Iran’s revolution

Waiting for God

Debunking the myths that sustained Ayatollah Khomeini’s republic

See article

Readers' comments



Parviz Tehrani

The "cements were lacking" because Iran was making fast progress towards a developped country.

Although the Shah was far from perfect, Iran was becoming a powerful country, with a great international image and a true middle class had developped.

Many Iranians (who are the real ones suffering from this regime and not Israel or the US) believe it is becuase the Shah was getting too powerful that the great powers decided to let him down and support the revolution. Ask BBC how they provided a unique channel for Khomeini to broadcast his propaganda. BBC was and still is owned by the British government.

Iranians (the people) are the most western-friendly (and Pro US) people you can find not only in the region but simply in the world. This regime is such a shame! But defaulting to saying "the Shah was bad, so the people revolted against him" is an easy but flawed reasoning. It is much more complex than that and as usual involved oil!

Parviz Tehrani

It is shear ignorance if you think Iranians understand or speak Arabic! Iranians are Persians, not Arabs. They speak Persian, which is an indo-european language. Here are a few other countries in the region that do not speak or understand Arabic: Turkey, Azerbaijan, Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan...

Iran has had a glorious past of course ruined by the last 30 years of religious dictatorship.

Parviz Tehrani in reply to Mario A.

Well I got news for you. Average or educated Iranians don't understand or speak Arabic. Even the mullahs (islamic priests) don't understand spoken Arabic. They know very little Koran type arabic and would need a translator if they go to Dubai for instance.

Parviz, an average Persian


I find the 1979 revolution fascinating: a people subjugating themselves, out of free will (there was a referendum in March 1979), to a theocracy (velayat e faqih) is nothing but total folly. In retrospect, the Shah seems like an enlightened dictator, although not without his faults (SAVAK etc.). The Islamic republic has proven to be magnitudes more cruel than the Shah's regime. During his reign you would not find people hanging from cranes for 'crimes' such as homosexuality or adultery. I also doubt whether Iranian society has become more equal, as was promised, as a huge swath of Iran's economy is now controlled by the Republican Guard and its top brass. Watching clips of 1970s Iran and comparing it to today just makes you weep of what has become of the country.

dhaulagiri in reply to BZB

That's angry talk BZB, where on earth do you get your facts. And I wonder from where that underlayer of hate springs. The Economist is not 'self-congratulatory', quite the reverse, it often makes fun of itself; it is full of facts, and is (relatively) modest with its opinions; bollix is spelt bollocks in my book, but like your variant; highhanded propaganda? what nonsense. What you call a rag would not have the international respect it possesses if it only peddled mush. Cool it and use your brain instead of your testicles.

Pez D Spencer in reply to Mario A.

@Mario A.

You wrote (quote): "It's also well-known that most Iranians understand Arabic since they are squashed by Arabic-speaking nations."

FYI, Iran borders only one Arabic speaking country, which is Iraq.
All other countries that Iran shares borders with are Turkish and Kurdish speaking (Turkey), Armenian speaking (Armenia), Azeri speaking (Azerbaijan), Turkmen speaking (Turkmenistan), Pashto and Farsi speaking (Afghanistan), and Urdu speaking (Pakistan).

The Iranian regime's involvement in the internal affairs of Arab countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and the Arab gulf states may create the impression that there are close ties between Iranians and Arabs, but this notion isn't necessarily accurate.

Bismarck888 in reply to Mario A.

It has to do with career prospects, and not the assumption that Persians speak Arabic. If you were a CIA officer your career would be better served learning Arabic/Chinese instead of Farsi / Korean. That is why most CIA officers know Chinese / Arabic, not Korean/Farsi. More importantly many people leave the CIA midway through their careers, and Chinese and Arabic is far more in demand than Farsi/Korean. The number of people who study Chinese vs Korean is most likely 30-40 to 1 in the West. Same applies to Arabic vs Farsi. They do with what they have. Unlike the US military, the CIA does not have languages schools to train translators from zero.


I'd expect nothing less from a self-congratulatory rag like the Economist. This pile of steaming manure is the typical cultural imperialist bollix that this sloppy publication peddles. Thankfully the Brit colonialist 'opinion' and the highhanded propaganda against Iran, or any other part of the world where the English think they can manipulate and define, is no longer of any real worth. If I were you lot, I'd go and give your own royal family a good scrubbing and clean up after the Islamos that are gutting out Old Blighty. A pox be on your house.


It is a waiting game of sorts. Waiting for the military hierarchy to decide they should protect the people and not the regime as they did in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya but not in Syria, so much.

By the way those are Green Movement protesters in the photo who were an inspiration to Arab Awakening and who themselves are the heir to protest movements for freedom from Soviet Dictatorship in the former Soviet bloc.


I have always had a negative feeling about academics commenting on Iran.They have almost always been wrong and their usually plagiarised copying of each other's papers written as they sit in the libraries, away from the realities in the ground, is also often favourable to the mullahs ruling Iran, because the most important thing for them is to be able to travel back and forward to Iran and participate in state sponsored conferences

While the CIA does not have its own language school, they can and do make use of DLI (the military's Defense Language Institute). In fact, duplicating that schools would be a complete waste of money.
The problem with a shortage of people with needed language skills is hardly new. How many Vietnamese speakers did we have in 1960? Yet by 1970, there were lots of them. We can train up speakers in pretty much any language we need. The problem is to figure out which ones we need. Something that is supposed to be part of the CIA's mission.

Connect The Dots

The Ayatollah will only be defeated by ROCK AND ROLLAH!

=> That is youth lead student rebellion yearning for freedom, democracy, social media, empowerment, blue jeans and Pink Floyd.
See the Arab Spring Movement of 2011-2.


The Economist propagandistically ignores the U.S.–British coup that ousted the legitimately elected Mossadegh in revenge for ousting U.S.–British oil companies.

The U.S. and Britain are responsible for the extremist regime in Iran today. It never would have taken power without the hate and anger generated by the brutal Shah, whom the U.S. and Britain put in power in the first place.

Mario A. in reply to Parviz Tehrani

I'm aware of the differences between the indo-european language of Farsi and the afro-asiatic language of Arabic. I'm also aware of the differences between Arabs and Persians. Where in my post does it indicate that I don't? I disagree that the average non-Arab in the Middle East does not understand Arabic.

Aghah Joon in reply to Parviz Tehrani

Iranians do not speak "Persian" ...Iranians speak Farsi

What is it with Iranians shying away from using proper names for their own heritage. We are no longer in the time of Persepolis, we are not "Persians" we are IRANIANS

I'm sick of this garbage...stop using PERSIA as a way to shy away from who you are just because it is a sexier way of saying the same thing. Be proud of where you are from and try to represent it with some class.

HumanFirst21 in reply to kotta

Yes that is an interesting comment. I didn't quite notice that the Economist happened to leave that out, which is something that is continuously cited as the source of distrust of the west as a result of our involvement in Iranian internal affairs in the 50's. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Iranians and Persians need to start taking responsibility for their situation and stop blaming western powers for all their problems. If a government is so weak that some broadcasts from a cleric with a medieval education and outlook can bring it down than that government deserves to fall. If a CIA agent can single handedly bring down a government like the 1950's downfall of the Mosaddek, that the PM was to weak to survive. I am just amazed at how the Persians with such a distinguished history and culture can let themselves be ruled by Turks for so long (1000 years and counting), even in the modern era we have the Pahlevis (who changed their name from Khan to Pahlevi to claim a Persian past), then Khomeini, and now Khamenei who is also a Turk.
Iranians were forcibly converted to Shia Islam by the Safavid dynasty ( a mix of Turks and Kurds) who ruled in the 1500-1732 mainly as a way to create an ideological boundary with the Othoman empire and the

If that was the case why was there are shortage in 1970s. It takes 3-4 years studying fulltime to train a typical American to speak Arabic (ie DLI). Even learning enough Arabic to get by takes 2 years. In Vietnam it was easy, you have 2 million GI who went through Vietnam. Just say a fraction about 0.5 learned Vietnamese, that is a lot. Furthermore, they were kept in bases like GI in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If that was the case why were there no Farsi speakers in the CIA station in Iran at the time?


The revolution's moto was independence, freedom and the republic. 33 years later, Iran is more dependant on oil than ever before in its history, it is isolated, and ships gold in commercial planes for financial settlement. It buys second hand and second quality goods and military junk from China and Russia. It is more dependant than ever on the handfull of rouge countries that support it. Internally the leaderships survival is dependant on the paramilitary Pasdaran organization that props its leadership up and suppresses the people. Culturally the country is bankrupt and the young generation is distant and depressed.

Freedom is next to none internally from an economic, social, cultural, intellectual, sexual and religious fashion. There is no party but the monolithic party of Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. Externally Iran is in a stray jacket. Its citizens are treated the same as pariahs... Its banking, trade, educational and economical activities are scrutinized

The republic is a dead. It never got off the ground, but the best we can say Irans system of government is today is a mullahacracy... One grand mulla tells all the organs of government what to do, and the government is a corrupt festering junk box.

What is to say any further?


Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail 2 hrs 49 mins ago
Car technology: Turbocharged
Schumpeter July 12th, 9:00
Gun laws: Prayers and pistols
Democracy in America July 11th, 17:43
Daily chart: Justice on trial
Graphic detail July 11th, 13:40


Products and events



