Aftermath of the Iranian Revolution

Following the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the Shah of Iran, in February 1979, Iran was in a "revolutionary crisis mode" from this time until 1982 or 1983 when forces loyal to the revolution's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, consolidated power. During this period, Iran's economy and the apparatus of government collapsed; its military and security forces were in disarray.

Aftermath of the Iranian Revolution
Part of the Cold War
Date11 February 1979 – December 1983
Location
Result

Islamic Republican Party victory

Belligerents

Political:

Armed groups:

Political only:

  • Freedom Movement
  • National Front
  • JAMA
  • Movement of Militant Muslims
  • Nation Party
  • SUMKA
  • Muslim People's Republic Party
  • National Democratic Front
  • National Resistance Movement of Iran
  • Pan-Iranist Party
  • Azadegan

Armed groups:


Separatists:


 Iraq

Sudan

Royal Saudi Air Force
Commanders and leaders

Ruhollah Khomeini
Morteza Motahari 
Mohammad Beheshti 
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Abulhassan Banisadr
Mohammad-Ali Rajai 
Mohammad-Javad Bahonar 
Ali Khamenei (WIA)
Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani
Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Qasem-Ali Zahirnejad

Mohsen Rezaee

Mehdi Bazargan
Abulhassan Banisadr
Shapour Bakhtiar
Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari (POW)
Sadegh Ghotbzadeh 
Karim Sanjabi
Dariush Forouhar (POW)
Kazem Sami
Habibollah Payman
Noureddin Kianouri (POW)


Akbar Goodarzi 
Massoud Rajavi
Mousa Khiabani 
Ashraf Dehghani
Mansoor Hekmat


Rahman Ghasemlou
Foad Soltani 


Saddam Hussein
Strength

Iranian Armed Forces: Total forces 207,500 (June 1979); 305,000 (peak); 240,000 (final)


Theater forces:
6,000–10,000
2,000 to 10,000–15,000 (MEK); 3,000 (Paykar); 5,000 (Fedai factions in total); 10,000 to 25,000–30,000 (KDPI), 5,000 (Komolah)
Casualties and losses
3,000 servicemen (conservative estimate) 1,000 estimated KIA (MEK); 4,000 estimated KIA (KDPI)
10,000 estimated KIA (total)
not including Iran–Iraq War
  1. Abulhassan Banisadr was President of Iran until June 1981, thus a member of the ruling group. After he was deposed by the Islamic Republican Party-dominated parliament, he went exile, fighting against the system.

Rebellions by Marxist guerrillas and federalist parties against Islamist forces in Khuzistan, Kurdistan, and Gonbad-e Qabus started in April 1979, some of them taking more than a year to suppress. Concern about breakdown of order was sufficiently high to prompt discussion by the US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski over the danger of a Soviet invasion/incursion (the USSR sharing a border with Iran) and whether the US should be prepared to counter it.

By 1983, Khomeini and his supporters had crushed the rival factions and consolidated power. Elements that played a part in both the crisis and its end were the Iran hostage crisis, the invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and the presidency of Abolhassan Banisadr.

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