When analyzing the birth of the Islamic republic in 1979, or in other words the causes of the fall of the Pahlavi regime, different reasons are cited. One of them is the despotism of Mohammad Reza Shah during the last 2 decades of his monarchy. While different economic, social, cultural, political and international factors played a role in the victory of the Islamic revolution, no researcher on the subject can ignore the fact that one of the reasons the monarchy fell was that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi strove to ignore the constitution of the country and that he had an insatiable and cunning zeal to take control of all things in the country: small and big, military and civil by negating and turning all state institutions and powers into ineffective tools. So one can say that one reason for his fall from the apex of power was that he wanted to rise to that very apex, and by any means.

While the foundations of the Pahlavi monarchy were built on despotism and dictatorship from the start and Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, too used the constitution and state powers as playthings for his own autocratic desires and rule, his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi did not have the tools to impose a dictatorship in the first decade of his rule. Even after the 1953 coup, when the political atmosphere of the country was greatly shut and the constitution was for all practical purposes turned into a ceremonial and meaningless document, the Shah still did not have the ability to impose a one man rule. As a consequence, a considerable number of veteran political and military elite continued to have a say and a role in the running of the country.

But since 1963, and when Hassan-Ali Mansur’s administration came to office, Mohammad Reza Shah’s desire to eliminate the old guard and remove it from any decision making activity and have any political role, took a different tone. The Shah had decided to remove the experienced and effective elite from the scene and in their place he installed a number of bureaucrats and technocrats who had just returned from abroad. He installed them in various posts in the political system. He tasked Mansour to form a cabinet because unlike earlier prime ministers, Mansour did not view himself to be of higher or even the same stature as the Shah. Therefore, he would act as a subdued administrator, heeding to the dictates of the king in the executive branch of government. So, rather than be in charge of the entire political system, he was a manager who paved the way for the Shah’s interference in the affairs of the state, something that was contrary to the constitution. Even the assassination of Mansour did not end his desire and drive in this regard. In fact, it increased this, which resulted in the 13-year rule of Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda, who was nothing other than a plaything of the Shah. According to the constitution of the time, the executive branch of government was to be born from a popular Majlis in a system where the Shah had to merely reign as the successor of the throne. In reality, the Majlis, the executive branch and the judiciary were only facetiously independent and did not stem from popular will and by nature were nothing other than the reflection of the king’s will.

During the last 15 years of his rule, as the Shah’s power inside the regime increased, the authority, credibility and capability of the state decreased inside and outside the country so that in the short 6 month period between mid-summer of 1978 till mid-winter of the same year, three consecutive administrations came to power and they all failed to solve the problems facing the country, each collapsing and giving way to the next and finally leading to the final crumbling of the monarchy.

The conditions in Iran since the 8-year reform years are very similar in this regard to the conditions that existed in the late 50s and the beginning of the 60s because much effort has been made in these years to turn the new constitution into a ceremonial arrangement, and furthermore, to weaken and negate the role of state institutions and turn them into institutions lacking any authority or effectiveness resulting in a situation where the administration, the Majlis and the judiciary are all controlled from a single source and behave in a manner that does not reflect the popular will. The height of this recent course was the June 2009 presidential elections and the so called conspiracy which aimed to forever end the half-free elections of the country and concentrating all authority to a force above the constitution. In such a model of government, what remains is merely a façade of the law and state institutions while the will of the ruler or regime is exercised through the obedient and subservient individuals.

But since the current constitution of the country provides that the political structure in the Islamic republic be diverse and that all its affairs be run on the basis of popular will, the imposition of a despotic rule in the Islamic republic requires certain tools, some of which are mentioned in this narrative. The first of these is that the constitution of the country which represents the most important legal political document must fall from public credibility through massive propaganda, and in its place come the will and authority of the ruler as the divine authority. The responsibility of this type of aggressive propaganda during the last two decades has fallen on the theorists of despotism and violence. The second is that the Majlis had to be turned into an obedient body through directed supervision. This took place in the elections for the seventh and eight Majlis starting in 2004. And the third is the need to engineer an election to bring to the presidency an obedient and subservient person to head the executive branch. This too took place in 2001 and then again in 2005.

Because of the realities of Iranian society and the political arrangements inside and on the edges of the Islamic republic, and also because of the still existence of powerful and influential elite in the Iranian political field, the goal of streamlining the state and turning it into a mere tool required other conditions. And this was to appoint small individuals in high offices while at the same time pushing the big individuals away from their social and political stature to become insignificant beings. It made no difference what these important individuals had done in the past and what mattered was that they were not being obedient and were not submitting easily to the will of the ruler and so had to be eliminated from the scene and their positions. This goal too was accomplished through the many and rapid appointments and reappointments that were carried out in recent years.

In the 60s when Mohammad Reza Shah brought the new politicians and officials into power, which were represented by Hassan-Ali Mansour and Amir Abbas Hoveyda, the state apparatus and its bureaucracy were turned into a will-less tool to simply follow his dictats. And while the Shah may have appeared successful at the time, but in reality and below the surface of events and institutions he weakened the foundations of his own monarchy and the whole political structure by turning it into a weak system which in the final hour resulted in the collapse of the monarchy itself. Today too, even if the current rulers succeed in the short term to install small people in the institutions of the state and the military and remove the big and influential elite, they are only testing what has already been tested in the past, which is nothing but a big mistake.