35 years on: Marking the Iranian Revolution

by Gareth Smith March 3, 2014

written by Gareth Smith March 3, 2014

Rouhani has shifted the focus of Iran's policies

When Iranian students first seized the American embassy in Tehran in November 1979, Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi went to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for guidance and was told to “go and kick them out.” But when he had returned to Tehran from the Ayatollah’s residence in Qom, he heard on the radio that Khomeini had dubbed the embassy the “American spy den” and proclaimed a “second revolution.” Whether diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States were still salvageable quickly became a moot point. Khomeini’s aim was likely to remove moderates, including Yazdi and Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, from government and introduce velayat-e faqih, his notion of clerical rule. Events sped on, with President Jimmy Carter’s botched rescue mission in April 1980 and Saddam Hussein’s invasion that September. Tehran’s annual commemorations of the revolution tend to be a test of the mood in the Islamic Republic. And the 35th anniversary, marked

Gareth Smith

Gareth Smith was a distinguished journalist who reported from the Middle East for over two decades. He served as the Financial Times correspondent in Tehran, where he was the chief Iran correspondent from 2003, following his earlier role as Lebanon correspondent. Throughout his career, Smith covered Middle Eastern affairs for leading media outlets, including The Financial Times, The Guardian, and the BBC. He also contributed as an editor to Executive magazine. His work as a freelance journalist in the 1990s, focusing on the politics of Iran and Iraq, paved the way for his appointment at the FT. In 2009, he relocated to the west coast of Ireland, where he balanced freelance journalism with his passion for nature and the land.

35 years on: Marking the Iranian Revolution

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