U.S. Files Complaint Against Iran
The United Nations receives a complaint submitted by the United States. Iranians' demand for the extradition of the Shah and seizure of the US embassy in Tehran were debated in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. The two bodies condemned in principle the violation of diplomatic immunity. US also initiated proceedings against Iran in the International Court of Justice. Short after, the US, members of NATO and Japan imposed an economic boycott on Iran. Iran refused to comply.
The US attempted to free the hostages by means of an airborne commando raid in April, 1980 which was an unsuccessful operation. Shah's death on July, 30 voided Iran's demand for his extradition but it did not put an end to the hostage crisis. The crisis was finally resolved by mediation of the Algerian government.
The instability in Iran and the weakening of Iran's armed forces and cancellation of friendship treaties with the US and USSR encouraged Saddam Hussein to denounce the Algiers treaty in 1975. On September, 20, 1980 Iraqi troops invaded Iran.
Eight years of war was only one of the bills Iranians had to pay at the cost of their leaders' stubbornness and ignorance. (Updated: Jan, 5, 2009)
Banisadr Becomes President
1st presidential election: Abolhasan Banisadr became the first Iranian president. Of 124 nominees for the presidential race, only 18 were disqualified. In the first presidential election held in the Iranian history, from 20,993,643 eligible to vote 14,085,243 Iranians cast their vote marking a significant %67.4 participation rate Banisadr could get a landslide victory by %76 of votes while his closest competitor Mr. Ahmad Madani stayed at %15.8. He then became the chief commander of armed forces. He appointed Mr. Rejayi as prime minister on Aug, 29. But his political success did not last long after siding with the main opposition group MKO that later started an armed uprising against the regime.
On June, 10, 1981 the leader, Ayatollah Khomeini dismissed him from his position as the Chief Commander of Armed Forces and eleven days later, on June 21, the parliament voted for his incompetence and he was off duty as president. He then fled to France and gave up political activities.
Born on March, 22 1933 in Tehran, Banisadr went to France in 1963 and made his career as an economist. There he met with Ayatollah Khomeini and returned to Iran in 1979. (Updated: Jan, 25, 2008)
Last Trip For The Last King
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran fled the country on Jan, 16, 1979 after 37 years of reign during demonstrations and nationwide public uprising. He spent 15 months abroad moving from country to country in hopes of returning as king again. He first went to Aswan in Egypt. Then he went to Morocco on Jan, 22 and stayed there for 67 days. On April, 1, 1979, %98 of Iranian voters chose the Islamic Republic as the new form of government in a referendum therefore putting an end to monarchy. Now he was an unwanted criminal on the loose. He flew to Bahamas on March, 30 and from there he hired a plane to Mexico on June, 10. He went to New York and was admitted to a hospital for cancer treatment on Oct, 22 where he underwent an operation. After the U.S. embassy was seized on Nov, 4th, he was sent to Panama on Dec, 15, 1979 and stayed there for 100 days.
On March, 23, 1980 he went back to Egypt. His last trip to Egypt was due to great pressure on the U.S. and fears of being assassinated. He was bedridden in a military hospital on March, 28 where he died on Friday, July, 27, 1980 and was buried in Cairo. Right after the revolution, his father's tomb in Tehran was bulldozed by a hardliner called Khalkhali. (Updated: Feb, 28, 2008)
U.S. Special Forces Fail In Tabas
The operation Eagle was a rescue mission inside Iran given to U.S. special forces. Nearly 6 months after a group calling themselves "Students in Imam's path" stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took the personnel hostage, President Jimmy Carter showed a green light for a rescue operation. Three C-130 cargo planes and 8 RH-S3D helicopters enter the south air borders of Iran without any resistance. After travelling 1000 kilometers north, around midnight they land at a deserted airport which was built by Allied Powers during the WWII near Tabas. A bus passing by on a nearby road was stopped and their passengers were being taken to a plane when things went wrong. A sandstorm caused low visibility. When a helicopter finished taking fuel from a plane and was taking off to let another helicopter take fuel, it hit the plane and 8 American soldiers were killed instantly. The driver of a tanker passing by ran away after he heard shots and there was a chaotic situation. The rescue team took off as soon as possible to save their own lives at least. They left most of their aircrafts and supplies which included heavy arms, even a tank.
In the morning when an investigation team from Revolutionary Guards came to the site for investigation, something more bizarre happened. Despite the fact that the area was secured by then and gendarmerie was around, 3-4 Iranian jet fighters approached the scene and fired rounds of ammo and rockets and destroyed some of the aircrafts. As a result one Iranian serviceman was killed at the scene.
The operation failed but it was a heads-up call for Iranians. It was obvious that there were insiders that supplied classified information to the Americans and were assisting them in such operations. This fiasco was another heavy blow for the Carter administration while Iranians celebrated it as a victory referring to the sandstorm as a miracle sent by God. After this incident, the hostages were divided and taken to secret places and kept there until their release on Jan, 21, 1981. (Updated: Dec, 9, 2007)
The CIA Backed Nojeh Coup Uncovered
Nojeh is the name of a garrison near the city of Hamedan in which a coup against the regime had been planned. The American secret service, CIA had made all necessary preparations for the coup and had installed the commanding headquarters in Paris under supervision from Shapour Bakhtiar while having the confirmation from one of the top clerics of the time, Ayatollah Shariatmadari. Millions of dollars had been spent and part of the declaration previously prepared to be read at the radio on July, 12 was as follows: "Dear fellows. Time has come. Iran's patriotic army has toppled the rotten Mullah regime. All units of the armed forces, gendarmerie, and the police have declared their unity and any resistance will be suppressed toughly..."
According to the plan, key places including Ayatollah Khomeini's residence would be bombed while commando teams were to seize the TV station and army headquarters. But an army pilot and an officer release tip the authorities regarding the plan two days before the operation. Briefly an elite team from the Revolutionary Guards and army commandos is formed to neutralize the operation. They take the Nojeh garrison under siege and arrest the coup elements. All army personnel involved in the coup were put on trial and executed. 27 years before, a similar CIA backed coup which was much less sophisticated toppled the democratic regime of Dr. Mosaddegh on August, 19, 1953. (Updated: Dec, 10, 2007)
Saddam Nullifies Algiers treaty
On a signal from the western and Arab countries that wanted to stop expansion of revolutionary ideas from Iran, the Iraqi dictator finds necessary support and guarantee from his masters to start a war with Iran. For that, he needed an excuse. In 1979 he expressed views that the Algiers accord was in favor of Iranians. Then during an interview in April 1980 he forwarded 3 conditions to ease tensions between the two countries while Iraqi fighter jets were bombing Iranian border villages in order to scare the citizens away. The conditions were as follows: Iran's withdrawal from triplet Persian Gulf islands, returning the extension of Arvand river to it's condition before 1975, and declaring Khuzestan as an Arabic province with the awkward name Arabestan. No one know so far what kind of drugs he had used before this interview but on September, 17, 1980 when he was addressing the Iraqi parliament he declared one sided nullification of the Algiers accord. The war was coming, still ironically, it took 8 years for the UN to find out which side started the war. When the Iranian students were going to school on September, 23 there was an important lesson for them to learn; This equinox marks no peace until high school. (Updated: Jan, 22, 2009)
Iraq Invades Iran
In the midst of a hostage crisis with the United States and covert efforts to overthrow the new revolutionary regime, Iraq invades Iran thus commencing an eight year devastating war, primarily on the grounds that in 1969, Iran voided the 1937 agreement with Iraq on the control of the Arvand river and demanded that the terms be renegotiated. As a divide-and-rule policy, the Britain had planted seeds of dispute all over the region. The Iraq-Iran war in which chemical weapons were used led to an estimated 500,000 to one million casualties. Khomeini rejected diplomatic initiatives and called for the overthrow of Iraq's president But the Arab and western countries sided with Iraq and supported the Saddam regime financially and militarily while Iran was under a trade embargo by the US. However, Iranian forces were able to push the Iraqi troops back to the original borders before the war. On July 3, 1988, a U.S. warship shot down an Iran-Air civilian aircraft, killing all aboard. That same month, Iran agreed to end the war. (Updated: Jan, 30, 2008)
Iraqi Navy Paralyzed
Two months after Iraq invaded Ira, the Iranian Navy and Iranian Air Force launched Operation Morvarid against the Iraqi Navy and Air Force on Nov, 28, 1980 which resulted in a victory for Iran and a heavy toll for Iraq:
-Destruction of 80% of the Iraqi Navy, early warning bases and SAM sites.
-Destruction of some Iraqi oil installations and terminals.
-Blocking of the port of Faav.
Commanded by Admiral Bahram Afzali, the Morvarid Operation began by attacking Iraqi airfields around Basra. Meanwhile the Iranian Navy deployed marines on the Iraqi oil terminals deploying a large amount of explosives which left the installations in flames while Iranian commandos were evacuating the area. Meanwhile two Iranian combat boats blocked Iraqi ports of Fav and Um-Qasr and shelled facilities in range. While these boats were defending a counter-attack from the Iraqi navy, Iranian Air Force engaged the battle and sunk every Iraqi vessel in sight also destroying Iraqi SAM sites. Iraq desperately attacked with MIG planes which could not stop its oil platforms from being destroyed.
The scenes of the Operation Morvarid were filmed and televised showing off Iranian army's power. However, there were factors that made Iran less fortunate in the following operations that prolonged the war to an 8 year manslaughter on both sides. (Updated: Jan, 1, 2010)
English-Persian Glossary
- Admiral Bahram Afzali : درياسالار بهرام افضلي
- Revolutionary Guards : سپاه پاسداران(Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps,IRGC,Sepah Pasdaran Enghelab Eslami) سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامي
- Abolhasan Banisadr : ابوالحسن بني صدر(Abolhassan Bani Sadr)
- Iranian Air Force : نيروي هوايي ايران(IAF,IRIAF,The Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) نيروي هوايي ارتش جمهوري اسلامي ايران،نهاجا
- Shapour Bakhtiar : شاپور بختيار(Shahpur Bakhtiyar)
- United Nations : ملل متحد
- International : بين المللي
- United States : ايالات متحده
- Allied Powers : متفقين(Allies,Aliied Forces)
- Persian Gulf : خليج فارس
- Reza Pahlavi : رضا پهلوي
- Jimmy Carter : جيمي کارتر(James Earl Carter)
- Khuzestan : خوزستان(Khoozestan, Khuzistan,Susiana)
- Mosaddegh : مصدق(Mossaddegh, Mosaddeq) دکتر محمد مصدق،مصدق السلطنه
- Ayatollah : آيت الله
- President : پرزيدنت
- Khalkhali : خلخالي
- Khomeini : خميني(Imam Khomeini)
- American : آمريكائي ينگه دنيائي
- New York : نيويورک
- Bakhtiar : بختيار(Bakhtiyar)
- Iranian : ايراني اهل ايران ، وابستهبه ايران
- Shapour : شاپور(Shapur,Shahpur) شاهپور
- Islamic : اسلامي
- Pahlavi : پهلوي(Pahlevi)
- Persian : فارسي(Farsi,Parsi) ايراني پارسي
- Embassy : سفارت خانه سفارت كبري ، ايلچي گري
- Nations : ملل
- Britain : بريتانيا انگليس
- Hamedan : همدان(Ecbatana) هکمتانه
- Um-Qasr : ام قصر
- Algiers : الجزيره
- Morocco : مراکش مغرب
- Saddam : صدام(Saddam ?ussein Tikriti) صدّام حسين تکريتي
- Rejayi : رجايي(Mohammad Ali Rajayee) محمد علي رجايي
- Tehran : تهران(Teheran, Tahran) طهران
- August : آگوست
- Bahram : بهرام
- Arabic : عربي تازي
- France : فرانسه
- Arvand : اروندرود(Shat-ol-Arab)
- Mullah : ملا
- Egypt : مصر(Al Mesr)
- Paris : پاريس
- Nojeh : نوژه
- Armed : مسلح
- Force : نيرو
- Court : دربار
- Japan : ژاپن
- Tabas : طبس
- Eight : هشت
- Aswan : اسوان
- Cairo : قاهره(Al-Qahirah)
- Ahmad : احمد
- Basra : بصره(Al Basrah)
- Arab : عرب
- Iraq : عراق(Al Aragh)
- USSR : اتحاد جماهير شوروي(Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.))
- NATO : ناتو سازمان پيمان آتلانتيک شمالي
- Gulf : خليج
- WWII : جنگ جهاني دوم
- Shah : شاه پادشاه
- Faav : فاو
- King : شاه
- Time : تايم
- Last : آخر
- Iran : ايران
- Imam : امام(Emam)
- Air : آسمان
- SAM : موشک زمين به هوا
- CIA : سيا(C.I.A.)
- Fav : فاو
- New : جديد
- MKO : سازمان مجاهدين خلق گروهک منفقين
- US : ايالات متحده
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