Sadat offered Iranian exiles “military support” to overthrow Khomeini’s revolutionary rule, British documents reveal

The late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat offered military and media assistance to the Iranian opposition in exile to topple Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary regime, two years after the victory of the 1979 revolution, declassified British documents reveal.

Under the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran had maintained strong relations with Egypt. The Shah supported Sadat’s government after the 6 October 1973 war against Israel, provided financial aid, and helped Egypt reopen the Suez Canal. The two leaders developed such a close personal bond that the Shah often referred to Sadat as his dear brother.  However, after the revolution that overthrew the Shah and established the Islamic Republic under Khomeini, relations between the two countries became deeply strained.

Tensions worsened after Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, a move Iran strongly opposed as it rejected any normalisation of ties with the Zionist state.

Following his fall from power, the Shah traveled to Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, and Mexico, before entering the United States in late 1979 for medical treatment of lymphatic cancer. Two weeks later, Iranian revolutionaries seized the US embassy in Tehran and took over 50 Americans hostage, demanding the Shah’s extradition in exchange for their release. Although the US refused, the Shah later left for Panama, and Sadat eventually granted him asylum in Egypt, where he died and was buried.

Barrington message on UK stance on Khomeini rule

Barrington message on UK stance on Khomeini rule

Bakhtiar and Iraqi money

According to documents of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), reviewed by MEMO in the British National Archives, exiled Iranians contacted Sadat in 1981—one year after the start of the Iran-Iraq War—seeking his support to overthrow Khomeini’s government.

Shapour Bakhtiar, who led the last government under the Pahlavi dynasty, was seeking backing for a covert organisation that was “waiting for the right time to make a decisive move” against the revolutionary regime.

One of Bakhtiar’s closest aides, Saivash Saidi, told his old friend Nicholas J. Barrington —a British diplomat serving at the embassy in Cairo—that he had arranged a meeting in Paris in late February 1981 between Bakhtiar and Sadat, who was visiting France.

According to the documents, the meeting lasted 55 minutes. Saidi reported that Sadat urged Bakhtiar “to get a move on” with his plans against Khomeini’s government, then led by the Islamic Republic Party. Sadat was said to have offered Egyptian support “via a radio station in Alexandria or military facilities.” While Bakhtiar expressed gratitude, he remarked that “Egypt was a bit far from the action.” Saidi added that Bakhtiar was hoping to receive more substantial help, including “to have more help, including a radio station, from the Turks.”

When asked, Saidi gave few details about Bakhtiar’s organisation but claimed it operated on a “cell system” and had “extensive and growing support all over Iran.” He said the group had the backing of a “large number of army and air force officers of the rank of Colonel and below,” as well as tribal support and endorsement from moderate religious leaders such as Ayatollahs Shariatmadari, Zanjani, and Taba Tabai Qomi of Mashhad.

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Saidi maintained that Bakhtiar and his allies believed Iranians must take responsibility for their own future, and they were “waiting for the right time to make a decisive move.” The group’s plan was to restore the pre-revolutionary constitution, with Bakhtiar returning as the last “legitimate prime minister”. While Saidi admitted that Bakhtiar was not perfect, he argued that he was “the best leader available” and had “grown in stature recently, learning more about Iran and showing leadership qualities.”

Although the group also operated an “important radio station in Iraq,” and maintained some ties with the Iraqi government, Saidi insisted they “had no truck with Saddam Hussein.”

However, by December 1981, the FCO had obtained new information about Bakhtiar’s links with Iraq from Saidi himself. He informed Barrington that he and other associates had grown “disillusioned” with Bakhtiar, claiming he had been receiving up to $2 million a month from the Iraqis, which he allegedly deposited in Swiss bank accounts and used its proceeds to live. Saidi complained that the money didn’t get to the families of people arrested in Iran and to other deserving causes, and there were growing suspicions that that much of the monies “were going to Bakhtiar”s own pocket”.

In their meeting, Saidi argued that some opposition leaders in exile believed Iran should not be ruined and that its relationship with the West must be preserved. He added that these leaders “had a responsibility to do what they could” to achieve that goal.

However, Barrington expressed “general skepticism” toward the exiled opposition leaders, adding that the revolutionary regime “was likely to continue” in power.

Saidi asked whether a successful overthrow of the regime—carried out without bloodshed—would receive the British government’s blessing. Barrington firmly responded that the UK recognized and worked with the current government in Iran, just as it had done with the Shah’s regime in the past. He emphasised that Britain could not be involved in internal Iranian politics.

In his report, Barrington informed the Middle East Department (MED) that the message Saidi likely took away was that Britain would not support any political activity by the opposition, but would “work with the government in power”—which ever government had the support of the Iranian people. He added that “the Khomeini regime, or something like it, was likely to remain in power.”

In its assessment of Bakhtiar, the FCO concluded it was “difficult to foresee” him playing any significant role in the future of Iran. The same assessment was said to apply to other rival exile groups.

The FCO believed that Bakhtiar and his associates “have been greatly damaged” by their close association with Iraq.

The MED advised British diplomats not to either encourage or discourage Saidi from maintaining contact. “We do not want him to be in a position to say that he is ‘in touch with British intelligence’—another favourite claim of Iranian political groups,” the department warned.

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