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Amir Hossein Rabii

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Amir Hossein Rabii (Persian: امیرحسین ربیعی; 18 October 1930–9 April 1979) was an Iranian senior military officer who served as the commander in chief of Imperial Iranian Air Force from 1976 to 1979. He was the last commander of the force.[1]

Timsar

Amir Hossein Rabii
Born18 October 1930
Kermanshah, Pahlavi Iran
Died9 April 1979(1979-04-09) (aged 48)
Qasr Prison, Tehran, Iran
Buried
Behesht Zahra
AllegianceImperial State of Iran
Service / branch Imperial Iranian Air Force
Years of service1949–1979
Rank Sepahbod
CommandsChief of the Imperial Iranian Air Force (1976 - 1979)
Spouse(s)Gerda Rabii
Signature
Cause of deathExecution
Minister of Housing
In office
6 November 1978 – 22 November 1978
MonarchMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Prime MinisterGholam Reza Azhari
Succeeded byManouchehr Behravan

Education

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Rabii was among the first military officers of the Imperial Iranian Air Force who were trained at Fürstenfeldbruck air base in West Germany during the 1950s and later at Reese Air Force Base in the United States.[2][3] He and other military officers including Nader Jahanbani also took the jet pilot instructor course.[3]

Career and activities

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Rabii was a fighter pilot on the F-84G Thunderjet, F-86 Sabre, F-5A Freedom Fighter and later on the F-4 Phantom II.[4][5][6] After returning to Iran he contributed to the foundation of the acrobat team in the air force, named the Golden Crown, in 1958.[3] He served as the commander of the first fighter base in Tehran.[7]

Rabii was the commander of the Tactical Air Command in Shiraz[8] until 1976.[9] He served as commander in chief of Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) from Spring 1976 to 1979 with the rank of lieutenant general.[10] He succeeded Fazael Tadayon in the post.[10] When he was in command, there were forty-eight thousand men in the air force.[11] Barry Rubin, a veteran Middle East expert, described him as possibly "the most able officer in the top circles of the armed forces."[12]

 
Rabii, right, with other Golden Crown pilots

In August 1978, Rabii indirectly urged Moshe Dayan, the foreign minister of Israel, to meet the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and to tell him the increasing tension in Iran.[13] Rabii complained that the Shah had been ignoring his and others' remarks.[13] The visit was paid by Dayan in the following days.[14]

In the military cabinet formed by Gholam Reza Azhari Rabii served as an acting minister of housing briefly from November to December 1978.[15] However, Hassan Toufanian, deputy defense minister, and Rabii did not cooperate with Azhari arguing that the prime minister had assigned mostly army officers as cabinet members.[16] In addition, both Toufanian and Rabii tended to carry out a coup to stabilize the turmoil in the country, but their idea was not backed by other senior military officials, including General Abbas Gharabaghi.[17] Rabii himself was not so enthusiastic to materialize his hardliner views without getting support from the Shah.[18]

Rabii was one of the military officials who met Robert Huyser, the deputy commander of US forces in Europe, during the latter's visit to Iran from 4 January to 3 February 1979.[19][20] Three days before leaving the country on 13 January, the Shah told all commanders, including Rabii, that they should support the government of Shapour Bakhtiar.[21] Following the 1979 revolution clashes occurred between supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini and people loyal to the Shah regime. Rabii instructed his men not to kill anyone on the other side.[9] When Prime Minister Bakhtiar ordered him to bomb the arms factory in central Tehran, he refused to carry out this order.[22] Rabii did not support the revolution, but a significant portion of the air force cadets and young skilled military technical personnel did.[23]

Ayatollah Khomeini asked Rabii to submit his resignation at his residence, and he submitted it there.[24] Saeid Mahdioun replaced Rabii as commander of the air force.[25][26]

Personal life

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Rabii married a German woman, Gerda, and had two sons, Arian and Arman.[9]

Rabii had a good command of English.[7] In an intelligence report by the USA Defense Department dated 13 February 1975 Rabii was described as a warm, open and humorous Muslim, but not a strict religious person.[7] He was also regarded in the same report as a very handsome and well-educated military official who was much ahead of his colleagues.[7]

Death

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Rabii was arrested in February 1979 along with Tehran martial law governor Mehdi Rahimi, air force general Ayat Mahaghghi (Mohagheghi) and Isfahan martial law governor Reza Naji, and they were all taken to Alawi school in Tehran.[27] Special press conferences were organized by the Islamic regime to publicly display these officials, including former Prime Minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, former SAVAK chief Nematollah Nasiri and Rabii, which were broadcast nationally.[22] During the initial interrogations, Rabii stated that the air force purchased advanced warplanes and other military equipment from the US, which were all in the country, and that the air force of Iran was intact and the second most powerful force in the world.[22]

Rabii was secretly tried and in the court, he stated "General Huyser threw the Shah out of the country like a dead mouse."[28] He was sentenced to death on charges of corruption on earth and treason among the others.[29][30] Local dailies reported that the verdict was based on the confessions of other Shah-period officials.[29] He and nine other civil and military officials were executed by the security forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Qasr prison of Tehran on 9 April 1979.[4][31]

References

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  1. ^ Sepehr Zabir (2012). The Iranian Military in Revolution and War (RLE Iran D). London; New York: Routledge. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-136-81270-5.
  2. ^ "Military". The Iranian. November 2002. Archived from the original on 25 February 2014.
  3. ^ a b c "Golden Crown History". IIAF. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
  4. ^ a b "Shah's air force chief executed". The Telegraph-Herald. Tehran. UPI. 9 April 1979. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
  5. ^ "IIAF Personnel killed by Islamic Regime between 1979 - Present". Imperial Iranian Air Force. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  6. ^ "F-84 G Thunder Jet – IIAF". Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d "Bio- LTG Amir Hossein Rabii". US Defense Department. Archived from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  8. ^ "BIO Changes Concerning Amir Hossein Rabii". US Defense Department. 24 April 1975. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  9. ^ a b c Mary K. Solomon (25 April 1979). "Execution was a tragedy". The Deseret News. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  10. ^ a b "IIAF History". Imperial Iranian Air Force. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  11. ^ Joseph Kraft (18 December 1978). "Letter from Iran". The New Yorker. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  12. ^ Barry Rubin (1980). Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience in Iran. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 227. ISBN 978-0140059649.
  13. ^ a b Ronen Bergman (2008). The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle against the World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Power. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-4165-6490-4.
  14. ^ Arieh O’Sullivan (2 February 2009). "Open Secrets (Extract)". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  15. ^ Sepehr Zabir (2012). The Iranian Military in Revolution and War (RLE Iran D). London; New York: Routledge. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-136-81270-5.
  16. ^ Steven R. Ward (2014). Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-1626160323.
  17. ^ Rebecca Cann; Constantine Danopoulos (Winter 1997). "The Military and Politics in a Theocratic State: Iran as Case Study". Armed Forces & Society. 24 (2): 274. doi:10.1177/0095327X9702400204. S2CID 145350433.
  18. ^ Ahmed S. Hashim (2021). "Iran: Imperial and Republican Civil–Military Relations". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1828. ISBN 978-0-19-022863-7.
  19. ^ Jean-Charles Brotons (2010). U.S. Officials and the Fall of the Shah: Some Safe Contraction Interpretations. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-7391-3340-8.
  20. ^ Andrew Scott Cooper (11 February 2015). "Declassified diplomacy: Washington's hesitant plans for a military coup in pre-revolution Iran". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
  21. ^ Gholam Reza Afkhami (2008). The Life and Times of the Shah. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 503. ISBN 978-0-520-94216-5.
  22. ^ a b c "Former leaders facing charges". The Calgary Herald. Tehran. UPI. 14 February 1979. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
  23. ^ "National security". Pars Times. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  24. ^ Khosrow Fatemi (Winter 1982). "Leadership by Distrust: The Shah's Modus Operandi". The Middle East Journal. 36 (1): 59. JSTOR 4326355.
  25. ^ Mark J. Roberts (1996). Khomeini's Incorporation of the Iranian Military. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University.
  26. ^ Nikola B. Schahgaldian (March 1987). The Iranian Military Under the Islamic Republic (PDF). Santa Monica, CA: RAND. p. 111. ISBN 0-8330-0777-7.
  27. ^ "Revolution: 1979-1999". The Iranian. Archived from the original on 27 April 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  28. ^ Jahangir Amuzegar (1991). Dynamics of the Iranian Revolution: The Pahlavis' Triumph and Tragedy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-7914-0731-8.
  29. ^ a b "Law And Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran" (PDF). Amnesty International. 13 March 1980. Archived from the original (Report) on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  30. ^ "One person's story. Mr. Amir Hosein Rabi'i". OMID. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  31. ^ "Firing squads kill 10 in Iran". The Dispatch. Tehran. AP. 9 April 1979. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
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