Democracy and the Nature of American Influence in Iran, 1941-1979

By David R. Collier

Collier presents a timely and fresh reexamination of one of the most important bilateral relationships of the last century. He delves deeply into the American desire to promote democracy in Iran from the 1940s through the early 1960s and examines the myriad factors that contributed to their success in exerting a powerful influence on Iranian politics. By creating a framework to understand the efficacy of external pressure, Collier explains how the United States later relinquished this control during the 1960s and 1970s. During this time, the shah emerged as a dominant and effective political operator who took advantage of waning American influence to assert his authority. Collier reveals how this shifting power dynamic transformed the former client-patron relationship into one approaching equality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Release date: May 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9780815653974

Book preview

Select titles in Contemporary Issues in the Middle East

Colonial Jerusalem: The Spatial Construction of Identity and Difference in a City of Myth, 1948–2012

Thomas Philip Abowd

Iraqi Migrants in Syria: The Crisis before the Storm

Sophia Hoffmann

Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi’i Iran, Revised Edition

Shahla Haeri

Living in Romantic Baghdad: An American Memoir of Teaching and Travel in Iraq, 1924–1947

Ida Donges Staudt; John Joseph, ed.

Making Do in Damascus: Navigating a Generation of Change in Family and Work

Sally K. Gallagher

The Mizrahi Era of Rebellion: Israel’s Forgotten Civil Rights Struggle, 1948–1966

Bryan K. Roby

Preserving the Old City of Damascus

Faedah M. Totah

We Are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics in a Time of War

Nadje Al-Ali and Deborah Al-Najjar, eds.

Copyright © 2017 by Syracuse University Press

Syracuse, New York 13244-5290

All Rights Reserved

First Edition 2017

171819202122654321

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

For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu.

ISBN: 978-0-8156-3497-3 (hardcover)

978-0-8156-3512-3 (paperback)

978-0-8156-5397-4 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Collier, David R., author.

Title: Democracy and the nature of American influence in Iran, 1941–1979 / David R. Collier.

Other titles: Contemporary issues in the Middle East.

Description: Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2017. | Series: Contemporary issues in the Middle East | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017003758 (print) | LCCN 2017006776 (ebook) | ISBN 9780815634973 (hardcover: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780815635123 (pbk.: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780815653974 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: United States—Foreign relations—Iran. | Iran—Foreign relations—United States. | Democracy—Iran. | Iran—Politics and government—20th century.

Classification: LCC E183.8.I55 C65 2017 (print) | LCC E183.8.I55 (ebook) | DDC 327.73055—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017003758

Manufactured in the United States of America

Stop this extravagance, this reckless throwing of my country to the wind. The grim-faced rising cloud, will grovel at the swamp’s feet.

—Simin Behbahani, Stop Throwing My Country to the Wind

Contents

List of Illustrations

Abbreviations

Introduction: The United States, Iran, and the Legacy of Democracy

1.Roosevelt and the Return of Constitutionalism, 1941–1945

2.A More Selfish Iran Policy, 1945–1951

3.Mossadegh and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Crisis, 1951–1953

4.The Overthrow of Democracy, 1953

5.US Policy after Mossadegh, 1954–1960

6.Kennedy’s Experiment, 1961–1963

7.Shah’s in Charge, 1963–1974

8.The Predictable Storm, 1974–1979

Conclusion: Thrown to the Wind

Epilogue: After the Shah

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

Following page 144

1.Patrick J. Hurley, 1929

2.Ahmad Qavam, late 1940s or early 1950s

3.Mohammad Mossadegh with Dean Acheson, 1951

4.Kermit Roosevelt Jr., 1950s

5.John Foster Dulles, Loy Henderson, and Edward T. Wailes, 1958

6.Dean Rusk with Ali Amini and Charles Bohlen, 1962

7.Women voting for the first time in Iran’s parliamentary election, 1963

8.Robert Komer, 1967

9.President Richard Nixon and the shah of Iran, 1973

10.Revolution poster, c. 1980

Abbreviations

Introduction

The United States, Iran, and the Legacy of Democracy

On the evening of June 12, 2009, cities across Iran filled with hundreds and thousands of protesters disputing the reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The protests were of such size and intensity that they dwarfed anything the country had seen since the Iranian Revolution some thirty years earlier. The movement rallied around the cry Where is my vote? as people angrily reacted to what they perceived were rigged elections.¹ Was this the downfall of an Islamic government deemed illegitimate by many in the West? Could it be the final victory of democracy over the forces of authoritarianism that had restricted the liberties of the Iranian people for more than one hundred years?

No. After months of protests, the regime was finally able to clear the streets, arrest key opposition figures, and overcome the crisis. Iran’s struggle for democracy continues. The Green Movement, as it became known, was just the latest demonstration of the Iranian people’s desire for more democratic governance. To understand modern Iran is to acknowledge and appreciate its history and in particular its fraught relationship with democracy. The experiences of past generations of Iranians served as the backdrop for the protests in 2009 and will do so again for the inevitable struggles to come. The Green Movement’s congregation at Azadi Square in Tehran mirrored events thirty years earlier when the same square became the focal point for protests against the monarchy. Azadi means freedom, and the square was named in recognition of the millions of people who took to the streets to finally overturn the shah’s brutal dictatorship. Yet for many the search for freedom continued as the shah was replaced by an Islamic regime equally effective at quelling dissent and restricting liberty.

Tension has continued to simmer since the revolution, but the Islamic regime has kept the lid on this fractious society as stubbornly as the shah’s regime before it. The occasional public outcry and subsequent crackdown form a pattern that dates back to the nineteenth century, a pattern to which external powers have contributed greatly. Iran’s Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11, when the country first adopted a modern constitution and parliament (the Majles), was brought to its end by the intervention of Great Britain and Russia, which preferred the perpetuation of the monarchy. In 1941, foreign powers intervened to force the abdication of a powerful shah in favor of his weak and inexperienced young heir, which provided space for the return of constitutional politics. The removal of the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953 was masterminded by Britain and the United States, which welcomed the shah back to the center of power and assisted his subsequent crackdown on opposition with aid and moral support. Likewise, external events helped create the revolutionary situation in Iran in the late 1970s.

So entangled have foreign powers been in Iran’s internal politics that they remain prime suspects in the outcome of all manner of events. In recent times, foreign agents have been blamed for both orchestrating the Green Movement as well as killing the protesters; for assassinating Iranian scientists; for being behind a string of acid attacks on women; and even for deliberately creating the terrorist group Islamic State, best known as ISIS.² Accusing domestic rivals of being beholden to foreign powers has long been a trope of Iranian politics. Even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, was accused of being in the pay of the British.³ According to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, among others, if you lifted Khomeini’s beard, you would find a label reading Made in England.⁴ One expert has argued that belief in such conspiracies is deeply rooted in Iran’s cultural heritage, which emphasizes a mythological mode of thought and a propensity to poetic exaggeration.⁵ But more importantly, there is also a rich vein of truth that flows through many of the stories of foreign action in Iran. Foreign governments have often been the decisive factor in changes of government, outbreaks of liberalization, and the resurgence of periods of authoritarianism.

And yet overemphasis on foreign control negates the importance of Iranian agency in deciding the future and has contributed to political malaise and a lack of rational responses to internal and external crises.⁶ To address the true extent of external action in Iran, this book seeks to analyze the impact of the United States, the dominant foreign power during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. In particular, it will examine whether Iran’s various movements between constitutionalism and authoritarianism between 1941 and 1979 were directed by the United States or can be better explained by internal factors. Was the shah in charge, or was he largely an empty vessel that followed the whimsical course set in Washington? Why was Iran’s indigenous democracy movement unable to bring about change despite its popularity and persistence? This work is therefore the story of three forces—the United States, the shah, and the Iranians themselves. It analyzes what made American pressure at times effective while at other times ineffective and charts the evolution of the shah from an insecure and weak young king to the dominant, confident, and independent ruler he later became.

To understand how the United States was able to play an effective role in directing Iranian policy, I expand on the framework of linkage and leverage developed by Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way.⁷ They define leverage as an authoritarian government’s vulnerability to external democratizing pressure, often exercised through sanctions, diplomacy, financial dependency, and military intervention.⁸

I adapt this definition slightly here to refer to all external pressure rather than merely to democratizing pressure because for much of the Cold War the United States preferred stable authoritarian allies rather than a potentially capricious and weak democratic regime. With a high degree of leverage over a country, the United States could exert top-down influence on the target state’s leadership and push it toward policies that best achieved Western goals. For example, a leader with little internal support might look to the United States to support his regime through diplomacy or financial assistance and in return be open to following policies that best suited US priorities.

Linkage is defined as political, economic, and social cross-border flows of information.⁹ These flows traverse not only from the authoritarian leadership but also from senior officials, politicians, the military, members of the opposition, and civil society in general. The more linkages a country has with the West, the more Western powers have knowledge of and influence over what happens within that country. Linkage is therefore a multidimensional concept that encompasses the myriad networks of interdependence that connect individual polities, economies, and societies to Western democratic communities.¹⁰ Through linkage, the West can identify authoritarian abuses or rising opposition, which allows for preparation and support for a change in regime. The West can also use linkage to send signals of acceptance or disapproval of movements toward authoritarianism.

Linkage can therefore be a means for an external actor to project power and influence inside another country through formal and informal ties to that country’s political, social, and economic elites. During the 1940s, for example, the United States increased linkage with Iran by sending economic and military missions to help reorganize a country in disarray from World War II. These missions created strong ties that improved the effectiveness of American leverage as the more the Americans learned about the country, the more they knew what policies could best achieve their goals. The United States used its influential financial missions to ensure that certain economic reforms were put in place and specific officials were appointed to influential positions. These networks therefore act as transmitters of external influence.¹¹ Whereas leverage can be seen as top-down pressure to punish or reward a country for certain behavior, linkage looks to identify, strengthen, and support bottom-up pressures on the host government.

The vast majority of literature on US relations with the shah has focused on US support for authoritarianism, coups, and repression. However, the literature has largely ignored Iran’s experiments with democracy.¹² This gap is illustrated by two recent books on the subject. In The Quest for Democracy in Iran, Fakhreddin Azimi devotes some time to the return of constitutional politics to Iran between 1941 and 1953 but thereafter emphasizes the shah’s steady return to authoritarianism. Likewise, in Democracy in Iran Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr devote a mere 21 pages of their 230-page book to democratization during the time of the shah.¹³ Because of its absence in much of the literature, the shah’s reign has been called one of the less studied periods of modern Iranian history.¹⁴

This neglect has recently begun to be addressed as more works focus on aspects of the shah’s reign.¹⁵ However, most of them examine snapshots, such as the coup in 1953 or the buildup to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This book takes on the ambitious task of analyzing the entirety of the shah’s reign and Iran’s relations with the United States. Through an all-encompassing approach, I examine in detail the shah’s changing relationship with the United States, his move toward authoritarianism, Iran’s resilient internal reform movement, and how all of these things were affected by US policy. Throughout this period, there were numerous movements between democracy and autocracy, and by using the framework of linkage and leverage, this book assesses the extent of the role played by the United States in influencing these movements.

It also challenges many popularly views held about US–Iranian relations during this period. The extent of American interference in Iran through linkage and leverage has largely been underestimated. So, too, have been American attempts to promote liberalism and constitutionalism, which I show here to be a constant, albeit not necessarily prioritized, goal for much of this time period.

The Importance of Iran and Its History

From the perspective of US foreign policy and peaceful global relations, Iran is a country of vital importance. Many of the issues faced during the shah’s reign continue to be present today: reform, regional security, stability, terrorism, nuclear power and weapons, transitions from authoritarian rule, and the promotion of democracy. It is instructive to analyze such issues in the context of past events to better understand and respond to today’s problems in Iran and elsewhere in the world. Having a sense of history is critical to sound policy making, and so this study aims to analyze history with a view to applying lessons learned from the past to more current relations between Iran and the United States.

To better understand what the future holds, it is essential to look backward. History matters, especially when that history is very much alive in the countries of the Middle East. Governments that ignore history have paid the price, one spectacular example being the administration of Jimmy Carter. During a press conference on the ongoing Iran hostage crisis in February 1980, President Carter refused to comment on whether American actions in removing Iran’s democratic leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953 had been appropriate. That’s ancient history, he replied, I don’t think it’s appropriate or helpful for me to go into the propriety of something that happened thirty years ago.¹⁶ But ancient history it is not to Iranians, neither then nor now. Mossadegh’s legacy remains relevant, as shown by demonstrators carrying his picture with pride in 1979 and again in 2009.

Iran is also an important country to study with regard to democracy in the Middle East. It has one of the longest histories of experimentation with political reform and civil society of all the countries in the region. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11 made Iran a regional pioneer in the establishment and codification of democratic rule.¹⁷ Local grievances and protest were transformed into a national movement that the monarchy could no longer contain. The formation of a national assembly and the drafting of a modern constitution made Iran unique in the region.

Although much of this progress was ultimately reversed by a new shah with foreign support and then again by the Islamic regime, the country has continued to make occasional movements toward democracy.

These movements, which are failures when viewed in isolation, are important when viewed in aggregate because they create a usable democratic legacy.¹⁸ Very few transitions succeed initially, but what is past is prologue; having a history of democratic experimentation and democratic stock means Iran is in a better position than most other countries in the Middle East to experience a successful future transition.¹⁹ Previous experience is no guarantee for success, but it provides instructive lessons for transition leaders as well as protection from xenophobic and nationalist claims that democracy is an alien import that must be resisted—an all too popular meme of the current Iranian regime.²⁰

An Iranian Case Study

The history of US–Iranian relations has been covered in many books, but the extent of American involvement in Iran’s movements to and from democracy remains largely absent from this literature. The United States first took a real interest in the country in 1941, but even before then it had gained a reputation as a friend of Iranian democracy. During the Constitutional Revolution, an American teacher working in Tabriz, Howard Baskerville, was killed while taking part in the protests. A martyr for the cause of Iranian democracy, he gained the nickname the American Lafayette after the French general who fought for the Americans during the American Revolutionary War.²¹ His martyrdom shook the nation, and his memory lives on in numerous Iranian schools and streets named after him. A plaque was made in 1950 to commemorate his actions, and even during the dark years of US–Iranian relations in the 1980s and 1990s his tomb was always covered in fresh yellow roses.²²

Another American hero to join the popular cause was William Morgan Shuster, appointed by the newly created Majles to become Iran’s treasurer-general in 1911. His economic reforms helped strengthen the burgeoning democracy in Iran but led to protests from Great Britain and Russia, who saw the reforms as American meddling in what they considered their interests. For decades, the two countries had competed for financial gain in Iran and had harvested lucrative concessions from the money-hungry ruling Qajar dynasty. After British and Russian complaints to the US government over Shuster’s appointment, the State Department responded that the appointment was a contract between a sovereign country and an American citizen and so beyond US jurisdiction to intervene.²³ Nevertheless, after seven months of intense pressure by Britain and Russia, including invasion and the shelling of the Majles building, Shuster was forced to resign, yet he remained a popular figure in Iran.²⁴

After such auspicious beginnings in the relationship between the United States and Iran, the United States largely failed to carry on Baskerville and Shuster’s legacy. However, a close study of American action in Iran during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah (1941–79) reveals many attempts to rekindle US interest in Iranian democracy. Based on detailed archival research at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland; the Library of Congress in Washington, DC; and various presidential libraries scattered across the country as well as on examination of many private paper collections and oral histories of government officials of the time, both Iranian and American, I conclude that American influence within Iran’s domestic political system during much of the shah’s reign was above and beyond that which has hitherto been documented.

Although the corresponding Iranian records of the shah’s government remain largely inaccessible to historians, a number of Persian sources were referenced in the materials I did find, such as memoirs, diaries, interviews, and oral histories. The collections of the Iranian Oral History Project at Harvard University and the Foundation for Iranian Studies in Bethesda, Maryland, were especially useful in gaining insight into the view from Tehran.

The period of study for this case begins in 1941, when the United States first took an active interest in Iran’s internal situation. From there, the book is arranged in chronological order to chart the changing relationship the United States had with Iran during the shah’s reign through several US administrations. This arrangement is necessary to focus on what factors made American linkage and leverage at times determinative and at other times ineffective.

As James Bill writes in his history of US–Iranian relations, the story of this relationship does not always make pleasant reading, since it documents many instances of the politics of greed, misunderstanding, oppression, and suffering.²⁵ The passing of time and the new information that has come to light since 1988, when Bill’s book was published, has only made the story even more unpleasant. It is the story of a tragic evolution between three forces: the US government, the shah, and the popular Iranian democratic movement. All three had their own demands and wishes for Iran, and in the end all three lost. To understand why, we must delve deeply into this multidimensional story.

1Roosevelt and the Return of Constitutionalism, 1941–1945

The general strode purposefully down the black-slate and white-marble corridors of the south wing of the Old State Department Building. Six foot two, lean, and straight-backed, he cut an impressive and imposing figure. His proclivity for cowboy hats and boots put him at odds with the architecture of his French Second Empire–style surroundings, not to mention with the other State Department officials scurrying between the offices. Trouble, said one contemporary, moved with him like a cloud of flies around a steer.¹ On that day in 1944, the general was in his early sixties but still boasted lethal speed on the draw honed in his days in the Old West. His reputation for belligerence and determination was aided by a national news magazine article that chronicled how as a young child he had once killed a fractious mule by bashing its head with a two-by-four. Major General Patrick J. Hurley later joked, I never killed a mule. I have not even killed a career diplomat.²

On that particular day, however, Hurley’s quick march led him directly toward two diplomats, who perhaps feared a fate similar to that of the apocryphal mule: Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Eugene V. Rostow—the former soon to assume the position of secretary of state, the latter to become undersecretary of state for political affairs in the Johnson administration. For months, Hurley had been working on a program he hoped would turn Iran into a genuine democracy, a program that would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East. However, a critical response written by Rostow and approved by Acheson lampooned the proposal as hysterical Messianic globaloney.³ It was this insult that precipitated the general’s long and angry march to Acheson’s office. Not one to hold his tongue, he immediately challenged Rostow to fight. Come out in the hall and repeat what you said about my program! he yelled, ignoring Acheson’s frantic attempts to calm the situation. Fixing Rostow with a steely glare, Hurley scoffed and said Rostow was not a real man but another of the stuffed-shirt diplomats in the State Department who were kowtowing to the British in the Middle East. Before storming out, Hurley warned that it was high time for the United States to fish or cut bait in the Middle East and promised that if his report were sidelined, he would take the issue to the country.⁴

These were the passions that enveloped the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during early efforts to formulate a postwar strategy for the Middle East. The United States had first become involved in Iranian affairs just three years earlier, and yet in that short time emotions on the subject ran high. Hurley was fighting for a policy he felt would shape US–Iranian relations for decades to come and commit the United States to an extensive program of democracy promotion that could serve as a model for the rest of the developing world. Acheson and Rostow, meanwhile, embodied the realist contingent in the State Department. The conflict between these two camps—the idealists who wished to build a world in America’s image and the realists who wished to deal with the world as it was—shaped US–Iranian relations for the next forty years. The ensuing battle swung both ways, with each camp having its chance to tackle the problems of the Middle East. The pendulum in the early 1940s had swung to the idealist camp, and the United States played an important role in allowing space for Iranian civil society to begin the process of democratic transition. Soon, however, the pendulum would swing the other way as the Roosevelt administration became increasingly interested in acquiring Iranian oil and preventing Soviet expansion into the country. Although figures such as Hurley would fight against this change in emphasis and demand that the United States hold firm in its support for democracy, Iran’s strategic position and its oil wealth meant that by the end of Roosevelt’s presidency the realists’ view was dominant.

Roosevelt himself often walked a tightrope between the idealist and realist camps, leading some to label him a practical idealist.⁵ Before the United States entered World War II, there was a strong push for it to remain isolationist, but Roosevelt believed that security was best assured by the active defense and promotion of democracy across the globe.⁶ By establishing the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 and later the Bretton Woods system in 1944, the United States had already begun to establish the foundations for the expansion of international commerce and cooperation for the postwar world. Democracy was seen as a vital political corollary of economic integration.⁷

Roosevelt articulated his idealist worldview in his State of the Union Address on January 6, 1941. He spoke of a world based on four democratic freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of economic liberty, and freedom of security. For Roosevelt, the promotion of these Four Freedoms would be the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny, of dictators seeking to expand authoritarianism. Moreover, he believed a world governed by these freedoms was no vision of a distant millennium … [but] attainable in our own time and generation, albeit reliant upon the success of Great Britain and its allies over the Axis powers.⁸ To this end, although unable to lead the United States into war against the wishes of Congress at this time, Roosevelt announced that the United States would instead become the great arsenal for democracy, providing the munitions and materiel with which the democratic powers would defeat the common enemy.⁹ It was clear before the events of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, therefore, that Roosevelt planned to help win not only the war but also the ensuing peace by promoting his vision of international trade and world democracy.¹⁰

In August 1941, Roosevelt signed a joint statement with Great Britain known as the Atlantic Charter. It proclaimed the two countries’ shared war aims and aspirations as well as the ideas based on the Four Freedoms for a postwar world. It committed its signatories to respect and uphold territorial boundaries, restore self-government, and expand global cooperation to ensure freedom and better economic and social conditions for all.¹¹ Such a universal charter was felt necessary to realize Woodrow Wilson’s desire of making the world safe for democracy.¹² Desperate to lure America ever deeper into involvement in the war, British prime minister Winston Churchill conceded to much of Roosevelt’s vision. Others in the British government recognized its more negative potential, however; Minister of Supply Baron Beaverbrook decried the emphasis on expanding democracy and damned the entire charter as a shameful betrayal of British overseas colonies, whose current subjugation would no longer be possible under the charter’s conditions.¹³ An ambitious and idealistic Roosevelt had therefore set a course for an active US role in ensuring global security through the promotion of freedom. To refine this vision, Roosevelt needed a country to experiment on, and Iran soon became his laboratory.

The next few years would see the United States become intimately involved in Iranian affairs in the hope of creating a model of fair dealing with the developing world. The tension between this idealist vision and the pragmatism of having to wage war and secure important natural resources would divide the administration and lead to confrontations like the one between the idealistic Hurley and the State Department realists such as Rostow and Acheson. The two groups that these men represented would clash repeatedly over policy toward Iran for the next three decades. At times, the idealists would hold sway and promote the cause of democracy in Iran; at other times, the realists would prioritize strategic and economic interests often at the expense of democracy. The result was a confused and muddled policy as the two groups competed for influence. In 1941, however, as relations between Iran and the United States began to form, the idealists held the upper hand and hopes were raised inside Iran of a return to constitutionalism.

Catching America’s Eye: Iran Reaches Out to America

World War II was not kind to Iran. Home to an important supply route between the western and eastern fronts, the country was dominated by British and Soviet personnel who held more than a passing interest in its rich natural resources. Iranian oil had long been a source of conflict between the two imperialist powers, and Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, feared they would soon usurp his country to claim this rich prize. Fearing an imminent loss of sovereignty, he looked for a third party to balance out their influence. His own peculiar political tendencies led him first to look to Hitler’s Germany—a serious miscalculation. Rather than preventing the occupation of Iran, his outreach to Berlin provided a green light for the Soviet Union and Britain to occupy the country to secure the trade route. Realizing his error, Reza Shah turned quickly to the United States for assistance. President Roosevelt’s statements on the need to protect developing nations against imperialism made him a far more suitable protector from the predatory intentions of Britain and the Soviet Union. The move was also welcomed by the Iranian people, who regarded the United States as that shining city upon a hill. Sattareh Farman-Farmaian, twenty years old at the time, recalled in her memoir how a whole generation of educated Iranians … felt that ‘Amrika’ was the only Western country that was sincere and selfless, and that had truly supported our aspirations to be strong and respected by the world.¹⁴

A move toward the United States therefore gave succor to Iranian democrats who had seen their own aspirations dashed by the failure of the Constitutional Revolution decades earlier. Reza Shah began to talk about the importance of democracy in an attempt to reach out to the Americans. Following the publication of the Atlantic Charter in August 1941 and under the principles of international justice and the rights of peoples to liberty, he wrote to President Roosevelt directly to ask for support against the encroachments of Great Britain and the Soviet Union.¹⁵ The president cordially replied with a message of friendship, but time had slipped away. Despite the shah’s last-minute appeal to Washington, the other Allied powers had already decided he could not be trusted to remain strong against the Nazi enemy. He was summarily ordered to surrender his throne to his eldest son.¹⁶

Real American involvement in Iran would therefore begin with a new monarch: the twenty-one-year old Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (hereafter referred to as the shah). The new king had attended boarding school in Switzerland and then military academy in Tehran but did not see any actual fighting. His father, however, had risen up the ranks to become the first Iranian commanding officer of the Persian Cossack Brigade. He later forced himself to power through strength, ability, and determination, toppling the Qajars, who had ruled Iran since 1785, and establishing the Pahlavi dynasty in its place.

The shah was just six years old when his father, a man he called a dominant and towering figure, pushed his way to the throne.¹⁷ He demanded respect and perfection and was known to tear the epaulettes off the shoulders of senior army officers and strike them in front of their subordinates for failing to meet his standards.¹⁸ Although Mohammed Reza Shah would not say it, his sister, Princess Ashraf, recalled being terrified of their father’s temper, writing that even years later as a grown woman I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid of him.¹⁹ The shah therefore grew up in a strict household but amid luxury and the expectation that the Peacock Throne was his destiny. When he assumed the throne, he did so with a great feeling of inferiority, having done nothing to warrant his position and believing he would not live up to his father’s reputation. According to one biographer, it later became a rule among members of the shah’s royal court not to praise his father too profusely for fear of offending the insecure monarch.²⁰

His deep inferiority complex would manifest itself in numerous ways throughout his reign, leading him to favor strong rule and military strength rather than compromise or democracy. It would also cloud his relationship with many of Iran’s prominent intellectuals, generals, and political leaders of his time, who might potentially outshine him. He distrusted men such as Ahmad Qavam, Mohammad Mossadegh, Ali Amini, Hassan Arsanjani, and General Fereydoun Djam and removed them from positions of power. Fear of political rivals was a major factor in the thirty-two changes of prime minister that occurred during his thirty-seven-year reign.²¹ It would also affect his relationship with American presidents, who often treated him as a junior partner. In time, he would skillfully overcome the client–patron alliance with the United States that began in 1941, but when the Islamic Revolution commenced in the late 1970s, he reverted at once to an almost son–father dependence on American advice.

This dependency was at its greatest when the young shah first took control of Iran in 1941. In awe at the ease with which the foreign powers had dispatched his father, he recognized the importance of appealing to the West. To ensure that the United States would look favorably upon his country, the shah positioned himself as a committed supporter of democracy. He therefore immediately promised a constitutional government with full powers to be ceded to the cabinet and Majles (Parliament). A wide program of reform was unveiled that included the protection of individual rights and other improvements known to appeal to the West.²² Louis G. Dreyfus Jr., US minister plenipotentiary in Tehran, called it a wise and active beginning by the young shah, who impressed diplomatic officers and Iranians alike with his apparent sincerity, direct approach and democratic spirit.²³ As the cherry on top of his democratic credentials, the shah also signed on to the Atlantic Charter and wrote to President Roosevelt that he hoped the United States would support a future of peaceful democratic development in Iran.²⁴

Thus commenced what Fakhreddin Azimi has called Iran’s most important period of sustained experimentation with constitutionalism.²⁵ To the shah, however, democracy was just a means to an end. Unsure and unstable on the throne, he lacked both international and internal support, but he saw a chance to secure both by advocating democracy. He moved quickly to prove his policy was one of action rather than words. As well as giving more powers to the cabinet and Majles, he returned property previously seized by his father to its original owners, bequeathed the large inheritance he had received to the nation, granted an amnesty to all political prisoners, and released more than twelve hundred dissidents from prison in the first few months of his reign. Taxation was reduced, habeas corpus introduced, censorship on book publications reduced, trade unions allowed to form, and freedom of mobility introduced by revoking the need for police permits for domestic travel.²⁶

The new shah therefore seemed to want to distinguish his rule from that of his father’s totalitarian leadership. He styled himself rather as an apolitical youth who aspired only to the role of constitutional monarch. Emphasizing his education in democratic Switzerland, the shah hoped to convince the West to see Iran as a vibrant, modernizing, and developing state. In an interview published shortly after his twenty-second birthday in October 1941, he denounced dictatorships and autocracies as disastrous and inherently short-lived and praised democracy as a system that allows for the pooling of ideas through checks and balances. In particular, he welcomed the growth of newspapers in his country, calling them the safeguard to democracy that serve as mirrors and barometers in informing the public.²⁷ The Constitutional Revolution was back on track.

The shah’s policies had immediate effects. Civil society, which had been dormant since the Constitutional Revolution, sparked back into life; public debates, previously outlawed, were convened and frequented by the intelligentsia; and numerous associations and political parties were formed. Reporting on the formation of one such party, Azadi (Freedom), Minister Dreyfus approvingly stated it was one of the first endeavors of responsible Iranians, since the dictatorial government of the former shah gave way to the present constitutional one, to get together in a democratic way to consider the solution of common problems.²⁸ Many of the newly released prisoners were allowed to continue their prior political activity, the most important of them being fifty-three men previously arrested for Communist activity, who formed the Tudeh (Masses) Party upon release, a Communist organization with strong links to the Soviet Union. In addition, many notable politicians who had been kept out of politics during Reza Shah’s reign, reappeared. Most famous were former prime minister Ahmad Qavam, who returned from Europe, and Mohammad Mossadegh, who had gained fame during the Constitutional Revolution but later retreated from politics in protest against the authoritarian rule of the shah’s father.²⁹

International factors were paramount in this sudden return of constitutional rule, but most of the literature covering the period has generally ignored their influence.³⁰ By removing Reza Shah and allowing his son to claim the throne, the Allied powers proved themselves both kingmakers and decision makers in Iran. The United States in particular held enormous leverage over the country. The new shah looked to Washington to help maintain Iran’s independence and specifically to President Roosevelt for guidance and support. The shah’s democratic journey was designed largely to convince the Americans to support and protect his rule at a time of severe peril. Insecure on his throne owing to Britain’s and the Soviet Union’s continued predations, the shah curried favor with the Americans in the hope that Roosevelt would limit these countries’ actions.

The importance of the United States in the return of constitutionalism is even more apparent when the shah’s true intentions are taken into account. From the moment he assumed the throne, his desire was not to create a democratic society or to be the enlightened monarch he espoused to be but to surpass his father’s authoritarian leadership. Aware that overt authoritarianism ran counter to the global mood that would later be known as the second wave of democratization, the shah bided his time. Movement toward democracy was a short-term necessity at a time when his rule was weak and uncertain. In his biography of the shah, Abbas Milani notes that during the early years of his reign the shah would often say in private that true development was possible only under the reign of a strong king, not an enlightened and constitutionally restricted monarch.³¹ His father’s dynasty had been built on three pillars: the bureaucracy, court patronage, and control over the military.³² All three had been decidedly weakened and undermined through war, occupation, and abdication. In the absence of these pillars, support from the United States was vital to protect the sovereignty of the shah’s country. Mohammad Reza Shah did not want to be a puppet of foreign powers but understood that the return to royal dominance had to be a slow and gradual process, often demanding short-term concessions to internal and external demands. For now, the shah was willing to submit to American demands, but his ultimate goal, even at this early stage of his reign, was total dominance.³³

The shah’s youthful appearance hid a mature and capable political mind, and in time he would achieve his goal despite the incredible odds he faced as he assumed the throne. He set about the process of restoring royal authority even while outwardly remaining supportive of the democratic reforms he sanctioned and immediately went to work on restoring the three traditional pillars of Pahlavi support. Most important was rebuilding the military and gaining its trust and allegiance. Under the Iranian Constitution in the 1940s, the shah’s only real power was executive control over the military.³⁴ He therefore quickly increased military salaries and showered the officer corps with so many promotions that within the first twenty months of his reign he created twice as many colonels and generals as his father had in the previous twenty years.³⁵

Democracy returned to Iran, therefore, not as a natural transition but as a concession to the demands of the international environment as well as those of his people. This period of constitutionalism in the early 1940s could not have been achieved without external intervention because the shah’s democratic entreaties were arguably more for foreign than domestic consumption. External forces had removed one shah from power and installed a new weaker king who understood the necessity of remaining on good terms with the United States. Had foreign powers not intervened in Iran, it is likely that both Reza Shah and his brand of authoritarianism would have remained intact. The importance of American support instead forced Mohammad Reza Shah to accept a movement he had no intention of tolerating for long. In this acceptance, however, the United States was given leverage over the shah’s actions. How much he could stray from democratic principles would depend greatly on his need for American support, a need he would endeavor to remove in the years ahead as he continued to rebuild the pillars of Pahlavi dominance.

Linking the United States to Iran

The shah’s dreams of returning