Revolution, reform and foreign relations in the Middle East (c.1945–2020)

Iran's democratically elected prime minister (1951–1953) who nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company; overthrown in the 1953 coup.

The August 1953 CIA/MI6-backed coup that removed Mosaddeq and restored full power to Mohammad-Reza Shah.

The Shah's top-down reform programme — land redistribution, women's suffrage, a literacy corps, and industrialization — meant to modernize Iran.

Land reform hit clergy-owned estates and women's suffrage clashed with conservative religious views on gender roles.

The Shah's secret police, notorious for surveillance, censorship, and torture of dissidents.

Exiled Shia cleric whose smuggled sermons rallied opposition to the Shah; returned to Iran in February 1979 and became Supreme Leader.

The constitutional principle making the Supreme Leader Iran's highest religious and political authority — the basis of its theocracy.

Troops fired on protesters in Tehran, killing dozens and radicalizing opposition to the Shah.

Growing protests (1977–78) → Black Friday (Sept 1978) → general strikes → the Shah flees (Jan 1979) → Khomeini returns (Feb 1979).

November 1979–January 1981: militant students held 52 Americans hostage in Tehran for 444 days, breaking US–Iran relations.

Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980 hoping to exploit post-revolutionary chaos; the war lasted until 1988, killing hundreds of thousands with no major territorial change.

Losses: compulsory hijab, narrower divorce/custody rights. Gains: rising female literacy and university attendance by the 2000s — a genuinely contested picture.

22 September 1980 — Iraq (under Saddam Hussein) invaded Iran, aiming to seize the Shatt al-Arab waterway and exploit Iran's post-revolutionary weakness.

Saddam feared Iran's Shia revolution would inspire Iraq's Shia majority to rebel; Khomeini feared Saddam's secular regime would crush the Islamic Revolution before it could spread.

Iraq used chemical weapons (mustard gas and nerve agents) against Kurdish civilians, killing thousands in hours — the first large-scale chemical weapons attack since WWI.

The USA (fearing Iranian Islamism), the USSR (Iraq's arms supplier), Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (fearing revolution spreading), and France (arms sales) — all wanted Iran contained.

The USA secretly sold arms to Iran (1985–86) despite publicly backing Iraq, showing the war's tangled and often contradictory international involvement.

Iran accepted UN Resolution 598 in August 1988 after renewed Iraqi chemical attacks and exhaustion; the war ended in stalemate with roughly 500,000–1 million combined casualties.

After the 1952 Free Officers coup overthrew King Farouk, Nasser outmanoeuvred rivals to become Egypt's leader by 1954, building a one-party authoritarian state.

A Soviet-funded dam completed in 1970 that controlled Nile flooding and massively expanded irrigation and electricity — a symbol of Nasser's economic modernisation.

Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal; Britain, France and Israel invaded but were forced to withdraw under US and Soviet pressure, turning military defeat into a political triumph for Nasser.

Nasser's vision of uniting Arab states under Egyptian leadership, briefly achieved through the United Arab Republic with Syria (1958–1961).

Egypt's catastrophic defeat and loss of the Sinai Peninsula badly damaged Nasser's Pan-Arab prestige and military credibility.

He delivered land reform, free education/healthcare and industrial modernisation, but ruled through a banned opposition, secret police, censorship and persecution of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Infitah — it opened Egypt's economy to private and foreign investment, reversing Nasser's state-controlled model.

Most Arab states saw it as abandoning the Palestinian cause; Egypt was suspended from the Arab League for a decade.

6 October 1981, shot by army officers linked to Islamic Jihad during a military parade marking the 1973 war.

A state of emergency, declared after Sadat's assassination in 1981 and never lifted, allowing arrests and bans on protest without normal legal limits.

An unusually large share of young adults in a population; roughly 60% of Egyptians were under 30, and about 1 in 4 young people was unemployed.

Tunisia's toppling of President Ben Ali in December 2010–January 2011 proved a long-ruling autocrat could fall, directly inspiring the Tahrir Square protests.

Protests began 25 January 2011 in Tahrir Square; Mubarak resigned 11 February 2011 after the army refused to fire on protesters.

Expelled from Jordan, the PLO based itself in southern Lebanon and Beirut, launching attacks on Israel and destabilising Lebanon's fragile confessional balance.

Syria entered in 1976, occupied Lebanon and shifted its backing between factions to control outcomes; Israel invaded in 1978 and 1982 to destroy PLO bases, besieging Beirut in 1982.

Deployed in 1982 to oversee the PLO's withdrawal, it withdrew by early 1984 after October 1983 suicide bombings killed 241 US and 58 French troops in Beirut.

Formed around 1982 by Lebanese Shia clerics and fighters with Iranian funding and training, to resist Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.

Brokered by Saudi Arabia, it rebalanced Lebanese political power between Christians and Muslims and disarmed most militias — except Hezbollah, which kept its weapons over continued Israeli occupation.