28.

Index

al-Abadi, Haider, 140 Abu Bakr, 6–8, 11 Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi Tusi. See Ferdowsi AEOI. See Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Afghanistan, 24, 128 al-Ahd, 190 al-Ahdab, Khayr al-Din, 154 ahl al-kitab. See People of the Book Ahmad Shah Qajar, 30, 31 AIOC. See Anglo Iranian Oil Company Aisha, 6 Algiers Accords, 67, 69, 73 Ali ibn Abi Talib, 6–7, 16–17 Allawi, Ayad, 133, 134 Amal movement, 20, 103, 180–181, 188; Civil War and, 167–170; Hezbollah and, 190–191, 193; Iran's Islamic Revolution, Hezbollah and, 171–175; revolutionary patterns, of Hezbollah and, 193–195; strengthening of, 169–170. See also Shia Amal movement, Musa al-Sadr as founder of Amal Party, Lebanon, 180–181, 191 American intelligence agencies, 66 American involvement, in Iran, 35–36 Amnesty International, 51 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), 34, 37, 38 Anglo-Iraqi Treaty, 95, 96 Anglo-Persian Agreement, 30–31

Anglo-Persian Oil Company. See Anglo Iranian Oil Company anti-American attitudes, 35, 66 anti-American insurgency, in Iraq, 131 Aoun, Michel, 166–167, 180 Arabian Wahhabis, 96 Arab-Israeli War, 71 Arab Spring, Syria civil war and, 142–143 Arab Sunnis, 135 Arab Tripartite Committee, 165 Arif, Abdul Salam, 108–109 Askari Mosque, Iraq, 136, 137, 141 al-Assad, Bashar, 142 assassination, of Hariri, R., 179–181 Assembly of Experts, 58, 59, 60 Association for the Wounded, 189 Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), 75 Atoms for Peace program, 74 attacks: on Kuwait, 123, 146n1; on U.S. Embassy, in Beirut, 173–174; on World Trade Center and Pentagon, 127–128, 206. See also Hezbollah, attacks by Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002, 129–130 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. See Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah Aziz, Tariq, 71 Baalbek rally, of al-Sadr, Musa, 168–169 223

224

Index

Baath and Sunni power: Arif, Abdul Salam relating to, 108–109; communists relating to, 108; al-Hakim, Muhsin, relating to, 105, 109–110; Iraqi government violence relating to, 108–110; strengthening of, 108–110 Baath Party, Shias and, 102–103, 111; Dawa Party relating to, 111; Iraqi government policies with, 111–112; new constitution relating to, 111; preIslamic history with, 111; protests relating to, 112–115 Badr Brigade (Iraq), 136, 143 al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr, 141 Bakhtiar, Shapour, 56–57, 57 al-Bakr, Ahmad Hasan, 109 Banisadr, Abolhassan, 68 al-Banna, Hassan, 194 Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, 74 Basra, Iraq, 124 Battle of Karbala, 12 Bazargan, Mehdi, 51–52, 57–58 Beirut, Embassy takeover in, 173–174 Beirut barracks bombings, in 1983, 173–174 Beirut International Airport, 173–174 Benevolent Charity Society, 188 bin Laden, Usama, 127–128, 147n28 Book of Kings. See Shahnameh Britain, 28–29; during nineteenth century, 23–24; oil interests of, 34–35; during and after World War I, 29–31 British colonization, 19 British in Iraq, during World War I, 90–91, 91–95 British occupation, Iraq opposition to, 91; religious celebrations relating to, 94; revolts relating to, 92–95; sayyids relating to, 92; Shia clergy relating to, 92–93 British Petroleum, 40 Bush, George W., 128–129 Bushehr, nuclear plant near, 75 Cairo Conference, 95 caliphs, 6, 12, 17 Camp David Accords, 172 Carter, Jimmy, 51, 67, 69

Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. (CIA), 66, 68, 173 Chamber of Deputies, Lebanon. See Parliament of Lebanon CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. Civil War, Amal movement and, 167–170 Civil War, in Lebanon, 162, 165; militias relating to, 164; Muslim population urbanization during, 162–163; Palestinians involved with, 163–164; rural development relating to, 163 Coalition Provisional Authority, 132 colonization, 3, 19 communism, 158–159, 159–160. See also Shias, communism and communists, arrest and killing of, 108 Constituent Assembly, Iraq. See Iraqi Constituent Assembly constitution, 111, 155–156; in Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 134, 135; of Shia Islamic Republic, 58–59 Constitutional Bloc political party, in Lebanon, 154, 155 constitutional democracy, in Lebanon, 153; chamber of deputies with, 153, 155; Edde with, 154, 155; al-Khuri with, 154, 155, 156–157; Maronite Christians with, 154–155; National Pact of 1943 relating to, 153; president with, 153 constitutional foundations, of Iran Islamic Revolution, 59, 60–61; Articles of, 59; Assembly of Experts, 58, 59, 60; Council of Ministers, 61; Expediency Council, 59, 62; foreigner concessions relating to, 62; Guardian Council relating to, 60, 61–62; military commitment relating to, 62; 1979 constitution, 59, 60, 62; 1989 constitution, 59, 60, 62; representatives relating to, 62; rule of God law promoted with, 63 Constitution of 1926, Lebanon, 19, 153 conversion, during Safavid Dynasty, 17 Council of Ministers, 61 Council of the Islamic Republic, 57–58 Council of the South, 168 coups: Iranian coup d'état of 1953, 39, 68, 69; July 14 Revolution, 105; against Mosaddegh, 38–39, 66, 68, 69

Index D'Arcy, William Knox, 26, 34 Dawa Party, 19, 103, 105, 106, 111, 134, 135, 138; clergy relating to, 103–104, 105, 106, 108; functions of, 104–105; goals of, 104; message spread by, 107–108; al-Sadr, M. B., relating to, 103–104; Shia religious establishment founding, 103; young Shias in, 104, 105 Day of Ashura, 12 deaths: of Khomeini, 54, 59, 65; of Muhammad, 6, 11; during revolutionary protests, 55–57. See also executions; martyrdom de-Baathification, 131, 132 democracy, in Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 134; constitution with, 134, 135; devastation with, 144–146; elections with, 134; parties established with, 134–135; provincial governments with, 134 devastation, in Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 144–146 al-Din, Mozaffar (king), 26, 27–28 al-Din Shah, Nasser, 25 diplomatic relationships, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and, 40 Divine Victory Parade, 187 Document of National Accord, Lebanon. See Taif Agreement E3+3 countries. See P5+1 countries Edde, Emile, 154, 155 Eisenhower, Dwight, 74 elections, in Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 134 embassy documents, taken during Iranian Hostage Crisis, 66, 68, 84n120 embassy takeovers, 65, 173–174 Etemad, Akbar, 75 executions, 65, 137, 140–141 exile, of Khomeini, 41, 53 Expediency Council, 59, 62 Fadlallah, Mohammad Hussein, 159, 184, 188–189 Faisal I (king), 95–96, 97 Faisal II (king), 102 Ferdowsi, 17 financial donors, with Hezbollah, 188–189

225

5+1 group. See P5+1 countries foreign dealmaking, in Iran, 26–27 foreigner concessions, with constitutional foundations, 62 foreign interference suspicions, during Islamic Revolution, 36, 78–80 Franco-Lebanese treaty, 154 Freedom Movement of Iran, 51–52, 56, 57 Free Patriotic Movement in Lebanon, 180, 191 French colonialism and Maronite Christians, in Lebanon, 151–152 future prospects, of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the United States, 20, 203–208 Gabriel, 5 Gaddafi, Muammar, 171 The Global War on Terror, 128 God, 4–5, 63 Gouraud, Henri, 151, 151–152 Great Britain. See Britain Greater Lebanon, 151, 152, 153, 155–156 Great Satan, U.S. as, 66 Guardian Council, 60, 61–62 Gulf War (1990-1991). See Persian Gulf War The Hadith, 4, 4–5, 16, 54, 104, 108 hadiths, 13, 14, 160 al-Hakim, Mahdi, 109 al-Hakim, Muhsin, 105, 109–110 Hamas, 182 Hanit (Israeli naval ship), 183 Harakat al-Mahrumin (Movement of the Deprived), 169 Hariri, Rafic, 179–181 Hariri, Saad, 181 Hasan (second Imam), 9 al-Hashd al-Shaabi. See Popular Mobilization Forces healthcare system improvement policy, of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 43 Helleu, Jean, 156 Heritage Foundation, 203 Hezbollah, 20, 69, 115, 169, 207–208; demands and responses of, 181; focus of, 177; Iman Husayn martyrdom and, 175–177; Iran's Islamic Revolution, Amal, and, 171–175; leaders of,

226

Index

158–159; in Lebanese politics, 190–193; Open Letter of, 173; Palestinians and, 179; post-2006 military strategy and, 186–187; prisoner exchange with, 174–175; revolutionary patterns of Amal and, 193–195; Shia militancy and, 177–179; 2009 Manifesto of, 192. See also Lebanon, Hezbollah and Hezbollah, attacks by, 175; on Israel, 177–179; kidnappings, 174; TWA flight 847 hijacking, 174; on U.S. Embassy, in Beirut, 173–174 Hezbollah, social services, education, media and, 187; associations for, 188, 189; educational institutions for, 189–190; Fadlallah impact on, 188–189; financial donors impact on, 188–189; human nation-state relating to, 188 Hezbollah-Israel War of 2006, 178, 182; air power used in, 183–184; ceasefire in, 185; destabilizing influence of, 183; Hamas involved in, 182; IOUs used in, 185; Lebanese prisoners involved in, 182–183; Palestinians involved in, 182; rockets used in, 184; victory declared in, 185–186 Hezbollah Women's Committee, 189 Hidden Imam, Mahdi as, 13 hijacking, of Transworld Airlines airplane, in 1985, 174 Hisbullah. See Hezbollah Hizballah. See Hezbollah Hrawi, Elias, 165 human nation-state, 188 Hussein, Saddam, 124; execution of, 137; during Iran-Iraq War, 2, 69, 70, 71, 73; as Iraq president, 19, 113–114, 116, 126, 128; Kuwait attacked by, 123, 146n1; U.S. invasion of Iraq relating to, 128–132 IAEA. See International Atomic Energy Agency ibn Ali, Husayn (third Imam). see Imam Husayn ICP. See Iraqi Communist Party IGC. See Iraqi Governing Council

IIG. See Iraqi Interim Government ijtihad, 104 Imam Ali. See Ali ibn Abi Talib Imam Husayn, 9, 12, 89, 93, 161 Imam Husayn, martyrdom of, 8; in Mecca, 9–10; reenactment of, 8; in Shia history, consciousness and rituals, 11–12; Umayyad military relating to, 9, 10–11, 12 Imam Husayn Shrine, in Karbala, Iraq, 12 Imam Khoei orphanage, 188 Imams: Hasan, 9; Shia, 54, 104, 146. See also Twelfth Imam; Twelve Imams Iman Husayn martyrdom, Hezbollah and, 175–177 imprisonment, of, Khomeini, 53 independence: of Iran, 97–98; of Iraq, 95–98 al-Initiqad, 190 intellectual currents, with Iran Islamic Revolution, 51–53 Interim Governing Council. See Iraqi Governing Council International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 74, 77, 204 Iran: Basra in, 124; geopolitics of, 1; Iraq, Lebanon, and, 18–20; in Iraq, 116; in nineteenth century, 23–24; oil reserves in, 1; population of, 1; sanctions against, 76–77; Shia Islam in, 1–2, 2; U.S. Middle East policy with, 1 Iran, during and after World War II, 35; American involvement in, 35–36; foreign interference in, 36; neutral zone in, 35; occupation of, 35, 92; political instability in, 36 Iran, during Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties, 23, 23–24, 65; Constitutional Revolution, 1905-1911, 26, 27–29, 29–30, 47, 54, 55, 80; Mohammad Mosaddegh relating to, 36–39; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, westernization and secularization, 31–33; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Iran Shia institutions, 44–45; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and postMosaddegh period, 39–42, 44, 46, 47; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi policies during 1960s and 1970s, 42–44; more

Index foreign dealmaking, 26–27; revolutionary prospects in, 45–47; Reza Shah, Iran's economy, and oil, 33–35; Russia, Britain, Iran, Soviet Union and, 29–31; Tobacco Protest, 25–26, 29, 47, 54, 80 Iran, from end of World War I to 1990, 89–90; Baath and Sunni power, 108–110; Baath Party and Shias influence, 111–112; Dawa Party, 103–108; independence in, 97–98; Iran in Iraq, 116; opposing British, 91–95; seeds of Iraqi independence in, 95–97; Shia protests, 112–115; Shia resistance, militarization of, 115; Shias and Baath Party, 102–103, 111–115; Shias and communism, 99–102; Shia-Sunni competition, in 1940s and 1950s, 98–99; World War I, 90–91 Iran, future prospects with, 20, 203; Iranian government response relating to, 204–205; negotiations relating to, 205–206; Pompeo relating to, 203–204, 206 Iran Air Flight 655. See Iranian passenger jet, shooting down of Iran Constitutional Revolution, 1905-1911, 26, 27, 47, 54, 80; Mosaddegh rise to power during, 29–30, 55; Shia clergy role in, 27–29; Supplementary Fundamental Laws in, 28 Iran during the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties, 18–19 Iranian coup d'état of 1953, 39, 68, 69 Iranian government response, to future prospects, 204–205 Iranian Hostage Crisis (1979-1981), 58; Algiers Accords relating to, 67, 69, 73; American intelligence agencies during, 66; Central Intelligence Agency during, 66, 68; embassy documents taken during, 66, 68, 84n120; hostage release conditions with, 67; Iranian students involved in, 65–66; Iran-United States relations during, 66, 68–69; Khomeini relating to, 65–67; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi relating to, 66; negotiations during, 67, 68; Reagan during, 67, 69–71

227

Iranian passenger jet, shooting down of, 71; crew member commendations relating to, 72–73; by USS Vincennes, 71–73, 86n174 Iranians, pro-monarchical, 65 Iranian students, Iranian Hostage Crisis and, 65–66 Iran-Iraq War, 65, 69, 69–70, 73, 116; factors for, 69; Hussein during, 2, 69, 70, 71, 73; oil involved with, 71; threats faced during, 76 Iran Islamic Republic, xi–xii, 3 Iran Islamic Revolution, 1979, xi–xii, 1, 15, 19, 26; aftermath of, 51, 66, 69, 115, 124; constitutional foundations relating to, 59–63; factors relating to, 29, 30, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 45–47; foreign interference suspicions during, 78–80; intellectual currents with, 51–53; Iranian passenger jet shot down, 71–73; Iran nuclear program during, 74–77; JCPOA relating to, 77–78; Khomeini during, 41, 46–47, 52–55, 56–57, 113; Khomeini return to Iran, 51, 57–58, 110; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during, 51–53, 55–57, 57; promonarchical Iranians during, 65; revolutionary protests during, 55–57; Shia Islamic Republic established during, 58–59; Shia principles relating to, 63–65; U.S. resistance during, 65–69. See also Iran-Iraq War Iran Islamic Revolution, Amal, Hezbollah and, 171–175 Iran Nuclear Accords. See Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran nuclear program, 74–77 Iran Prime Minister, Mosaddegh as, 29, 34, 36, 37–38, 47 Iran Shia institutions, 44–45 Iran's Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath, 19 Iran-United States relations, during Iranian Hostage Crisis, 66, 68–69 Iraq: anti-American insurgency in, 131; boundaries of, 90–91; British in, 90–91, 91–95; future prospects for, 20, 203–208; Karbala in, 10, 12, 89, 95–96, 101, 124, 175; Lebanon, Iran and,

228

Index

18–20; Ottoman presence in, 91–92; U.S. invasion of, 128–132 Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 19, 123–124; democracy, devastation and, 144–146; democracy in, 134–135; Islamic state in Syria and, 138–140, 141; post-Gulf War Shia revolts and Iraqi government, 124–126; al-Qaida in, 137–138; Shia Mahdi army, 132–133; Shia secularist responses, 133–134; Shia-Sunni conflict escalation, 136–137; World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, 127–128, 206 Iraq from 1990 and beyond, ISIS in, 140–141; Arab Spring, Syria civil war and, 142–143; al-Baghdadi and, 141; Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vs., 143–144; Iraqi Shia adversaries and, 143; weakening of, 144 Iraq from 1990 and beyond, U.S. in, 128–132 Iraq from the End of World War I to 1990, 19 Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), 100, 101, 102, 103, 108, 123 Iraqi Constituent Assembly, 96 Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, 135 Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), 131, 133 Iraqi government: policies of, with Baath Party, 111–112; post-Gulf War Shia revolts and, 124–126; violence of, 108–110 Iraqi independence, seeds of, 95; Cairo Conference relating to, 95; Faisal I relating to, 95–96, 97; Iraqi Constituent Assembly during, 96; Iraqi Shias during, 95–97; Shia clerics during, 95–97 Iraqi Interim Government (IIG), 133–134 Iraqi Islamic Party, 135 Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood, 106 Iraqi Shia adversaries, ISIS and, 143 Iraqi Shias, 19, 95–97, 97, 114, 116; Hussein opposed by, 124; ISIS relating to, 143 Iraqiyya Party, 134 Iraq opposition, to British occupation, 91–95

Iraq president, Hussein as, 2, 19, 69, 113–114, 116, 126, 128 Iraq Republican Guard, 103 Iraq War (beginning in 2003), 130 IRGC. See Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ISCI. See Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq Isfahani, al-Sharia, 93 Isfahan Nuclear Reactor Center, 75 ISIL. See Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS. See Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Islamic law (Sharia), 37, 60, 104, 105 Islamic Republic of Iran, 60, 63–65, 115 Islamic Revolution. See Iran Islamic Revolution, 1979 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), 62, 143–144, 204 Islamic state, in Syria and Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 138–140, 141 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), 19, 138, 140, 142–143, 206–207; executions by, 140–141; Iraqi Shia adversaries and, 143; In Mosul, 140–141; rise and spread of, 140–141 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. See Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), 138 Ismail (Safavid King). See Shah Ismail I Israel, 63, 163–164, 172–175; Arab-Israeli War, 71; Lebanon occupation by, 169–170, 177; Lebanon withdrawal from, 176–177, 179; Operation Litani and, 169–170, 170; in Six-Day War, 71, 163–164. See also Hezbollah-Israel War of 2006 Israeli Parliament. See Knesset Jabr, Salih, 99, 100 al-Jafari, Ibrahim, 135 JCPOA. See Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action jihad, 18. See also religiously-justified war Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), 77–78, 203, 204, 205, 206 Jong-un, Kim. See Kim Jong-un July 14 Revolution, 105 June War. See Six-Day War

Index Kadhimiya, 146 Karbala, Iraq, 10, 12, 89, 95–96, 101, 124, 175 Kashani, Ayatollah Sayyed Abol Qasem, 37 Kataeb Party, Lebanon, 164 KDP. See Kurdistan Democratic Party al-Khoei, Abu al-Qasim, 188 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, xi, 15, 19, 34, 46–47, 115; death of, 54, 59, 65; exile of, 41, 53; imprisonment of, 53; Iran return of, 51, 57–58, 110; nuclear program and, 75 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, during Islamic Revolution, 52–53, 56–57, 113; as architect and revolutionary leader, 53–55; clerics and scholars trained by, 54; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi denounced by, 53–54 Khomeini, Mostafa, 113 al-Khuri, Bishara, 154, 155, 156–157 kidnappings, 174 Kim Jong-un, 206 King of Kings, with Safavid Dynasty, 16 Knesset (Israeli Parliament), 184 KRG. See Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdish Peshmerga. See Peshmerga Kurdistan Alliance, 134, 135 Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), 131, 139 Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), 139, 140 Kurds, 91, 135 Kuwait, 19, 71, 91, 116, 123, 146n1 labor strike, 168 land reform policy, of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 42, 44–45 League of Nations, 97 Lebanese Civil War, militias in, 164 Lebanese Republic, creation of, 153 Lebanon, 146, 151; Amal and Civil War, 167–170; Civil War in, 162–164; coalitions in, 180–181; Constitutional Bloc political party in, 154, 155; constitutional democracy, 153–155; Constitution of 1926, 19, 153; formal constitution of, 156–157; French colonialism and Maronite Christians in,

229

151–152; future prospects with, 20, 203–208; Greater Lebanon, 151, 152, 153, 155–156; Hariri, R., assassination, 179–181; Hezbollah-Israel War of 2006, 182–186; Iman Husayn martyrdom, Hezbollah and, 175–177; independent Lebanon and National Pact, 153, 156–157; Iran, Iraq and, 18–20; Iran's Islamic Revolution, Amal, Hezbollah, 171–175; Israel and Operation Litani with, 169–170, 170; Israel occupation of, 169–170, 177; Israel withdrawal from, 176–177, 179; Kataeb Party in, 164; Parliament of, 153, 155, 191–192; population in, 151; president of, 157; revolutionary patterns, 193–195; al-Sadr, Musa, and Shia Amal movement, 159–165, 167, 171; al-Sadr, Musa, disappearance of, 170–171; Shia Islam and communism, 158–159; Taif Agreement and aftermath of civil war, 165–167 Lebanon, Hezbollah and: demands and responses of, 181; Palestinians and, 179; politics of, 190–193; post-2006 military strategy and, 186–187; Shia militancy and, 177–179; social services, education, media and, 187–190 Lebanon, Shias in, 152–153, 171–173, 175–177; clergy, 172; in Greater Lebanon, 155–156; as marginalized, 158 Lebanon War of 2006. See HezbollahIsrael War of 2006 Liberation Movement of Iran. See Freedom Movement of Iran literacy corps policy, of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 43 Mahdi, 7, 12, 16; sacred hiding of, 13–15 Mahdi Army, Iraq, 132–133 al-Maliki, Nouri, 137–138, 138–140, 140 al-Manar, 177, 179, 183–184, 190 March 8 Coalition, Lebanon, 180 March 14 Coalition, Lebanon, 180, 181 Maronite Christians, 151, 151–152, 154–155, 155, 157–159, 161–162, 191

230

Index

martyrdom: of Mahdi father, 13. See also Imam Husayn, martyrdom of Martyrs' Organization, 189 Mausoleum of Imam Husayn, 12 Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 4, 6–7, 9–10, 12 media. See Hezbollah, social services, education, media and Medina, 6, 9, 12 MEK. See Mojahedin-e Khalq memorial rituals, during revolutionary protests, 55 Middle East, 62; future prospects for, 20, 203–208; Iran policies in, 79; power dynamics in, xi; U.S. policy with, 1 military, 42; force of, 31, 62, 194–195; strategy of, 186–187; Umayyad, 9, 10–11, 12 Mirza, Abbas, 24 Mleeta, 177 Moawad, Rene, 165, 166 Mobilization for Education Committee, 189 modernization, 65 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, xi, 19, 36; diplomatic relationships of, 40; healthcare system improvement policy of, 43; Iran economy and oil with, 33–35; Iranian Hostage Crisis (19791981) and, 66; during Iran Islamic Revolution (1979), 51–53, 55–57, 57; Iran Shia institutions and, 44–45; during Islamic Revolution, 51–53, 55–57, 57; Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, denouncing, 53–54; Mosaddegh, Mohammad, and, 38–42; Mosaddegh and, 38–39; patronage system of, 32, 33; rise of, 30–31; Shia clergy and, 32; temporary departure of, 15, 29; U.S. backing of, 39; westernization policy of, 31–33, 42, 46, 65 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, policies during 1960s and 1970s, 42; anger caused by, 46; healthcare system improvement, 43; land reform, 42, 44–45; literacy corps, 43; military equipment purchase, 42; money for personal use, 44, 45; oil revenue increase, 42; Pahlavi dynasty relating to, 44; patronage system, 44;

repression, 42, 45, 64–65; westernization, 42, 46, 65; White Revolution, 42, 44, 45 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, postMosaddegh period and, 39; diplomatic relationships improved by, 40; oil profit sharing policy of, 40; oppressive policies of, 41; overthrow of, 40, 170, 171–172; persecutions by, 41; protests against, 41–42, 47; SAVAK formed by, 40–41, 44, 46; U.S. aid relating to, 39, 40 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, westernization and secularization with, 31; education changes with, 32–33; military buildup with, 31; minority language changes with, 33; patronage system established by, 32, 33, 44; Sharia relating to, 32; Shia clergy relating to, 32; waaf relating to, 32, 48n52 Mohammad Reza Shah. See Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), 73 money, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi personal use of, 44, 45 Mosaddegh, Mohammad, 46; background of, 36; coup against, 38–39, 66, 68, 69; as Iran Prime Minister, 29, 34, 36, 37–38, 47; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and, 38–42; National Front political party founded by, 36–37, 38, 41; oil industry relating to, 37–38; during Pahlavi dynasties, 36–39; power rise of, 29–30, 55 Mosul, ISIS in, 140–141 Mousavian, Sayed Hossein, 73 Movement of the Deprived. See Harakat al-Mahrumin Muawiyah, 9, 12 Mughal Empire, 17, 18 Muhammad (prophet), 4, 5–8, 11, 13, 14, 114 Muhammad Ali (king), 28, 30 Muhammad Ali Pasha, 33 Muhammad Reza Shah. See Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. See Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Index Muhammed ibn Hasan al-Mahdi. See Mahdi Muharram, 8, 11, 56 Musa al-Sadr Foundation, 188 Musaddiq, Mohammad. See Mosaddegh, Mohammad Muslims, 2, 7, 12, 52 Muzaffer al-Din. See al-Din, Mozaffar Najaf, 124, 132–133; Khomeini in, 53, 110; pilgrims in, 111, 112–113; Shia clergy in, 93, 95, 101, 104, 105, 109, 110, 146, 159, 172 al-Najaifi, Athil, 140, 145–146 Nasrallah, Sayyid Hassan, 172, 177, 179, 180, 182, 183, 187 National Assembly Law of 1980, 113–114 National Bloc, in Lebanon, 155 National Front political party, Mosaddegh founding of, 36–37, 38, 41 nationalization, of Iran oil reserves, 37–38 National Pact, independent Lebanon and, 153, 156–157 National Resurgence Party, 45 negotiations, during Iranian Hostage Crisis, 67, 68 neutral zone, in Iran, during and after World War II, 35 9/11 attacks. See September 11, 2001 attacks 1920 revolt, Iraq. See Revolt of 1920 1958 Iraqi coup d'état. See July 14 Revolution 1967 Arab-Israeli War. See Six-Day War NPT. See Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Obama, Barack, 77 occultations, with sacred hiding of Mahdi, 13 occupation: of Iran, 35, 92; of Iraq, 91–95; of Lebanon, 169–170, 177 October War of 1973, 168 oil, in Iran, 1, 71; economy of, 33–35; Mosaddegh relating to, 37–38; nationalization of, 37–38; profit-sharing policy with, 40; revenue increase of, 42 oil interests, of Britain, 34–35 Olmert, Ehud, 182, 184

231

Open Letter, of Hezbollah, 173 Operation Ajax. See Iranian coup d'état of 1953 Operation Earnest Will, 71 Operation Litani, Israel and, 169–170, 170 oppressive policies, of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 41 Ottoman Empire, 17, 89–90 Ottoman presence, in Iraq, 91–92 overthrow, of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 40, 170, 171–172 P5+1 countries, 77 Pahlavi dynasty. See Iran, during Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 204 Palestinian Liberation Army (PLO), 163–164, 167, 170, 172 Palestinians, 179, 182 pan-Arabism, 100–101, 103 Parliament of Israel. See Knesset Parliament of Lebanon, 153, 155, 191–192 parties, in Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 134–135 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), 131, 134–135, 135, 139 patronage system, 139; of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 32, 33, 44 People of the Book, 62 persecutions, by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 41 Persian Corridor, 35 Persian Cossack Brigade, 30–31, 48n43 Persian culture, with Safavid Dynasty, 17–18 Persian Gulf, 24, 29, 34, 35, 37, 62, 71, 91 Persian Gulf War (1990-1991), 116–123 Personal Status Law of December 1959, 102 Peshmerga, 139 Phalangist Party. See Kataeb Party PLO. See Palestinian Liberation Army PMF. See Popular Mobilization Forces political instability, in Iran, 36 political repression and Western colonization, of Shia Islam, 3 politics, of Lebanon and Hezbollah, 190–193 Pompeo, Mike, 203–204, 206

232

Index

Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), 143 post-Gulf War Shia revolts, Iraqi government and, 124–126 power dynamics, in Middle East, xi power rise, of Mosaddegh, 29–30, 55 pre-Islamic history, 111 President of Iran, 60–61 prisoner exchange, 174–175 Project Flower, 75 pro-monarchical Iranians, 65 protests, against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 41–42, 47 provincial governments, in Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 134 PUK. See Patriotic Union of Kurdistan al-Qaida, 19; in Iraq from 1990 and beyond, 137–138, 139–140; World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks by, 127–128, 206 Qajar dynasty. See Iran, during Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties Qasim, Abd al-Karim, 102, 105–106, 106, 108 Quds force, 143, 204 Quran, 4, 4–5, 6, 16, 54, 108 Radio al-Nur, 190 Reagan, Ronald, 67, 69–71 religiously-justified war (jihad), 18 repression policy, of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 42, 45, 64–65 Revolt of 1920, 92, 93–95 revolts, 92–95, 124–126 revolutionaries, with Iran Islamic Revolution, 172 Revolutionary Command Council, 113 revolutionary patterns: of Amal and Hezbollah, 193–195; in various religions and geographic spheres, 194 revolutionary prospects, in Iran, 45–47 revolutionary protests, during Islamic Revolution, 55; deaths relating to, 55–57; memorial rituals relating to, 55; Tehran demonstrations, 55–56 revolutions. See specific revolutions Reza Khan (father of Mohammad Reza Shah). See Reza Shah

Reza Shah (father of Mohammad Reza Shah), 31; Iran's economy and oil under, 33–35; Shia clergy and, 32. See also Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Reza Shah Pahlavi (father of Mohammad Reza Shah). See Reza Shah rockets, in Hezbollah-Israel War of 2006, 184 Rouhani, Hassan, 77 rural development, in Lebanon, 163 Russia: Mirza and, 24; in nineteenth century, 23–24; during and after World War I, 29–31 sacred hiding, of Mahdi, 13–15 sacred histories, of Shia and Sunni Islam, 5 al-Sadr, Moqtada, 125, 131, 132–133, 133–134 al-Sadr, Muhammad Baqir, 103–105, 113–114 al-Sadr, Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq, 125–126 al-Sadr, Musa: Baalbek rally of, 168–169; on Communism, 159–160; disappearance of, 170, 170–171; labor strike organized by, 168; Lebanese citizenship of, 161; Maronite Christians and, 161–162; as Shia Amal movement founder, 159–165, 167, 171; Shias defended by, 167–170; Supreme Shia Council and, 167 Sadrists, 131–132, 132–133, 134 Sadrists, Iraq. See Mahdi Army, Iraq Safavid Dynasty, 16–18 Sahwa, 139–140 al-Said, Nuri, 99, 102 sanctions, against Iran, 76–77 San Remo Conference, 92, 93 Sasanian Empire, 33 Saud family, 2 SAVAK, 40–41, 44, 46, 65, 66, 69 sayyids, 92 SCIRI. See Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq secularization, 65, 173. See also Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, westernization and secularization with seizure, of United States Embassy in Iran (1979-1981). See Iranian Hostage Crisis

Index September 11, 2001 attacks, 206. See also World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks Shah Ismail I, as Safavid Dynasty king, 16–18 Shahnameh (Book of Kings), 17 Sharia. See Islamic law Shariati, Ali, 52 Sharon, Ariel, 172 Shebaa Farms, 177–178, 187 Shia Amal movement, Musa al-Sadr as founder of, 159–165, 167, 171 Shia and Sunni Islam differences, 4; with guidance, 8; role of twelve imams, 7–8; successor to Muhammad, 6–7 Shia and Sunni Islam similarities, 4; Five Pillars of Islam with, 4; God relationship with, 4–5; sacred histories of, 5 Shia Badr Brigade, 136 Shia clergy, 25, 41, 46, 114–115; authority of, 18; during British occupation, 92–93; communism and, 101, 102; during independence, 95–97, 98; Iran Constitutional Revolution, 1905-1911 and, 27–29; during Islamic Revolution, 52–53, 53–54, 57–58; in Lebanon, 172; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and, 32; in Najaf, 93, 95, 101, 104, 105, 109, 110, 146, 159, 172; protests of, 112–113; Reza Shah and, 32; during Safavid Dynasty, 18 Shia Dawa Party. See Dawa Party Shia history, consciousness and rituals, Imam Husayn martyrdom in, 11–12 Shia Houthi, 204 Shia Imams, 54, 104, 146 Shia Islam, xi, xii, 69, 111; clergy role in, 3; communism and, 158–159; conflicts with, 3; hadiths and teaching of, 13, 14; influence of, 2–3; in Iran, 1–2, 2; during Islamic Revolution, 52–53, 60; laws relating to, 2; Mahdi relating to, 7, 12–15; misunderstandings about, xii; mobilization of, 2–3; opponents to, 14–15; political repression and Western colonization of, 3; population of, 1–2; rituals of, 3, 12; saviors in other religions relating to, 14; study of, 3;

233

Sunni critique of, 16; ta`ziyeh rituals with, 8; three spheres of human affairs addressed by, 8 Shia Islamic religious and political ideology, renewal of, 99–100, 101 Shia Islamic Republic, 58–59 Shia Islamic Revolution, 1, 19, 69, 190, 192 Shia Mahdi army. See Mahdi army, Iraq Shia militancy, Hezbollah and, 177–179 Shia Muslims. See Shias Shia pilgrimage, 112–113 Shia principles, 63–64 Shia protests, against Baath Party, 112, 113–115; pilgrimage during, 112–113; Shia clergy relating, 112–113 Shia resistance, militarization of, 115 Shia revolts, post-Gulf War, 124–126 Shias, 59, 89, 103, 103–104, 105; Baath Party and, 102–103, 111–115; empathy for, xii; grievances of, xii; Iraqi, 19; during Iraqi independence, 97–98; ISIS relating to, 143; in Lebanon, 152–153, 171–173, 175–177; as marginalized, 158; Twelfth Imam in modern discourse of, 15; young Shias, 104, 105. See also Iran Shia institutions; Iraqi Shias Shias, communism and, 99, 101, 106; appeal of, 100, 101; clergy with, 101, 102; decline of, 101, 103; ICP relating to, 100, 101, 102, 103, 108; opposition to, 101; origins of, 100; Shia Islamic religious and political ideology renewal relating to, 99–100, 101 Shias, Greater Lebanon and, 155; chamber of deputies and, 153, 155; constitutional revisions with, 155–156; Shia-Maronite Christian alliance relating to, 155 Shia Sadrists. See Sadrists Shia scholars, during Safavid Dynasty, 17 Shia secularist responses, 133–134 Shia-Sunni competition, in 1940s and 1950s, 98–99 Shia-Sunni conflict escalation, 136–137 Shia-Sunni Islamic party, 106 SIIC. See Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council al-Sistani, Ali, 133, 134 Six-Day War, 163–164

234

Index

social services, in Lebanon, 187–190 Society of Public Guidance, 33 Soleimani, Qasem, 143–144 al-Soltan, Ali Asghar Khan Amin, 25 southern no-fly zone, 125 South Lebanon Army, 175–176, 176–177 sovereign immunity, 67, 85n132 Soviet Union, during and after World War I, 29–31 Suez Canal, 24 al-Sulh, Riad, 157 Sunnah, 4–5, 54, 108 Sunni caliphs, 12, 17 Sunni clerics, 93 Sunni Future Movement, 179–181 Sunni Islamists, 128–129, 135, 137–138 Sunni Muslims. See Sunnis Sunnis, 2, 12, 89, 91, 106, 151; Abu Bakr as successor to Muhammad, 6–8, 11; Imam Husayn martyrdom relating to, 12; during Iraqi independence, 97; Shia Islam critique by, 16. See also Baath and Sunni power; Shia and Sunni Islam differences; Shia and Sunni Islam similarities; Shia-Sunni competition, in 1940s and 1950s; Shia-Sunni conflict escalation; Shia-Sunni Islamic party Sunni-Shia conflict, xi Supplementary Fundamental Laws, 28 Supreme Ayatollah of Iran. See Supreme leader of Iran Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), 115, 124, 131, 132, 134, 136 Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), 115 Supreme Islamic Shia Council, 188 Supreme Leader of Iran, 59, 60, 62 Supreme Shia Council, Lebanon, 167 Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, 69, 90, 141, 151 Syria: Arab Spring and civil war in, 142–143; Iraq and, 138–140, 141. See also Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Taif Agreement, 165, 166–167, 190; Arab Tripartite Committee involvement with, 165; Civil War ended with, 165; provisions of, 165–166 Talabani, Jalal, 135

Taliban, 128 ta`ziyeh rituals, 8, 12 Teachers Union elections, 107 Tehran: demonstrations in, 55–56; takeover of U.S. Embassy in, 65 Tehran Research Reactor, 74 Tobacco Protest, 25–26, 29, 47, 54, 80 Treaty of Golestan, 23–24 Treaty of Turkmenchay, 24 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), 74 Trump, Donald, withdrawal from JCPOA, 77–78, 203, 204 TWA flight 847 hijacking, 174 Twelfth Imam, 18, 54, 58–59; in modern Shia discourse, 15; return of, 59. See also Mahdi Twelve Imams, 4, 7–8, 18, 21n21, 108 UIA. See United Iraqi Alliance Umayyad military, 9, 10–11, 12 UNFIL. See United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), 134, 135 United Kingdom. See Britain United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL), 185–186, 186–187 United Nations Security Council, 73, 77 United Nations Security Council Resolutions, 175; Resolution 1441, 130; Resolution 1701, 185–186 United States (U.S.), 66, 68–69; future prospects of, 203–208; as Great Satan, 66; Middle East policy of, 1; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi relationship with, 39, 40; post-9/11 responses of, 128–129 United States, in Iraq, 130, 131–132; antiAmerican insurgency with, 131; lack of preparation for, 130–131; war damages relating to, 130–131 United States, resistance to, 65–69; U.S. Embassy in Tehran takeover, 65 U.S. See United States Vilayat-i Faqih (book), 53 vilayet-i faqih (Shia concept), 58, 59, 60 Vincennes, USS, 71–73, 86n174

Index Wahhabis. See Arabian Wahhabis war: damages of, 130–131; See also specific war westernization policy, of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 31–33, 42, 46, 65 White Revolution, 42, 44, 45 wilayat al-faqih. See vilayet-i faqih Wilson, Arnold Talbot, 94 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, 127–128, 206 World War I, 90; British in Iraq during, 90–91, 91–95; Iraq boundaries during,

235

90–91; Kurds during, 91; Russia during and after, 29–31; Soviet Union during and after, 29–31 World War II, 35–36, 92 Yazid, 9–10, 11, 12 Yom Kippur War. See October War of 1973 zaima system, 152–153, 155, 169

About the Author

Jon Armajani, PhD, is professor in the Peace Studies Department at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in Minnesota, USA He is the author of Dynamic Islam: Liberal Muslim Perspectives in a Transnational Age (2004) and Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (2012). He coedited with James E. Lindsay Historical Dimensions of Islam: Pre-Modern and Modern Periods; Essays in Honor of R. Stephen Humphreys (2009). Dr. Armajani earned his PhD in religious studies with a focus on Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara; his master of divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, USA; and his bachelor of arts, Phi Beta Kappa, with a major in philosophy and a minor in German at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, USA He also studied Islam and Christianity, on a one-year post-master of divinity exchange fellowship through Princeton Seminary, at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen in Germany.

237