Promises of Betrayals: The History That Shaped the Iranian Shia Clerics

By Fazle Chowdhury and Martin Sieff

Promises of Betrayals demonstrates the revealing history but complex and profound caution in the re-examination of Iran as it has remained shrouded in a murky cloud to those responsible for directing United States policy. Fazle Chowdhury fills the crucial information gaps by exploring key Iranian history events that has directly and indirectly shaped Iran’s doctrine while syndicating 500-years of trials that has permanent implications on the clerical regime’s present chronicled driven policy strength of regional influence and expansionism in response to drawing on past clashes with ruling Shahs and foreign interference that once tore Iran apart and one which the Shia theocracy are determined to avoid today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Nov 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781480869899

Fazle Chowdhury

FAZLE CHOWDHURY is a contributing writer for the Portugal based Expresso newspaper. He is a former International Business Machines (IBM) Management consultant and previously served in United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

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Copyright © 2018 Fazle Chowdhury.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-6988-2 (sc)

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Archway Publishing rev. date: 03/12/2019

For Alisa

There is no present or future—only the past,

happening over and over again—now.

—Eugene O’Neill, A Moon for the Misbegotten

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Chronology

Preface

Chapter 1     Beginnings

Chapter 2     Safavids

Chapter 3     Nader Shah

Chapter 4     Qajars

Chapter 5     Reza Shah

Chapter 6     Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Chapter 7     Imam Khomeini

Chapter 8     Iran-Iraq War

Chapter 9     Recovery and Cooperation

Chapter 10   Confrontations

Chapter 11   The Dark Relationship

Chapter 12   The Final Word

Notes & References

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are some people I would like to thank who have helped me to make this book. First and foremost, would dearly like to thank Lady Alisa Bernstein, whose never-ending zeal to keep me in line with a schedule is where I have no words of appreciation to express. Initially, I foolishly and randomly decided on writing the manuscript of this book without much detailed planning. It has been more than twenty years since I have written something as substantial as this. In the beginning I did not have much thought, plan, nor realizing the time it would consume. This was more specific to untangling and detangling some of the analysis in Iran’s complicated history. I am ever so grateful to my editor Melissa Coll Smith who despite having one of the hardest schedules gave me the time and day to guide the manuscript to the best of forms. My special thanks to the notable Keith Alexander Ashe, who accounts for no appreciation that can begin to explain the insurmountable gratitude I have for his time, friendship, and humor to keep me, going during my research.

Promises of Betrayals required an unexpected and astonishing amount of research and reading (sometimes with an infinitesimal lens) of books and articles on the history of the Ayatollahs and clerics of Iran. In this endeavor, I was especially grateful to all the librarians who have shared with me invaluable methods in digging up digitized versions of articles, texts, and books from overseas catalogs.

A special thanks to a handful of close friends who always encouraged me and supported me through the process. Special thanks to Rohan Moorthy for his words of wisdom to carry me through some challenging times. Domenic Senger, the eminent attorney who always engaged me with his witty remarks but questioned me on several international affairs and policies.

I am exclusively grateful to Dr. Shaul Bakhash, the Iranian historian who gave me perhaps the most intricate lectures on Iran during my undergraduate time and many of those memories still encapsulate the passion of Iran that has forever ingrained my curiosity, one that has always been present by my side and has never left me.

Finally, a fantastic team of young and desolate literary critics I have had the pleasure to provide me with extensive personal and professional opinion, critical analysis, and guidance.

Above all, my weighty gratitude to the elegant Martin Sieff, without whose generous time and counsel I would not have had the temperament to produce a manuscript to the form in which it is before you now.

Fazle Chowdhury

April 2018

FOREWORD

For forty years, the subject of Iran has occupied a curious role in the American intellectual and political psyche. Not even the Soviet Union or the Vietnam War ever generated so much polarized, simplistic, and entirely ignorant passion among hawks and doves, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats for so long, and this state of affairs continues unabated to this day.

In this endless and arid desert of contentious accusations, assertions, and abuse, Fazle Chowdhury’s new book eschews the Mobius loop, endlessly repetitious rhetoric of both sides, and adopts another methodology completely. He studies and delivers a cool, easily accessible history of Iran in key moments of the past thousand years and more, with of course his main emphasis on the twentieth century. When you complete this book, you will understand why suspicion of the West—and of the United States and Britain in particular—has shaped Iran’s modern identity and determination to maintain its own independence and specific foreign policies.

In the American media and the think tank and political worlds of the early twenty-first century, such an unfashionable resort to the discipline and methodologies of history has become unheard of. Yet it is exactly what is needed, especially on this subject.

Some of Iran’s most enthusiastic friends and all her most implacable enemies in the United States are completely ignorant of the complex, impressive social and economic entity that is modern Iran—and how it got to be what it is. Chowdhury provides the best introductory guide possible into filling that gaping void. His work should be required reading for all US diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and policy makers who deal with Iranian issues and for all the endless senators, members of Congress, and US media pundits who mouth their endlessly repeated clichés.

Constructive engagement with Iran is vital for US national security interests and for the peace of the world. US allies in the Middle East, most notably Saudi Arabia and Israel, also need to understand Iran in its many complexities and apparent contradictions far better than they currently do. Chowdhury provides them with an indispensable tool to do so.

Virtually all Americans are ignorant of the modern history of Iran and how its oil wealth was drained dry for forty years by the British Empire to maintain the global dominance of the Royal Navy. That endlessly prolific but also reckless genius Winston Churchill was the architect of this achievement for Britain—and catastrophic and humiliating blow for the Iranian people—before World War I. Yet I have yet to come across a single US policymaker and only a tiny handful of genuine experts in Washington, DC think tanks who are familiar with this development and what it led to.

Chowdhury is similarly eye-opening in his treatment of the CIA coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. My own old mentor and teacher, University of London professor Elie Kedourie, wrote a famous essay describing the CIA senior operatives who toppled Mossadegh so recklessly and wantonly in 1953 as the sorcerer’s apprentices. Chowdhury’s work confirms that chilling assessment generations later.

The backlash against the Anglo-American crushing of democracy in Iran was held back for a generation, but finally it came with ferocious power. The 1978 Iranian Revolution was a direct result and repudiation of the ambitious reforming policies of the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Chowdhury writes with understanding and sympathy of the Shah’s efforts to modernize and reform Iranian society and why they disastrously backfired. But he also makes clear how the Shah’s fateful, close association with and dependence upon the United States over the previous quarter century led to the conviction by scores of millions of Iranians that the United States was the Great Satan and a perpetual menace to their country’s survival.

The memories of the appalling losses of well over a million lives in the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War—a war that Iran did not start but was the victim of—remains large in the Iranian psyche. It is safe to say that very few reflect that the Carter and Reagan administrations both wholeheartedly supported Saddam Hussein, the worst tyrant in modern Middle East history in his unprovoked attack on Iran, or realize that proportionate Iranian casualties in that war were comparable to those of Britain, Russia, France, and Germany during the great bloodbaths of World War I. But Iranian policymakers today still remember those dark days in their formative years.

For forty years, the United States has seemed fated under Republicans and Democrats alike to stagger from one failure, humiliation, miscalculation, and fiasco after another in its dealings with Iran. Chowdhury does a masterful job of showing how this state of affairs came about and how the chronic ignorance generating these endless failures continues to this day. I can think of no better place for Americans to break this dreary cycle than by turning to this fine book.

Martin Sieff is former chief foreign correspondent of The Washington Times and was managing editor of international affairs at United Press International. He has received three Pulitzer Prize nominations for international reporting. His books include The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East (2008) and Cycles of Change (2015), a study of the patterns of US political history from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama. Sieff is a senior fellow at the American University in Moscow.

CHRONOLOGY

June 8, 632 CE - The Islamic Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) dies.

June 8, 632 CE – Abu Bakr, Prophet Muhammad’s (Peace Be Upon Him) father-in-law, becomes the 1st Caliph and reigns for 744 days.

August 23, 634 CE- Umar ibn al-Khattab, also friend and father-in-law of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) becomes the 2nd Caliph but is assassinated in 644AD.

636 CE – The end of Sassanid dynasty and start of Islamic rule in regions around modern-day Iran.

November 11, 644 CE - Uthman ibn ‘Affan, one of the sons-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) becomes the 3rd Caliph but is killed in June, 656 CE.

June 20, 656 CE - Ali ibn Abi-Talib, Prophet Muhammad’s (Peace Be Upon Him) first cousin and son-in-law becomes the 4th Caliph and is assassinated in January 29,661 CE.

661 CE- Hasan ibn Ali, son of Ali ibn Abi-Talib and grandson of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) is proclaimed Caliph by his followers and considered as the 1st Imam of Shia Islam. His reign lasts less than a year. His death follows shortly in mysterious circumstances.

Husayn ibn Ali, brother of Hasan ibn Ali succeeds him. Refuses the pledge of allegiance to Yazid, the Umayyad caliph, due to his unjust and oppressive rule. Muharram, and the day he was martyred in October 10, 680 CE Karbala is known as Ashura (the tenth day of Muharram, a day of mourning for Shia Muslims) influences Shia movements.

1501 – Shah Ismail rebels against the Ottomans. Begins his Safavid Dynasty and its 230-years rule in Persia with Shia Islam as its identity.

1736 – Nader Shah begins his reign on Persia overthrowing the last Safavid Shah.

1747 – 1779 –After Nader Shah’s assassination, Persia is in chaos and is a center for conflict.

1779 - Agha Mohammad Khan, begins the reign of the Qajar dynasty in Persia.

1828 - Iran cedes control of its Caucasus areas to Czarist Russia.

August 1906 - Introduction of Persian constitution by the new parliament limits the Shahs powers.

February 1921 - Reza Khan launches a coup d’état. Voted by parliament as the Shah. Deposes the last Qajar Shah and begins his reign of the House of Pahlavi in Persia.

August 1941 - The Shah’s pro-German stance leads to Britain and Russia to occupy Iran. The Shah is overthrown and replaced by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

April 1951- Iranian parliament votes to nationalize the oil industry.

August 1953 – Prime Minister Mossadeq is overthrown in a coup.

January 1963- A campaign to modernize and westernize the country by the Shah begins.

September 1978- The clerics are in conflict with the Shah’s programs. In response, Martial law begins.

January 1979 – Shah and his family leave Iran.

February 1979 - The arrival and beginning of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini reign in Iran begins.

April 1979- The country is officially named as The Islamic Republic of Iran.

November 1979- Americans hostage crisis begins when the US embassy in Tehran is taken over by university students, militias and volunteers of the regime.

July 1980- The Shah dies of cancer in Egypt.

September 1980- Iran-Iraq war begins.

January 1981- The American hostages are released after 444 days.

July 1988- Iran accepts a ceasefire agreement with Iraq.

June 1989- Ayatollah Khomeini dies. President Khamenei succeeds him as the new supreme leader.

August 1989- Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani becomes the new president.

August 1990 - Iran remains neutral following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

September 1990- Iran and Iraq opens diplomatic channels.

May 1995 - US imposes oil and trade sanctions against Iran due to its hostile role in the Middle East.

May 1997- Mohammad Khatami becomes President of Iran.

July 1999- Beginning of Pro-democracy movement by students at Tehran University. They protest on the closure of reformist and liberal newspapers.

February 2000- In parliamentary elections, for the first time President Khatami and his allies win control of parliament.

June 2001- President Khatami is re-elected as President of Iran.

January 2002- Iran is labeled as an axis of evil by US President George W. Bush.

September 2002- Russia begins cooperation with Iran’s first nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

November 2003- IAEA gives a statement that there is no evidence of a weapons program in Iran.

February 2004- Beginning of the resurgence of the Conservatives. They win parliamentary elections.

June 2005- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran’s ultra-conservative mayor becomes President of Iran.

February 2006- IAEA now issues a complaint against Iran to the UN Security Council as news spreads that Iran is enriching uranium at Natanz.

May 2007- IAEA issues as statement that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in three to eight years.

March 2008- President Ahmadinejad makes his first official visit to Iraq. He signs several Iran-Iraq cooperation agreements.

November 2008- Barack Obama wins the US Presidential elections. Surprisingly, President Ahmadinejad congratulates him.

June 2009- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wins his second-term as Iran’s President. Mass protests begin over voter fraud.

October 2009- Five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany called the P5+1 begin negotiations with Iran over its uranium enrichment, proposing to develop it outside Iran.

February 2011- Iran deploys two warships through the Egyptian Suez Canal. Israel considers this a threat.

April 2011- The first time an Iranian President has openly defied the Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Relations between Ahmadinejad and the Supreme leader become increasingly tense.

January 2012- Due to US sanctions on Iran’s central bank, Iranian threatens to block the transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

September 2012 - Canada breaks off diplomatic relations with Iran because of Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s support for the Syrian regime.

October 2012- Iran’s rial currency loses 80% of its value due to international sanctions.

June 2013- Reformist-backed cleric Hassan Rouhani becomes Iran’s President.

June 2014- President Rouhani reports that Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps(IRGC) are in Iraq providing military training as Iraq’s security forces battle ISIS.

July 2015- P5+1 agree to a deal with Iran. For limiting Iranian nuclear activity, they will lift international economic sanctions against Iran.

January 2016- International economic sanctions on Iran is lifted.

February 2016- Reformists do well in parliamentary elections. They also perform well in the Assembly of Experts - The council that selects the Supreme Leader.

November 2016 – Donald Trump becomes US President and shortly after announces the US withdrawal from the 2015 international deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

May 2017- Hassan Rouhani wins re-election as president.

June 2017 – ISIS conducts its first attacks on Iranian parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini.

December 2017- Mass protests erupt in several Iranian cities over the state of poverty and the lack of jobs in the country.

PREFACE

The fall of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979 was the pivotal event of the last half-century; in fact, many agree that it was the point that changed the half-century; in fact, many agree that it was the point that changed the dynamics in the Middle East. With respect, this is only part of the narrative. The fall of the Shah was just one of several events that made the Middle East what it is today. The roots of such clashes have their links to the past that date back to the time of the Islamic caliphate.

The tragic tale of Shia factions as it reached a climax in their betrayal by Sunni Caliph Abu Bakr and not the favored Imam, Ali ibn Abi Talib, in succession to the Islamic caliphate resulted at the beginning of prejudice and the murder of Imam Ali and his descendants. What followed as a result, centuries of Shia struggle, oppressed as a minority. From one empire to another, then they scattered to find a home until finally in the rule of the Safavids. For the first time, the Shia clerics had their Ulema (community) led by their Shah–two hundred and twenty-one years of rule followed by half a century of chaos that encircled Persia and the Ulema’s caused mostly by the neighboring Sunni empires. It is under the Safavids; the Shia clerics found their base of power. Followed by Nader Shah and then Qajars after. It was after the 1906 Iranian Constitutional Revolution that the clerics joined forces with democratic forces to oust the last Qajar.

Opposition to westernization heated in their struggle as the clerics juggled between forces of modernity and tradition. Such rejections resulted in the conservative clerics’ absence from the ruling democratic forces and the government. They would find an awakening in their opposition to the Pahlavi monarch Reza Shah and his successor Mohammed Reza Shah in the Islamic Revolution of 1979; see their authority to rule to be complete.

Throughout the Islamic Revolution and its ideology of Khomeini’s velayat-e faqih, the clerics alleviated the oppressive rule of the Shah. The rule of the clerics now did not expand, embolden, or harmonize it status; instead, it divided it. Factions within the clerics began to emerge in those who controlled their shrines, seminaries, and mosques; to those involved in schools and universities; those involved in foundations and corporations; and finally, those who supported Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Patronage of powers became a competition, not an option. The criticism directed at the Iranian regime of unleashing militant Islam has some truth in it but not entirely based on the Islamic Revolution. The culmination of the events of 1979 that resulted in the rule of Shia theocracy is a combination of historical and present-day interferences from outside powers. These outside influences have always sought to attain Iran’s oil while effortlessly trying to find a proxy to rule on its behalf.

From the Ottomans, Britain, Tsarists to Soviet Russia, the United States, and Arab Sunni regimes, outside influences culminated in five hundred years of turbulence, holding Iran back from its real potential. Neither did the two World Wars, followed by the Cold War, allow real and constructive, long-lasting developments, be they economic or military. Iran remained in chaos while also inheriting the shackles of poverty and very little control over its internal affairs. Fast-forward to today, when Iran is now witnessing its fifth protest in a single decade.

The deeply troubled and divisive relationship between Iran and the West makes it uneasy for any American to realize that Iran today is the most democratic country in the Middle East, even more so than the United States’ most preferred ally, Israel. Concerning the status of women and minorities, Iran supersedes all other Middle East countries. In 2016 elections, even in the restive and volatile southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province council elections: four hundred and fifteen women