Islamic Republican Party victory[1] Political: Armed groups: Political only: Armed groups: Separatists: Ruhollah Khomeini Morteza Motahari † Mohammad Beheshti † Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Abulhassan Banisadr[a] Mohammad-Ali Rajai † Mohammad-Javad Bahonar † Ali Khamenei (WIA) Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani Mir-Hossein Mousavi Qasem-Ali Zahirnejad Mehdi Bazargan Abulhassan Banisadr[a] 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 † Iranian Armed Forces: Total forces 207,500 (June 1979); 305,000 (peak); 240,000 (final)[1] Following the Iranian revolution, which overthrew the Shah of Iran in February 1979, Iran was in a "revolutionary crisis mode" until 1982[3] or 1983[4] when forces loyal to the revolution's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, consolidated power.

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.

[3][4] It is generally agreed that while Khomeini had shrewdly assembled and kept together a broad coalition to overthrow the shah, it contained many mutually incompatible elements, "liberals of Mussadeq's old National Front, remnants of the communist Tudeh party, and the 'new left' movements, inspired by similar developments among Palestinian and Latin American youth ...",[5] all of whom who had differences among each other and none of whom were interested in Khomeini's plans for a theocracy.

[6] Khomeini's particularly contentious plan was for rule of Iran by Islamic jurists (a concept known as Velayat-e faqih), with himself as leader, a form of government that he had not mentioned in any public statements before taking power, and which it is thought would have been a political deal breaker for liberals, Muslim moderates, and supporters of Ali Shariati.

Some observers believe "what began as an authentic and anti-dictatorial popular revolution based on a broad coalition of all anti-Shah forces was soon transformed into a power-grab" by Islamic fundamentalists,[8] that significant support came from Khomeini's non-theocratic allies who had thought he intended to be more a spiritual guide than a ruler[9]—Khomeini being in his mid-70s, having never held public office, having been out of Iran for more than a decade, and having told questioners things like "the religious dignitaries do not want to rule.

Inevitably the overlapping authority of the Revolutionary Council (which had the power to pass laws) and Bazargan's government was a source of conflict,[21] despite the fact that both had been approved by and/or put in place by Khomeini.

[22] The Revolutionary Guard, or Pasdaran-e Enqelab, was established by Khomeini on May 5, 1979, as a counterweight both to the armed groups of the left, and to the Iranian military, which had been part of the Shah's power base.

Made up of bazaari and political clergy,[28] it worked to establish theocratic government by velayat-e faqih in Iran, outmaneuvering opponents and wielding power on the street through the Hezbollah.

[30] Also enforcing the will of the new government were the Hezbollahi (followers of the Party of God), "strong-arm thugs" who attacked demonstrators and offices of newspapers critical of Khomeini.

The MPRP was a competitor to the Islamic Republican Party that, unlike that body, favored pluralism, opposed summary executions and attacks on peaceful demonstrations and was associated with Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari.

They had failed in building a connection with the masses they sought but following release of prisoners and the 1977-8 "revolutionary upsurge", had succeeded in providing the armed muscle to deliver the Shah's "regime its coup de grace" in 1979.

Critics complained that "vote-rigging, violence against undesirable candidates and the dissemination of false information" was used to "produce an assembly overwhelmingly dominated by clergy loyal to Khomeini.

It was supported by the Revolutionary Council and other groups, but opposed by some clerics, including Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, and by secularists such as the National Front who urged a boycott.

[42] Helping to pass the constitution, suppress moderates, split the opposition, and otherwise radicalize the revolution was the holding of 52 American diplomats hostage for over a year.

On 4 November 1979 youthful Islamists, calling themselves Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, invaded the embassy compound and seized its staff.

Revolutionaries were reminded of how 26 years earlier the Shah had fled abroad while the American CIA and British intelligence organized a coup d'état to overthrow his nationalist opponent.

[43]With great publicity the students released documents from the American embassy—or "nest of spies"—showing moderate Iranian leaders had met with U.S. officials (similar evidence of high-ranking Islamists having done so did not see the light of day).

Like the hostage crisis, the war served as an opportunity for the government to strengthen Islamic revolutionary ardor at the expense of its remaining allies-turned-opponents, such as the MEK.

"[51] While enormously costly and destructive, the war "rejuvenate[d] the drive for national unity and Islamic revolution" and "inhibited fractious debate and dispute" in Iran.

[53] In succession the National Democratic Front was banned in August 1979, the provisional government was disempowered in November, the Muslim People's Republic Party banned in January 1980, the People's Mujahedin of Iran supporters came under attack in February 1980, a purge of universities started in March 1980 (dubbed Cultural Revolution in Iran), and leftist Islamist Abolhassan Banisadr was impeached in June 1981.

[54] Gilles Kepel describes Khomeini's strategy of eliminating erstwhile supporters (first Bazargan and the liberals, finally Bani-Sadr and the Islamist left) as first exposing them to power, then sapping it away through the komitehs, revolutionary guards (IRGC), "and other organs controlled by his networks".

[61] In mid August 1979, shortly after the election of the constitution-writing Assembly of Experts, several dozen newspapers and magazines opposing Khomeini's idea of Islamic government—theocratic rule by jurists or velayat-e faqih—were shut down[62][63] under a new press law banning "counter-revolutionary policies and acts.

"[64] Protests against the press closings were organized by the National Democratic Front (NDF), and tens of thousands massed at the gates of the University of Tehran.

The government reacted quickly, sending Revolutionary Guards to retake the TV station, mediators to defuse complaints and staging a massive pro-Khomeini counter-demonstration in Tabriz.

[70] By the end of 1979, the "secular middle class" and liberals had been vanquished and "the only surviving players on the Iranian political stage were the Islamist intellectuals, the young urban poor, and the devout bourgeoisie", according to Gilles Kepel.

[74] At the same time, erstwhile revolutionary allies of the Khomeinists—the Islamist modernist group People's Mujahedin of Iran (or MEK)—were being suppressed by Khomeinists.

"[79] The leaders of the Freedom Movement of Iran and Banisadr were compelled to make public apologies on television and radio because they had supported the Front's appeal.

In early 1983, the leaders of the last leftist group to be crushed, the Tudeh party (which had been unswervingly loyal to Khomeini's line until the Iran-Iraq War), were arrested and confessed "Soviet-style" on Iranian television.