Aftermath of the Iranian Revolution

Belligerents

Political:

• Islamic Republican Party
• Combatant Clergy Association
• Islamic Coalition Society

Armed groups:

Revolutionary Committees

Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization

Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line

Political only:

• Freedom Movement
• National Front
• JAMA
• Movement of Militant Muslims
• Nation Party
• Muslim People's Republic Party
• National Democratic Front
• National Resistance Movement of Iran
• Pan-Iranist Party
• Azadegan

Armed groups:

• MEK
• Tudeh Party
• Peykar
• Furqan
• NEQAB
• Union of Iranian Communists
• Union of Communist Militants
• Workers' Way
• Fedaian (majority)
• Fedaian (minority)
• Fedai Guerrillas
• Laborers' Party
• Turkmen People's Cultural and Political Society

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Separatists:

• KDPI
• Komala
• DRFLA
• PFLA
• AFLA

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IraqCommanders and leaders

Ruhollah Khomeini

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Morteza MotahariX
Mohammad BeheshtiX
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Abulhassan Banisadr
Mohammad-Ali RajaiX
Mohammad-Javad BahonarX
Ali Khamenei (WIA)
Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani
Mir-Hossein Mousavi

Qasem-Ali Zahirnejad
Mohsen Rezaee

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi#

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Dariush Forouhar(POW) until March 1983
Ahmad Mirfendereski(POW) until Unknown date

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Other revolutionaries :
Mehdi Bazargan
Abulhassan Banisadr
Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari(POW)
Sadeq Qotbzadeh
Karim Sanjabi
Kazem Sami
Habibollah Payman

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NEQAB :
Shapour Bakhtiar
Saeid Mahdioun
Hadi Izadi

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Forqan :
Akbar Goodarzi
Abbas Askari

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Turkmen rebels :
Abdollah Soureshi(POW)

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Far-Leftists :
Massoud Rajavi
Mousa Khiabani†
Ashraf Rabiei†
Azar Rezaei †
Mohammad Moqaddam †
Ashraf Dehghani
Mansoor Hekmat
Mohsen Fazel
Alireza Sepasi-Ashtiani(POW)
Hossein Ahmadi-Rouhani
Alireza Sokuhi
Hosayn Qazi
Kak Ismail
Noureddin Kianouri(POW)

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Kurdish separatists :
A. R. Ghassemlou
F. M Soltani†
Sadeq Sharafkandi

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Arab separatists
Oan Ali Mohammed†
Supported by:
Saddam HusseinStrength

Total forces :

• 207,500 (June 1979)
• 305,000 (peak)
• 240,000 (final)

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Theater forces:
6,000–10,000 ~10,000–15,000
Paykar : 3,000
5,000 (Fedai factions in total)
25,000–30,000
5,000Casualties and losses 3,000 killed (conservative estimate)

~1,000 killed
~4,000 killed
~105 killed

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At least 2,665 executed

10,000 estimated KIA (total)

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3,500 killed in the 1981–1982 Iran Massacres

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2,000–4,000 Army personnel arrested or purged following the failure of the Nojeh coup plot

Following the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the Shah of Iran in February 1979, Iran was in a "revolutionary crisis mode" until 1982 or 1983 when forces loyal to the revolution's leader, AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini, consolidated power. During this period, Iran's economy and the apparatus of government collapsed; its military and security forces were in disarray.

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.

By 1988, Khomeini and his supporters had crushed the rival factions and consolidated power. Elements that played a part in both the crisis and its end were the Iran hostage crisis, the invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and the presidency of Abolhassan Banisadr.