Author: wenboling source: the fireworks world of wenboling (ID: wenboling2020)
Boling said:
Recently, Iran has become the international focus again,
Let’s talk about Iran’s past and present lives.
01
If we want to talk about Iran, we must first talk about the factions of Islam.
In the Sui and Tang Dynasties of China, Muhammad, a God, appeared in the Arabian Peninsula, claiming that he was inspired by God, and asked him to read the instructions of God to other people. Then he read out the Koran.
Since then, Muhammad has embarked on the road of spreading Islam. He himself is also known as the prophet and the Holy Prophet.
Because the doctrine of Islam is simpler and the internal organization is more equal, it quickly swept the Arabian Peninsula. The Muslim army organized by Islam also has strong fighting will and organization. In the past 20 years, it attacked cities and occupied territories in the Arabian Peninsula, Byzantium and Persia.
It can be said that when Islam first came out, it was a religious, cultural, military, political and economic organization that transcended the state entity.
In 632, that is, the 6th year of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty, Muhammad died, so who will inherit it is a big problem.
After all, Islam is not Buddhism, and what Mu Sheng left behind is not a temple. What he left behind is a territory of thousands of miles, hundreds of thousands of troops, huge wealth and the right to interpret the teachings.
The scramble for the successor status of Mu Sheng is actually similar to the Chinese scramble for the throne.
Some people believe that Mu Sheng did not designate an heir before his death, so long as he was taken as an example and followed the teachings, they recommended Mu Sheng’s father-in-law as the heir, and they became the origin of Sunni.
However, some people think that Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Mu Sheng, should be the Caliph. However, they did not fight for the position of heir for the time being, and it was not until after three generations of caliphs that Ali officially took the post.
When Ali died, his supporters said that the status of the Caliph should be inherited by the descendants of Muhammad and Ali. Other people are not qualified to carry out blood lineage.
These people are the origin of Shia.
Against this background, Ali’s son Hussein came out to fight for the throne, but was stopped by the army of the Umayyad caliph Yezid in Karbala. Hussein refused to surrender and was killed by the army together with his followers.
After this incident, the blood feud between Sunnis and Shiites was settled, and it has not been resolved until now.
One faction determines the right of inheritance according to the doctrines, which is equivalent to that the princes and princes will rather have the seed, and everyone has the opportunity. The other faction determines the right of inheritance according to the lineage, which is equivalent to the nine rank system, and no one except Ali’s descendants has the opportunity.
There is no doubt that in the following years, Sunnis have developed greatly and become the largest sect of Islam. Shia is always a minority, and the number of followers is less than 15% of the total number of Muslims.
The split of religions has also affected Iran’s choice.
In the early 16th century, the Safi Dynasty began to rule Iran. Because its rival, the Ottoman Empire, was a Sunni country, the Safi Dynasty declared that the bushites were the state religion, which was the difference from the Ottoman Empire.
However, at that time, the Shia in Iran was relatively weak, and it was somewhat reluctant to be a state religion.
It was not until the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty that Abbas I of the Safi Dynasty began to reform, practised political centralization, recovered land from the military achievement groups who were nomadic cavalry, implemented the tenure system of local officials, and vigorously supported the minority Shia in religion.
In short, Abbas I weakened the old nobles and supported the new nobles.
Since then, Shia has grown rapidly in the Safi Dynasty, and Iran has also become the iron base of Shia. Until now, it is the spiritual hometown of Shia in the world.
02
Iran is located in the most core area of the Eurasian continent and is a major transportation route for military and economic exchanges between East and West.
Such a geographical environment has led to a long history of being invaded in Iran’s millennium history.
However, Iran has a strong cultural heritage. No matter which forces enter Iran, Iranian cultural people can enter the government and become officials. In addition, the Islam sent by the Arabs has enabled the Iranians to have both culture and religion, and to sit firmly on the “stubborn local forces.”
As early as the reign of the Arab Abbasid Dynasty, Iranians learned Arabic and, with their profound cultural quality, became officials of the Abbasid Dynasty to serve the Arabs.
The Iranian literati who did not enter the government also wrote books in the fields of mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and even put forward the heliocentric view that “the sun is the center of the universe”.
Later, the Mongols swept across Eurasia, but due to their low level of education, they were soon assimilated by various civilizations after the end of the military conquest period. Some Mongols in China believed in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, while those in Iran believed in Islam.
It can be said that Islamists are the cultural core of Iran. They have considerable independence in society and are dependent on the state power.
Under this background, the orema class appeared in modern Iran.
Orema is a general term for Islamic scholars, referring to people who have profound knowledge and can explain the teachings, including imams, mullahs, imams, and great Ayatollah.
According to the regulations, Olema is responsible for issuing orders to lower level believers and answering their questions. In return, low-level believers pay tribute to them.
In every rural area of Iran, there are one or two such Olema. On the one hand, they have a strict vertical relationship of learning, and on the other hand, they form an alliance through horizontal communication and marriage, and finally form an intricate relationship network.
Under the organization system of Islam, they can cooperate with the government or operate independently, spread culture, and mobilize the population to organize the army at any time.
So Olema in Iran is actually the most authoritative person in charge of rural areas.
In contrast to Chinese history, Iran’s orema class is actually equivalent to China’s landlords and gentry.
We who are familiar with Chinese history know that such a stratum can maintain a certain degree of cooperation with anyone, but the premise is to respect the traditional culture and continue to advance on the fixed track for thousands of years.
Because to respect Chinese traditional culture is to take care of the real interests of the landlords and gentry, and to respect Iranian tradition is to take care of the real interests of the Olema class.
If any force wants to start a new business, it will destroy their rice bowls. It is impossible for them to give up.
03
At the beginning of the 19th century, Iran was surrounded by Russian and British spheres of influence.
Because if Russia wants to establish its sphere of influence, it will have to arch southward until the Indian Ocean is opened up, while the United Kingdom will continue to expand around India and establish a safety buffer zone to protect the safety of Indian cows.
As a result, Britain with sea power and Russia with land power met head-on in Iran, and Iran was inevitably affected by the two great powers.
On the Russian side, in 1828, Iran and Russia signed the turkmenchay treaty. Russia has the consular jurisdiction in Iran. Russian consuls can freely pass through Iran, and even Russia can make suggestions on the succession of the Iranian throne.
Decades later, Russia helped Iran form an 8000 strong army, named “Cossack brigade”. The soldiers of the army were all Iranian, but the officers were all Russian.
Although this army is under the direct control of the king, the Iranian army commanded by Russian officers is not so much a violent machine of the king as a tool for Russia to infiltrate Iran.
On the British side, Byron de Reuters, the founder of Reuters, established the Persian Empire Bank in 1889 with the support of the British government, monopolizing the issuance of Iranian currency.
In 1908, Britain established the “British Persian oil company” in Iran, and began to use Iranian oil to support British warships. During the first World War, in order to ensure the combat capability of British warships, the company’s crude oil production increased from 2400 barrels per day to 20000 barrels per day.
What Russia wants is land and power, and what Britain wants is resources and economic interests. It can be said that before and after World War I, Iran has lost its national sovereignty and has become the chopping block of Britain and Russia.
After the end of the “World War I”, Russia suffered heavy losses. If it wanted to continue to meddle in Iran, it felt that it had insufficient spare power. Therefore, Britain wanted to monopolize Iran.
In 1920, Edmund ainside, the commander of the British army in Iran, drove all the Russian officers of the Cossack brigade away through British influence on Iran, replaced them with Iranian officers, and then selected one of the Iranian officers and said to him:
“Now the army is in your hands. If you want to change the dynasty, Britain will definitely support it.”
This is not a conspiracy to subvert the government. It is simply an open and aboveboard incitement of Iranian officers to revolt. This Iranian officer heard the British guarantee and thought that the dead birds would not die for ten thousand years. What are we waiting for? It’s against the mother.
After a coup and several rebellions, this Iranian officer became the king of Iran in 1925 and established the Pahlavi Dynasty. Later, he was called the old Pahlavi.
Since modern times, Iran has been colonized and ravaged by powerful countries. It can be expected that the national sentiment of the Iranian people is very strong. In particular, Britain and Russia brought modern civilization into Iran, which directly shakes the interests of Islam and the orema class.
Under such circumstances, Iran will either carry out revolution and break away from the old Iran under the influence of religion, or close itself and completely cut off its ties with the world. In addition, there is no third way to bring Iran a future.
The most important thing is not to make a complete revolution and not to be completely closed, and to maintain a disconnected connection with the modern world and the old Iran. This is a half leg walk, and sooner or later there will be problems.
Unfortunately, the Pahlavi Dynasty was a cripple who walked half a leg.
After he became king of Iran, the elder Pahlavi was ready to carry out ambitious secular reforms with the aim of Kemal in Türkiye.
He did accomplish some things, such as reorganizing the army, often going out of the city to suppress bandits, dealing with a large number of bandits and bullies, and giving the Iranian people a little sense of security.
But he didn’t accomplish more.
Since he wanted to secularize, old Pahlavi promoted European Western-style clothing, which offended traditional Islamists. Britain has influence in Iran, so liberalism has also spread. But old Pahlavi is the king and does not allow freedom of speech and free elections, which offends secularists.
He wanted to reform education, but the modern education he reformed was only in the cities, and basically did not enter the countryside, which caused the contradiction between urban and rural areas.
Iran’s secularization reform has been troubled for nearly 20 years. It seems to be flourishing, but in fact, it can be said that nothing has been achieved.
If the reform is not thorough, it is equivalent to no reform at all. Moreover, for the traditional Islamists, if the secularization reform in Iran is successful, what should we do?
This is unacceptable, both spiritual and material.
Even if the domestic reform is not successful, old Pahlavi is also a mess in diplomacy.
In the early 1940s, “World War II” broke out, and Britain, the Soviet Union and Germany became belligerent enemy countries. At this historical juncture of international standing, old Pahlavi chose neutrality.
Neutrality means that the two do not help each other, and the other meaning of the two do not help each other is that both sides offend.
Even if you are really neutral, it’s just that after old Pahlavi declared his neutrality, he became close to Germany in practical action and retained a large number of German technical experts. Moreover, Iran’s railway is an important supply line from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Union. If the Germans are not expelled, the Soviet Union will have the risk of disclosing military secrets.
In the eyes of Britain and the Soviet Union, this kind of behavior was on the side of Germany. Then there’s no need to say anything. It can support you and abolish you.
So in 1941, British and Soviet troops entered Iran, arrested and exiled old Pahlavi, and then invited American troops to Iran to help maintain the railway. In fact, the three countries partitioned Iran and controlled Iran’s oil resources.
Of course, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union could not directly carry out military occupation, and they had to find an agent. So they found the son of old Pahlevi, little Pahlevi:
“We have decided that you will be the king of Iran.”
Iran has entered the period of little Pahlavi.
Little balievi and Stalin
04
In 1951, the smoke of World War II had gone away, and Iran continued to carry out modernization reform. If Iran has a real chance to change its destiny, it is undoubtedly this time.
In March of that year, the Islamic Conference and the Senate of Iran made a resolution and adopted a plan to nationalize the “British Iranian oil company”, preparing to take over the entire Iranian oil industry.
Just one month after the resolution was made, mosadai was elected Prime Minister of Iran, quickly implemented the nationalization plan, and revoked the franchise rights of the British Iranian oil company that expired in 1993.
As a price, Iran will allocate 25% of its net oil profits to meet the compensation demanded by Britain.
Oil is the lifeblood of a modern country, and Iran is also an oil producing country. If Iran can nationalize its oil industry instead of giving profits to Britain, then Iran can use this money to enrich its finance, then invest in cities and rural areas, gradually change Iran’s social environment, and finally eliminate traditional religious culture with modern culture.
After two or three generations, Iran’s modernization reform was completed.
This is also the meaning of the speeches made by mosatai in public:
“The oil revenue can meet the national budget and eliminate the poverty, disease and backwardness of our people. By eliminating the manipulation of British companies, we can also eliminate potential conspiracy and corruption, thus straightening out the internal affairs of the country.”
However, for a country with incomplete sovereignty such as Iran, a friendly solution to Iran is bound to be unfriendly to the powers that exploit Iran.
After all, they have to control energy and transfer domestic contradictions. Without a colony, those contradictions would only explode at home, and the great powers would not become great powers.
Therefore, in the face of Iran’s demand for oil nationalization, Britain quickly launched a counterattack plan.
On the one hand, we told our partners that the international market did not want Iranian oil, which cut off the sales of Iranian oil.
On the other hand, the removal of experts and employees of the British Iranian company led to the annual output of Iranian oil decreasing from 240 million barrels in 1950 to 10 million barrels in 1952.
Iran’s oil cannot be produced and sold, which will kill Iran. Under the severe economic crisis, people in Iran are boiling.
After the British counterattack against Iran, Prime Minister Churchill and US President Eisenhower said that mosatai has a communist tendency and is an old comrade in arms. What do you think?
What else can we say? Since Churchill said that the evidence was conclusive, Eisenhower had no choice but to believe it. Therefore, Britain and the United States reached a consensus to eradicate this worrisome mossadai.
In August 1953, the CIA of the United States planned a coup, which overturned the reform of the mossadai. Later, the little Pahlavi issued an official document, formally dismissing the mossadai.
The oil nationalization movement that might change Iran failed completely.
Not long after, the new Iranian government reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to export a large amount of oil to the global market, with the United States and Britain gaining the largest share.
In return, the United States subsidized little Balevi in the fields of the military, secret police and other national violence machines.
With the support of the United States, Pahlavi Jr. has been prosperous for 26 years, but Iran under his rule has missed the best opportunity.
Little balievi Carter
The most serious problem is that after the failure of the oil nationalization movement, the Iranian people have a deeper understanding of foreign interference in Iran’s internal affairs. Many people who have received modern education believe that Iran can truly become independent only through some extreme means.
The so-called more extreme means can only be the religion hidden in the countryside.
It can be said that the actions of Britain and the United States to fight for oil interests not only strengthened the hostility of traditional religions to Britain and the United States, but also pushed the Iranians who could have united the war to the side of traditional religions.
Since then, the “white revolution” of little Pahlavi has added the fiercest fire to Iran’s fierce social environment.
The so-called “white revolution” refers to the hope of little Pahlavi to reform Iran’s economic and social system in a non violent way and finally rebuild a new Iran, including 19 reform plans such as land reform, privatization of state-owned enterprises, nationalization of forests and pastures, dividend distribution to workers by private enterprises, and voting rights for women.
We all know that to rebuild the country, the most important thing is land reform, and the rest are subdivision plans based on this.
The same is true of Iran.
Little Pahlavi wants to weaken the strength of rural landlords through land reform, thus weakening the power of traditional religions. At the same time, he wants to cultivate a group of self-employed farmers loyal to the Pahlavi Dynasty, and guide a group of farmers to work as industrial workers in the city.
His ideas are particularly good, but the problem is that land reform can not be changed by the government issuing an order.
Since the industrial revolution, the land reform in various parts of the world has either passed the bloody revolution like China, the war like the United States, or the ransom like Taiwan, China.
There has never been a land reform that has been casually successful.
Little Pahlavi’s land reform is not in line with historical conventions, and failure is inevitable. The final result is that Iranian farmers are not allocated satisfactory land, and many people go to cities to make a living, resulting in a large number of urban unemployed people.
Moreover, almost all of the orema in Iran are rural landlords. The land reform plan of little Pahlavi has suffered the most. Therefore, these people are most opposed to the reform of little Pahlavi.
The whole of Iran has become a powder keg.
Those who are dissatisfied with foreign interference in Iran’s internal affairs, those who have lost their interests in the reform, those who are unemployed in cities, and Islamic scholars are all dissatisfied with the Pahlavi Dynasty.
As a result, the Pahlavi dynasty became more and more unpopular, and the trend of returning to Islam became more and more intense. Quite a number of Iranians felt that the reform of all Westernization had taken an evil Road, and it was politically correct to return to the Islamic regime.
If there is no problem in such a country, it will go to hell.
05
Since 1977, the contradiction in Iran has been quite serious, and the conflict between the government and the opposition has gradually intensified, with demonstrations, arson, arrests and other means becoming more and more fierce.
In the voice of the Iranian people, on February 1, 1979, Khomeini returned to Tehran by Boeing 747. Millions of people met him at the airport and called him “Imam”
Imam is the Imam of the Shia sect of Islam and the intermediary between man and God.
Khomeini, 78, is a senior Shiite scholar. In his early years, he studied hard and studied hard. In 1963, he became marza, that is, the highest ranking big Ayatollah among Shiite scholars. He was arrested and exiled by the military police for publicly criticizing the white revolution of little Pahlavi.
The scholar with the highest status of Shia was exiled when he said what everyone wanted to say. As a result, Khomeini had a mysterious and tragic color and was gradually regarded as a spiritual leader by the Iranian opposition.
During his 14 years in exile, Khomeini also made deep thinking and made a clear plan for Iran’s future.
Khomeini
Less than half a month after returning to Tehran, Khomeini, with the support of the opposition, established an interim government, appointed Mahdi bazargan as prime minister, and announced in his capacity as a religious leader:
“I appointed him. You must be loyal to him. This is the government of Allah. Disobeying this government is disobeying Allah.”
If this sentence comes out, we must support it even if we do not support it.
Then, Khomeini announced that he would launch a holy war against the soldiers who did not surrender. The power of religion erupted at this time. The soldiers laid down their weapons and joined Khomeini’s team.
The revolution proceeded very smoothly. With Khomeini’s magic attack, Iran passed a referendum on regime change in March, and 98% of the people supported replacing the Pahlavi Dynasty with the Islamic Republic. At the end of the year, Iran voted to adopt a new Islamic constitution, and Khomeini became the supreme leader of Iran.
According to the new constitution, the supreme leader is the supreme leader of Iran’s religion and state, and also the supreme commander of the army. He is responsible for guiding the direction of the country with doctrines, and the president is responsible for specific affairs.
Of course, in order to ensure that he can exercise the power of supreme leader, Khomeini organized the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and firmly grasped the gun.
Since then, Iran has completely distanced itself from the modernization process over the past 100 years and returned to the tradition of thousands of years. It has become a very rare country integrating politics and religion in the 21st century.
The Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 was essentially the failure of Iran in the process of modernization, which led to the restoration of the old forces represented by the Shia sect of Islam.
They were attacked by the Pahlavi Dynasty and had no way to deal with foreign interference in Iran’s internal affairs. They could only choose to return to the tradition and then close themselves to ensure the independence of Iran.
Is there no objection to Khomeini’s plan to transform Iran?
Of course, some people oppose it, but the two events that occurred after the Iranian revolution have basically extinguished these opposition groups and made Khomeini and the Republic of Iran deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
The first thing is the Iranian hostage incident.
The British and American intelligence departments overthrew mosatai in 1953. Iranians all remember that when the revolution was about to succeed in November 1979, nearly 400 Iranian college students said they were “disciples of Imam” and wanted to occupy the US embassy in Iran under the leadership of Imam.
The coup launched by the United States in Iran is of course a disgrace to Iran. Now that the Iranian revolution is going to succeed, it is of course necessary to recover this account.
Therefore, the occupation of the US embassy in Iran and the detention of US diplomats as hostages were regarded by the Iranians as a victory for the United States, and the Iranians gave a fierce blow.
After this incident, Khomeini and the Republic of Iran have been labeled as “vindicating the country”, which is a very high honor in any country.
Moreover, during the 444 days of negotiations with the United States, Khomeini and his disciples seized the opportunity to clean up the opposition.
The second issue is the Iran Iraq war.
The cause of the Iran Iraq war was very simple. Saddam Hussein of Iraq wanted to take advantage of the chaos to seize Iran’s oil fields, and he was worried that Iran would incite the Shiites in Iraq, so he decided to strike first and send troops into Iran.
In the face of Saddam’s military invasion, Khomeini called on the Iranian people to unite and defeat the aggressors. In this way, the two countries fought a war for eight years. In the end, neither of them could destroy the other. The war ended in 1988, and Iran and Iraq announced that they had won.
Let alone whether Iraq won or not, Iran did win.
In history, Iran was often invaded by various countries, and in modern times, it was partitioned by European and American powers. Now, it is the first time in history that Iran has resisted the military invasion of Iraq supported by European and American countries.
For Iran, this victory cannot be exaggerated.
Although Iran consumed wealth and resources in the Iran Iraq war, the Iran Iraq war was the war for the establishment of the country after the Iranian revolution. On the one hand, it slightly straightened its waist, and on the other hand, it showed the confidence of the Iranian people.
After these two events, the Islamic Republic of Iran after the revolution has basically stood firm, and has persisted until now.
06
Is there any chance for Iran to secularize in the future?
hardly any.
Iran is now anti western and anti liberal. It is Iran’s national legal system to fight against western civilization with Islamic Shia. It is also an important means for Iran to guarantee its national sovereignty and independence.
If we abandon the integration of politics and religion and start secularization and modernization again, it means that the past few decades have been wrong, and Imam Khomeini is wrong.
It is absolutely impossible for a country to deny itself.
Iran can continue its secularization and modernization only if Khomeini’s Iran is overthrown by foreign enemies. However, the overthrow of Iran’s regime by foreign enemies is basically equivalent to national subjugation.
At that time, Iran was full of foreign forces competing for oil, and there was no talk of secularization and modernization.
At present, Iran can at least return the oil profits to the state finance and subsidize the middle and lower Iranian people, which is much better than the Pahlavi Dynasty.
That’s it.
Not every country can really change its own destiny. Most of them live or die by themselves. They can live one day at a time.