In 1979, Iran’s 2,500-year monarchy collapsed in 14 days.
The Shah of Iran, once the U.S.’s closest ally, was exiled.
An exiled cleric, Ruhollah Khomeini, returned.
And the Middle East hasn’t been the same since.
Here’s the story of how Iran’s Islamic Revolution shook the global order:
The fall of Iran’s monarchy wasn’t sudden.
It unraveled gradually, then all at once.
For decades, the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran tried to modernize the country at breakneck speed.
But he underestimated the power of religion, resentment, and revolution.
The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, took the throne in 1941.
Educated in Switzerland, fluent in French, and a darling of the West, he dreamed of turning Iran into a modern empire.
Oil would fund it. U.S. weapons would protect it. And Westernization would define it.
But beneath the glittering surface of modernization, pressure was building.
His land reforms upended feudal structures.
His secular policies angered the clergy.
And his secret police (SAVAK) tortured dissenters.
Even veiling became a political flashpoint.
His fiercest opponent?
A quiet, austere cleric named Ruhollah Khomeini.
From exile, Khomeini wrote and preached of an Islamic Republic, where religion and politics were one.
His book, “Islamic Government,” was banned in Iran, so it spread underground.
The Shah thought the clerics were his allies.
After all, they hated communism. But that was his mistake.
By suppressing secular opposition and empowering the religious elite, he unknowingly handed them the infrastructure for revolution.
Khomeini was exiled in 1964. First to Iraq, then eventually to France.
But exile gave him power.
From a quiet suburb outside Paris, he recorded speeches, smuggled cassette tapes into Iran, and inspired a generation with his defiance.
In 1978, a revolution ignited.
• Mass protests erupted
• Strikes paralyzed the economy
• Demonstrators shouted: “Death to the Shah”
Each funeral turned into a rally. Each crackdown led to more martyrs.
The monarchy was unraveling by the day.
On January 16, 1979, the Shah fled Iran.
It was the end of a 2,500-year-old monarchy.
The "King of Kings" boarded a plane into exile.
And just 14 days later, Khomeini returned.
Millions flooded the streets to welcome him home.
This wasn’t just a regime change.
It was a total inversion of power:
• The exiled cleric triumphant
• The Westernized emperor gone
• The mosque replacing the palace
• The Quran replaces the constitution
Iran became the world’s first modern theocracy.
The shockwaves were global.
• U.S. officials were stunned
• Saudi Arabia grew nervous
• The Cold War dynamic shifted
• And Iran’s oil, once flowing freely to the West was now weaponized
Khomeini's rise reshaped geopolitics overnight.
But inside Iran, the revolution was complex.
Secular nationalists, communists, and liberals had all helped overthrow the Shah.
But Khomeini moved quickly.
He purged rivals, crushed dissent, and implemented Vilayat-e Faqih, a clerical rule.
His vision was non-negotiable.
In 1980, the Shah died in exile.
A cancer-stricken king, buried in Cairo.
In 1989, Khomeini died in Tehran.
Buried as a hero and surrounded by millions.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution wasn’t just an uprising.
It was a turning point.
• It ended the Pahlavi dynasty
• It birthed a new kind of state
• And it challenged the West’s grip on West Asia
The world is still living with its consequences.
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