Pondering

The Persian people have been ripped off for a long time.

Having just watched Israel successfully defend itself against a barrage of Iranian missiles and drones in retaliation for Israel’s strike against the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, Syria, in typical educator fashion I’m drawn to the history of Persia and how Iran became such a pariah on the global stage.  

Known for thousands of years as Persia,[1] Iran began as the Achaemenid Dynasty under Cyrus the Great in the 6th century B.C.[2] Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 334 B.C., an Arab invasion in A.D. 636 brought Islam to the region, and Persia was conquered again in A.D. 1220, this time by Mongol forces of Genghis Khan. It wasn’t until the 16th century A.D. that modern Persia began to materialize, when Shah Ismail I became the first ruler of the Islamic Safavid dynasty in A.D. 1501. From there it evolved under a series of dynasties until military commander Reza Khan (aka Reza Shah) seized power in 1925 and established the Pahlavi Dynasty, changing the name of the country officially to “The Imperial State of Iran” ten years later.

The Pahlavi Dynasty built modern-day, secular, Iran…until the Islamic Revolution struck in 1979.  

I was a student at Pepperdine University when the Islamic Revolution took place.[3] Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran who had been in power since 1941, was overthrown and escaped to Egypt where he died in 1980. To be fair, things weren’t very good for the Iranian people under the Shah, who with the help of the U.S. established totalitarian control of the country. In addition to dismantling the judicial system and mitigating personal freedoms, he established the Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State (known as SAVAK[4]), which systematically imprisoned, tortured, and murdered innocent Iranians.

With the Islamic Revolution came the return of Ayatollah[5] Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, who had been in exile for nearly 15 years. Khomeini was an Islamic scholar, lecturer, philosopher, and author. He rose to political power in 1963 when he opposed the Shah’s transformation of Iran into a largely secular society through the White Revolution.[6] He was arrested by SAVAK in 1964 and sent into exile in Turkey. Eventually he moved to Najaf, Iraq, where he spent most of his years in exile continuing to speak out against the Shah’s regime.

In 1978, the then Vice-President Saddam Hussein, expelled Khomeini from Iraq to Paris. Then on February 1, 1979, he returned to lead Iran at the invitation of the Islamic revolutionary government who had gained control of the country. On November 4, 1979, under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini Iranian students took control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the capital of Iran, and held the staff hostage for 444 days. On April 24, 1980, a failed attempt to rescue the hostages deeply damaged the Carter Administration, ushering in the Reagan years.

The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, just minutes after Reagan was sworn in as President of the U.S.—a clear message by Iran to President Carter that he was a failure.

The Islamic Revolution forced thousands of pro-Western students to flee Iran and enroll in colleges across the U.S., including Pepperdine, where I met and befriended many of them. Among them was the son and daughter of one of the Shah’s official jewelers. They would sometimes disappear for a week or two, having to escape to secret locations in Europe when they discovered they were being targeted by Iran. The situation in Iran was ugly, as the Islamic regime captured, tortured, and killed multiplied thousands of people. As an Islamic theocracy, their vitriol toward Israel, the U.S., and much of the West was quickly established and communicated.

That’s when Iran became a pariah among nations.

Although the new Islamic theocracy of Iran claimed to be a champion of the poor, and desired to be accepted on the global stage, it wasn’t long before things spiraled out of control. Poverty, unemployment, and inequality skyrocketed. Personal freedoms were quashed. To keep Islamic extremism at bay, neighboring Iraq (under Saddam Hussein) launched a war against Iran in 1980 that lasted eight years and cost approximately 500,000 deaths.[7]

It wasn’t simply that Iran became an Islamic theocracy that suppressed civil rights and freedoms internally. Rather, it was Iran’s leadership who believed it was to establish Shia Islamic hegemony (domination) throughout the region. Through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Iran began supporting proxy terrorism against the West through Hezbollah, Hamas, and a dozen “brigades” throughout the Middle East and Africa.

Iran’s nuclear weapons trajectory also became apparent after the Islamic Revolution, followed by a series of failed agreements and protocols with Iran insisting it had no intention of developing or deploying nuclear weapons—a cat and mouse game still being played between Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N., the European Union, and the U.S.

There is nothing trustworthy about Iran’s leadership. Nothing. Yet the focus of this article is the Iranian people who have no desire to engage in such offensive geopolitics. A proud and influential people from whom the world has benefited through the invention of algebra, wind-power, irrigation techniques, refrigeration, postal services, and landscaping, Persians still have much to offer. Yet they remain sequestered by tyrannical leadership, from the Shahs to the Ayatollahs, who while motivated by differing ideologies nonetheless suffocate the Persian people.

So, what’s a biblical Christian to do?

Pray for the underground Church in Iran. Although Muslim citizens are prohibited from renouncing Islam for another religion, religious minorities are allowed to worship “within the limits of the law”—which means Iranian authorities are free to persecute, imprison, and sentence to death whomever they believe is countermanding the Islamic faith. Despite this and at great risk, 300,000 to one million Christians are estimated to exist in underground churches, which are growing at an exponential rate.

Pray for wisdom for global leadership attempting to deal with Iran. It seems the West functions largely in appeasement mode for fear of “poking the bear” that is Iran. We need courageous, collaborative leadership that not only stems the hegemonic aspirations of Iran but creates an environment in which the Iranian people can find freedom.

Preach the Gospel. There are plenty of Iranians residing in the U.S. who not only want to see their people free from tyranny but who also need the biblical gospel. In turn, those Iranians who come to Christ here can export their faith back to their family and friends in Iran.

While we may feel small in the landscape of geopolitics, we can still make a BIG difference. 

FOOTNOTES

[1] Iran translates “of the Aryans.” There’s evidence that as far back as the time of Zoroaster, c. 1000 B.C., the people of the region referred to it as Arya, Iran, Iranshahr, Iranzamin (“Land of Iran”).

[2] 2 Chronicles chapter 36; Ezra chapters 4 and 9; Ezekiel chapter 27

[3] See a timeline of the Iranian Revolution at https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-iranian-revolution-a-timeline-of-events/.

[4] Abbreviation for the Farsi “Sāzmān-e Ettelā’āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar”

[5] “A religious leader of Shiite Islam.” The divide between Shiite and Sunni Islamic beliefs dates to the death of Muhammad and subsequent succession of his leadership.

[6] A rapid modernization and secularization (i.e., Westernization) of Iran begun in 1963 with a series of reforms to education, land ownership, nationalization of natural resources, worker’s and women’s rights, etc.

[7] The U.S. backed Saddam Hussein against Iran, just as it backed Osama bin Laden against the Soviets in Afghanistan. One of many great ironies in geopolitics under the banner, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”—from A Political Creed by Gabriel Manigault, 1884, p. 68.