Michael: Most people think revolutions happen when things are at their absolute worst. But in 1970s Iran, the economy was booming, literacy was soaring, and the country was modernizing at a dizzying speed. So why did it all just… explode? Kevin: That’s a fantastic question, because it completely flips the script. You imagine peasants with pitchforks storming the castle, not a nation on the rise suddenly turning on itself. It doesn’t make intuitive sense. Michael: It’s the central enigma we're tackling today, through Michael Axworthy's incredible book, Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic. Kevin: And Axworthy wasn't just any historian. He was a leading expert on Iran, and this book is widely seen as one of the most definitive, yet accessible, histories out there. It’s highly rated by both academics and general readers for its balance. He really gets into the human drama behind the headlines. Michael: Exactly. He argues the revolution wasn't just about politics; it was a search for national identity. And that search begins with the great paradox of the Shah's rule: how his attempts to build a modern superpower actually laid the groundwork for his own destruction.

Michael: To understand the explosion, you have to look at what the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was building. In the 60s and 70s, he launched what he called the "White Revolution." This was a massive, top-down modernization project. He implemented land reforms, poured oil money into industry, and dramatically expanded education and healthcare. On paper, Iran was a huge success story. Kevin: Okay, so more schools, better hospitals, a growing economy. These all sound like things that would make a leader more popular, not less. Where did the poison come from? Michael: The poison was in the how. First, this modernization was brutal and autocratic. The Shah created a terrifying secret police force, the SAVAK, to crush any and all dissent. But more importantly, his vision of "modern" was exclusively Western. He wanted Iran to be a secular, Western-style monarchy, and he saw traditional Iranian culture, especially its deep Shi'a Islamic roots, as an obstacle. Kevin: So people were getting richer and more educated, but they felt like their soul, their very identity, was being erased? Michael: Precisely. And nothing captures this disconnect better than the party he threw in 1971. To celebrate 2,500 years of the Persian monarchy, he hosted this mind-bogglingly extravagant event at the ancient ruins of Persepolis. He flew in French chefs from Maxim's of Paris, served tons of champagne, and invited kings, queens, and presidents from all over the world. Kevin: Wow. That sounds like a statement. "We've arrived." Michael: It was. But for ordinary Iranians, many of whom were still living in poverty, it was a slap in the face. It looked like the Shah was celebrating a pre-Islamic, pagan past while ignoring the country's living, breathing Islamic culture. It made him seem alien, a foreigner in his own land. And it alienated two of the most powerful forces in Iranian society: the clergy, who saw it as an attack on Islam, and the bazaaris—the traditional merchants—who were the backbone of the economy and deeply religious. Kevin: And how much did that earlier event, the 1953 coup, hang over everything? I mean, the fact that the CIA and British intelligence had overthrown Iran's democratic prime minister, Mossadeq, to put the Shah back on the throne. Was that like this original sin he could never escape? Michael: It was a ghost that haunted his entire reign. Axworthy makes it clear that the 1953 coup was a profound national trauma. It confirmed for many Iranians that the Shah was not their legitimate ruler, but a puppet of the West. This fueled a deep, simmering anti-American and anti-Western sentiment. It also created a powerful thirst for what intellectuals at the time called 'authenticity.' Kevin: Authenticity? What does that mean in this context? Michael: It was a rejection of what they called "Gharbzadegi," or "Westoxification." Thinkers like Ali Shariati began reinterpreting Shi'a Islam not as a quietist faith, but as a revolutionary ideology of resistance against injustice and foreign domination. He told young, educated Iranians that true Islam was a force for social justice. This message was electrifying. It gave them a way to be both modern and authentically Iranian, without having to bow to the West or the Shah. Kevin: So the Shah's project backfired completely. By trying to force a Western identity onto Iran, he created a massive demand for the very thing he was trying to suppress: a powerful, political, and revolutionary form of Iranian Shi'ism. Michael: Exactly. He lit the fuse. And the man holding the match was an exiled cleric living in Iraq, a man most of the world had forgotten about: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Kevin: Okay, so the regime collapses in 1979. The Shah flees, Khomeini returns to a hero's welcome, and the Islamic Republic is born. But a new government born from chaos seems incredibly vulnerable. How on earth did it survive, especially when its neighbor, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, invades just a year later? Michael: That's the second great paradox of this story. The Iran-Iraq War, a brutal, eight-year conflict that killed hundreds of thousands, should have destroyed the fledgling republic. Instead, as Axworthy masterfully shows, it saved it. Kevin: How is that even possible? Michael: In September 1980, Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale invasion. He saw an Iran in revolutionary turmoil, its professional army purged and disorganized, and he thought he could grab oil-rich territory and become the new strongman of the Arab world. He expected a swift victory. Even some in the Iranian leadership, as Bani-Sadr later revealed, secretly thought they would be defeated. Kevin: So it was a moment of extreme peril. What happened? Michael: The Iranian people happened. The invasion didn't cause the country to fracture; it unified it with a powerful surge of patriotism. Suddenly, this wasn't about internal politics anymore. It was about defending the homeland from a foreign aggressor. And this is where the new regime's institutions, like the Revolutionary Guard, or Sepah, came into their own. Kevin: And they managed to turn the tide? Michael: Dramatically. The turning point, both militarily and psychologically, was the recapture of the city of Khorramshahr in May 1982. The Iraqis had taken it early in the war, and it became a symbol of national humiliation. The Iranians launched a massive offensive, Operation Beit ol-Moqaddas, and after incredibly fierce fighting, they retook the city and captured over 12,000 Iraqi soldiers. The news sent shockwaves through the region. In Iran, there was euphoria. In Iraq, there were riots. Kevin: That must have been a huge moment. But I've heard about the tactics Iran used, these "human wave" attacks. That sounds absolutely horrific. Michael: It was. And Axworthy doesn't shy away from it. The regime mobilized huge numbers of volunteers, many of them part of the Basij, a paramilitary force. A lot of these were just boys, some as young as thirteen, filled with a mix of religious fervor and patriotic duty. They were often sent in waves, sometimes literally running across minefields, to overwhelm Iraqi positions through sheer numbers. Kevin: My god. Just sending kids to their deaths. Was it purely religious fanaticism, this idea of martyrdom? Michael: That's the simplistic Western view, and Axworthy provides a much more nuanced picture. He includes these heartbreaking interviews with former child soldiers. One boy, captured by the Iraqis, tells an aid worker, "I didn't go to war to die for Islam. I went to defend Iran." Another said it was like a game, a chance to prove to his friends he was a man. For many, it was about defending their country, just as the British did against Germany in World War II. The religious element was there, but it was woven into a deep, powerful nationalism. Kevin: So the war, as horrific as it was, actually became the ultimate tool for consolidating the revolution? Michael: Absolutely. It gave the new regime a cause to rally the nation around. It legitimized the rule of the clergy and the power of the Revolutionary Guard. It silenced internal dissent in the name of national unity. Saddam Hussein thought he was invading a weak, chaotic state. Instead, he ran into a nation being forged into something new and resilient in the fires of war.

Michael: The war forged a unified state, but once the external enemy was gone, the internal cracks started to show again. And that leads to the battle for Iran's future that's still being fought today. Kevin: The battle between the hardliners and… everyone else? Michael: Essentially, yes. The struggle between those who believe the revolution is a finished, rigid project and those who believe it should evolve. This came to a head in 1997 with the surprise election of a reformist president, Mohammad Khatami. He won in a landslide, running on a platform of civil society, rule of law, and greater social and political freedoms. For a while, there was this incredible sense of hope, a "Tehran Spring." Kevin: A period of opening up? More freedom of the press, more freedom for young people and women? Michael: Exactly. But the conservative establishment, particularly the judiciary and the security forces controlled by the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, pushed back hard. They saw this reform movement as a threat to the core principles of the revolution. They shut down newspapers, arrested activists, and blocked Khatami's reforms at every turn. Kevin: So the hope just… fizzled out? Michael: It was systematically crushed. And this sets the stage for the explosive events of 2009. After two terms of Khatami, the hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was president. In the 2009 election, he was challenged by the reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. When Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a landslide, millions of Iranians felt the election had been stolen. Kevin: And that's when the Green Movement began. Michael: Yes. Millions poured into the streets of Tehran in some of the largest, most peaceful demonstrations the country had ever seen. Their slogan was simple and powerful: "Where's my vote?" It was this incredible, hopeful, vibrant movement. Kevin: But we know how it ended. Michael: We do. The regime responded with overwhelming force. The Basij militia were unleashed on the protestors. People were beaten, arrested, tortured, and killed. The movement was brutally suppressed. Axworthy titles this chapter "Bim-e Mowj"—"Fear of the Wave." It perfectly captures the regime's deep-seated paranoia about its own people, this terror that a wave of popular discontent could wash it all away. Kevin: That slogan, "Where's my vote?", became so iconic. It feels like that same tension is the defining feature of Iran today—this constant, simmering push for change and the state's unyielding, often violent, grip on power. Michael: It is the central drama of modern Iran. The revolution of 1979 wasn't an end point. It was the beginning of a new, long, and often tragic argument that the country is still having with itself.

Kevin: So after all this—revolution, war, protest—what's the big takeaway from Axworthy's history? What is the 'real' Iran that emerges from these pages? Michael: I think the most powerful takeaway is that Iran is not a simple monolith. It's not the fanatical, one-dimensional caricature you often see in the news. Axworthy paints a picture of a deeply complex civilization, a place defined by a profound sense of its own long history, a fierce pride in its independence, and this ongoing, unresolved argument with itself about its own identity. Kevin: An argument between what? Islam and democracy? Tradition and modernity? Michael: All of the above. The 1979 revolution didn't solve those questions; it just framed them in a new, dramatic way. Is Iran a theocracy or a republic? Is its identity Persian or Islamic? Is its future one of isolation or engagement? The book shows that these aren't abstract debates; they are fought in the streets, in elections, and in the hearts of ordinary people. Axworthy has this beautiful line that I think sums it up perfectly. He says, "Iran is less a country than a continent, more a civilization than a nation." Kevin: Wow. That really reframes it. It’s not just a state; it’s this vast, ancient cultural entity trying to figure out how to exist in the modern world. It makes you think—what are the hidden tensions and historical currents shaping our own societies that we might be missing? Michael: That's the question, isn't it? Every nation has these deep, unresolved arguments. Axworthy’s work is a powerful reminder to look past the headlines and understand the history that truly drives a country. We'd love to hear what you think about this complex history. Does it change your perspective on Iran? Let us know. Kevin: This is Aibrary, signing off.