As Iran marks the 32nd anniversary of its Islamic Revolution, it is instructive to remember that the cataclysmic events in Iran were only one of many world-changing developments in that tumultuous year of 1979.
Indeed, it might be argued that 1979 was the most monumental and pivotal year in the second half of the 20th century – creating opportunities and crises that we are still contending with more than three decades later.
Consider some of the major happenings of that year:
The overthrow of the repressive monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was replaced by an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who returned to Iran after 15 years of exile in France. The Shah fled the country in January 1979 after a year of street demonstrations and strikes that brought Iran to its knees. In the subsequent years, oil-rich Iran (once a strong ally) has become a principal enemy to the U.S., accused of fomenting fundamentalist Islamic movement around the world and now widely suspected of developing nuclear arms.www.getreligion.orgAlthough his campaign against Democrat Jimmy Carter would be a year away, it was well known in 1979 that Republican Ronald Reagan would run against the increasingly unpopular Carter who was dogged by a bad economy and the threat to U.S. prestige as posed by the Iran hostage crisis. Reagan would win in a landslide and usher in 12 years of Republican rule in Washington D.C., bringing the GOP back on top after Richard Nixon had brought shame to the party.
Reagan’s constant attacks on the “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union, eventually led to the tumbling of the Berlin Wall a decade later and the end of the Cold War.
Reagan’s emergence also coincided with the rising power of the conservative Christian wing of the Republican Party – an issue that the GOP still contends with.
www.threedonia.comFollowing the 1978 Camp David accords, Anwar El Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel signed a peace treaty with US President Jimmy Carter as a witness. Egypt became the first Arab Muslim country to establish peace with Israel. The treaty compelled Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula which it captured during the Six-Day War in 1967, while Egypt agreed to demilitarize the region.
However, while it made Egypt a key regional ally of the U.S. (with multi-billions of dollars of annual aid to its military), it angered a great many Muslims around the world and likely prompted many to regard Egypt as a US and Israel-controlled nation. Sadat ultimately paid for the treaty with his life (he would be assassinated two years later).
www.findingdulcinea.comMargaret Thatcher
ReutersTo control its huge population, China first implemented the One Child Policy on most couples in 1979. Chinese authorities it has prevented up to 400 million births since that time.
ReutersLate Iraqi dicator Saddam Hussein
poorplayer.wikispaces.comThe radicalism of fundamentalist Islam received a big boost in 1979 when the President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, introduced the “Hudood Ordinance,” a first step in the Islamization of the country away from Common Law and ultimately to Sharia law.
Hudood greatly reduced civil liberties, imposed draconian punishments on even trivial crimes, and placed enormous restrictions on women. Alcohol, blasphemy, adultery became serious offenses, punishable by imprisonment or worse.
Zia, who had overthrown and executed the prior ruler, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, would die in a mysterious plane crash in 1988, but his imposition of harsh Islamic rule in his country likely inspired other Muslims around the world, perhaps even a young Saudi named Osama Bin Laden.
criticalppp.com/The Soviet Union’s 40th army invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, leading to a nine-year war that would not only devastate the Afghan people and economy, but also bring to power the extremist Islamic fundamentalist, The Taliban, which is now regarded, along with al-Qaeda, as the world’s most dangerous terrorists.
The Soviet’s invasion (widely suspected of bringing the Russians in closer proximity to Middle East oil reserves) raised fears of a war with the U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the invasion "the most serious threat to peace since the Second World War" and imposed a trade embargo.
However, this adventure in Afghanistan turned out to be the USSR’s final hurrah.
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