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In tonight’s program we will look at the fortieth anniversary of the Islamic revolution and discuss how for the first time in Iran’s contemporary history an undeclared alliance of religious people with the liberal and Marxist organizations waged a revolution in the country.
However, since then many new documents have surfaced and many books have been published in explaining the roots of what happened in Iran forty years ago and the question remains if the revolution did happen in line with the objectives of the US and the Western worlds.
Our guests tonight to discuss these issues are Mohammad Nourizad and veteran journalist Amir Taheri, who was at the age of 28 the editor in chief of Iran’s main daily Kayhan and since then a regular contributor to major international newspapers.
Amir Taheri:
I am not a historian. I am only a journalist. However, in Iran’s history we read that once a foreign army conquers a country they next try to dominate their people by purging all their opponents.
They then form a new government in the country that they have taken over. This process seems to have taken place in Iran with the Islamic revolution as their forces overthrew the Shah’s regime in a matter of four months time and this was helped by the Shah’s lack f any strategy to defend itself or enter a war with this invading army.
The new regime then started to execute anyone who resisted its rule and those who survived its bloody purges only did so by fleeing the country.
However, the new regime faced many obstacles as the state that it had conquered had been build over five centuries in various formats.
The leaders of Islamic republic regime had never been engaged in culture making activities and as a result the regime has not been able to dissolve Iran into its ideology and the Iranian continue to challenge its existence.
