The Most Influential Event of 2014 and Iran's 'Export of Revolution' Policy

In Bahman 1357 (February 1979), following the publication of the "Army's Neutrality Declaration," the Pahlavi regime in Iran fell, and Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Tehran. During a ceremony marking the first anniversary of the Islamic Revolution's victory (February 22, 1980), Ruhollah Khomeini outlined the general lines of the policy of exporting the "Islamic Revolution." He stated, "We will export our revolution to the entire world because our revolution is Islamic, and until the cry of 'There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger' resonates across the world, there will be struggle, and as long as there is struggle anywhere in the world against the oppressors, we will be there." After the collapse of the 2500-year-old monarchy in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini believed in the victory of the idea of "the fusion of Islam and politics" and the rise of Islam in other parts of the world. Before coming to power, he had shaped and disseminated the idea of "Velayat-e Faqih" according to his desires. In the first year after coming to power, he declared: "We must intensify our efforts to export our revolution to the world and abandon the notion that we cannot export our revolution. Of course, when we say our revolution should be exported everywhere, it should not be misunderstood as a desire for territorial expansion. All countries should remain in their own places. We want what happened in Iran, where they distanced themselves from superpowers, to happen in all nations and all governments. The meaning of exporting the revolution is that all nations and all governments awaken." Ruhollah Khomeini intended to initially export the Islamic Revolution to the majority Shia countries in the region (Iraq, Lebanon, and Bahrain) and subsequently to empower it in other Muslim (Sunni) societies. In executing the first part of this policy, Ayatollah Khomeini called for a rebellion in the Iraqi army on Farvardin 30, 1359 (April 19, 1980) after the American embassy staff in Tehran were taken hostage. Kayhan reported that day: "Imam (Khomeini) called the Iraqi army to revolt." A month later, the Iraqi army attacked Iran's borders, leading to a conflict that is considered the largest war since World War II. The Iran-Iraq War quickly provoked broader reactions from extra-regional powers (the United States and the former Soviet Union) and ultimately ended after eight years with effective U.S. intervention and the cooperation of the Kremlin's leaders at the time, marking the first attempt to export the Islamic Revolution that did not yield results. The model of exporting revolution was articulated by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia, who founded the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" after coming to power. In his body of thought published two years before he came to power (in 1915), he introduced the slogan "United States of Europe." Lenin's initial goal and expectation was for revolutionary socialist governments to first come to power in Europe and subsequently export the revolution worldwide, establishing workers' dictatorships over capitalist societies and petty bourgeoisie. In his body of thought (part four), Lenin stated, "We must organize our socialist product, confront the rest of the capitalist (oppressive) world, attract the attention of the oppressed people (the downtrodden) of other countries, incite rebellion against capitalism (oppression), and where necessary, even resort to military force (war) against the corrupt classes (equivalent to oppressive and tyrannical in the Islamic Revolution in Iran) and their governments." These models have been meticulously followed after the Islamic Revolution's rise to power in Iran, and their regional and extra-regional results can be seen in the emergence of extremist Muslim groups. Joseph Stalin, who succeeded Lenin after his death, described Lenin's slogan "United States of Europe," which is the manifesto for exporting the workers' revolution to European countries, in an April 1924 writing titled "The Foundations of Leninism" as follows: "A revolution that has succeeded in one country should not remain limited to itself and self-sufficient, but should be used as a resource and means for the victory of the workers' dictatorship in other countries (exporting revolution)." In my view, ISIS is more than just the most newsworthy title; it is the most influential event of 2014 in the world. ISIS is not merely a symbol of the spread of "political Islam" in the Muslim (and non-Muslim) world; it is the concrete manifestation that has now gained power in parts of Iraq and Syria and sows the seeds of rebellion against conventional systems in other societies worldwide. The "Islamic State," which is more commonly known as ISIS in Iran, has branches in Muslim countries from the Philippines to North and West Africa, which will continue to grow if the central unit remains stable. In Egypt, the terrorist group "Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis" has attracted extremists who were previously allied with the Brotherhood and dispersed after the fall of Mohamed Morsi's government, sometimes introducing themselves as "Wilayat Sinai." The number of armed followers of this group is estimated to be up to 2000. In parts of Syria, alongside the group "Jabhat al-Nusra," which is perhaps the second-largest armed Sunni extremist group, lies the "Khorasan Group," which Washington identified as the greatest security threat against itself until September. In Algeria, the organization "Jund al-Khilafah," led by a figure named Abu Suleiman, has announced its existence and pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The "Islamic Jihad" group is another active group in Algeria that threatens to commit violence in the style of ISIS. In Libya, "Ansar al-Sharia" and in the city of Derna, "jihadists" have established morality patrol units and insist on enforcing Islamic laws. In Nigeria, "Boko Haram" and in the Philippines, "Abu Sayyaf" have pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and claim to intimidate and commit violence. In West and Central Asia, the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan claim to be a government. In Tajikistan, extremist Islamist groups have become more active than before. "Jamaat Ansarullah" and the "Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan" are engaged in recruitment in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan despite the opposition of security forces. Numerous reports indicate the likelihood of the reactivation of armed Muslim groups in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. The two common axes of extremist Muslim groups with ISIS and their "pledge of allegiance" to the "Islamic State" are a similar worldview and the motivation to gain power by exploiting the available opportunities. A cursory glance at the mushrooming growth of Islamic extremism recalls the emergence and growth of Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist guerrilla groups during the 1960s and 1970s worldwide, which covered everything from East Asia to the heart of Africa and Latin America. These groups gradually weakened due to the gradual depletion of financial and logistical resources from their supporting center (Moscow) and faded away with the fall of the Soviet Union. It is expected that the remnants of leftist governments from the era of communist dominance in Latin America will also change their nature after the announcement of normalization of relations between Washington and Havana. Today, Islamic extremism in the world, symbolized and concretely represented by ISIS, is more a product of the delayed rise to power of the Islamic government led by Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran and the beginning of the Shia-Sunni rivalry and the pursuit of the idea of merging Islam with politics and implementing the policy of exporting the revolution than it is a creation of Christian powers and the result of their conspiracy. This trend recalls the export of socialist ideas to the entire world from the beginning of the Bolsheviks' rise to power in Russia and the use of the leaders of the Islamic Revolution in Iran of the method of expanding the scope of political Islam. This trend will diminish if the Shia-Sunni rivalry in the region comes to an end, and its small and large branches worldwide will wither away—just as only the name of the Dhofar group remains today in Oman. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the rivalry between the Soviet Marxist-Leninist camp and Chinese Maoism ended, and after the end of the competition, communism in China also changed its nature. If one of the two branches of Shia-Sunni power (Tehran and Riyadh) falls, the rivalry in the two camps will end, and the remaining camp will undergo a separate change in nature. If this premise is accepted, it should be expected that extremist Islamic groups will gradually dissolve and become part of history with the end of the political Islam rivalry in the two Sunni and Shia camps.