Right off the bat I should note that today’s post is somewhat ahistorical. February 11 is generally considered the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, and I’m not sure I agree with that. The date is not insignificant—it was on February 11, 1979, when the royal Iranian army surrendered, marking the end of organized resistance to the … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the Iranian Revolution ends (1979)
Tag: iran
Bed, Ba’ath, and Beyond, part 2: War Is a Racket
Happy Hallowen! Today I'm very pleased to bring you the second part of Travis Haycraft's two-part series on Saddam Hussein's military buildup in Iraq. Part one took us through the 1970s, leading up to the Iran-Iraq War, and today's piece looks at how the war both affected and was affected by the military machine Saddam … Continue reading Bed, Ba’ath, and Beyond, part 2: War Is a Racket
Today in Middle Eastern history: the 1953 Iranian coup
The 1953 CIA- and MI6-backed coup that overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh is one of the few bits of Middle Eastern history that actually gets overemphasized in the popular consciousness, mostly because relations between the US and Iran are what they are. It’s also not an easy fit in this “today in history” series because, believe it or … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the 1953 Iranian coup
Death in the family
Like any mostly closed/insulated group of people--Fortune 500 CEOs, Catholic clergy, the mafia, Congress--there are a lot of ways in which Iran's religious (and increasingly military) ruling class resembles a family. There are a lot of things binding them together: everybody knows each other, they all share some common backgrounds and life experiences, they probably … Continue reading Death in the family
Today in Middle Eastern history: the 15 Khordad Movement (1963)
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled Iran on January 16, 1979, in the face of a revolution that had reached its zenith. But the seeds of the Iranian revolution were planted decades earlier, as is usually the case in these situations, and you can make a pretty good case that they first sprouted in 1963, during … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the 15 Khordad Movement (1963)
Today in South Asian history: Nader Shah sacks Delhi (1739)
The story of the late middle/early modern Islamic world is dominated by the three so-called “Gunpowder Empires”—the Ottomans with their vast empire circling the Mediterranean; the Safavids in Iran and, at various times, parts of the Caucasus and Central Asia; and the Mughals in South Asia. They're called “gunpowder empires” because two former University of … Continue reading Today in South Asian history: Nader Shah sacks Delhi (1739)
Today in Middle Eastern history: Iran becomes “Iran” (1935)
I know that title seems too cutesy and I apologize for that. It is both a historical oddity and a signifier of our general Orientalist indifference toward the peoples of the Middle East that the nation (kingdom, empire, whatever it was at any particular point in history) of Iran was never officially called “Iran” by … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: Iran becomes “Iran” (1935)
Today in Iranian history: the Shahnameh is completed (1010)
Obviously there are a lot of important works of literature that have been created over the years and across the many cultures of the world, so if I were to describe Abu'l-Qasim Ferdowsi's Shahnameh as simply a great work of literature I would be doing it something of an injustice. It is a great work … Continue reading Today in Iranian history: the Shahnameh is completed (1010)
Today in South Asian history: the Battle of Karnal (1739)
Nader Shah (d. 1747) is often considered the last of the great (in the sense of “impressive,” not “good”) Central Asian conquerors, after Genghis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane), and (depending on who’s making the list) assorted other figures like the first Mughal Emperor Babur. He’s also the man who kept Iran more or less intact … Continue reading Today in South Asian history: the Battle of Karnal (1739)
Today in Middle Eastern history: the 1921 Iranian coup
The fall of imperial Russia in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution should have been good news for Iran’s Qajar dynasty, which had fought three wars with Russia and lost much of its Caucasian territory in the process. But instead of eliminating a serious rival, the events of 1917 upset the delicate balance of … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the 1921 Iranian coup
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 