[3] It came to international prominence as the front organisation for the 1981 failed coup in Bahrain, which attempted to install Iraqi Ayatollah Hadi al-Modarresi as the spiritual leader of a theocratic state.

[8] In Low Intensity Conflict in the Third World by Stephen Blank et al., it is argued that the Front's attempted coup d’etat in 1981 cannot be understood without reference to Iran's geo-strategic objectives in its war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq: A more persuasive view of the Bahrain incident [1981 coup] is the argument that the military conditions on the Iran-Iraq war front dictated a flanking movement that would isolate Iraq from its Arab support and secure for Iran a commanding position on the maritime oil route out of the Gulf.

During the 14 months between the beginning of the war and the Bahrain coup, military activities had settled into a stalemate along a thousand kilometre front.

The Iraqis had occupied the portion of Iranian Khuzistan that was ethnically Arab and were at the gates of Ahwaz and Dezful, the two principle oil producing towns of the province.

The war had also degenerated into a contest of personalities between Khomeini and Saddam Hussein, each of who demanded the dismantlement of the other's government as a precondidtion of peace…By unleashing the forces of Islamic revolution in Bahrain, Khomeini was betting that he could physically outflank Iraq and capitalise politically on the Gulf Arabs' failure to support Iraq.