home/map
subscribe
about us/contact us
israel iraq iran ethiopia eritrea egypt cyprus bahrain algeria afghanistan
Iran

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was an epochal event, overthrowing an age-old monarchy, reordering Iranian society, energizing Islamist movements throughout the region and throwing Iran into international isolation from which it has yet to emerge.

Though outwardly an “island of stability,” the Iran ruled by the US-backed Shah was bedeviled by ethnic unrest, widening disparities of wealth, broad social discontent and dissent from the powerful Shiite Muslim clergy. Rapidly spreading demonstrations forced the Shah’s departure. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, exiled for his role in a 1963 uprising opposing modernizing socio-economic reforms, returned after the Shah left to take over the revolution and install the Islamic Republic.

Bankrolled by Arab monarchies fearing the spread of revolution beyond Iran’s borders, Iraq invaded the nascent Islamic state in 1980, inaugurating eight years of bloody, inconclusive war. Iranian-Arab relations improved in the 1990s, but are uneasy once more following the rise of the Shiites in post-Saddam Iraq. Relations with the West—crucially the United States—are perennially tense, today primarily because of Western suspicions about Iran’s nuclear research program.

The Islamic Republic has attributes of democracy, including regular, though restricted elections and alternations of government. Yet Khomeini’s successor as Supreme Leader wields super-parliamentary authority, and appointed clerical bodies are empowered to vet political candidates and overrule legislative acts. From 1997-2004, Islamist parliamentarians allied with then-President Mohammad Khatami tried to reform these anti-democratic features of the system, to no avail. Conservatives regained control of Parliament in 2004, and the next year, the little-known hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency.

Renewed confrontation with the West, along with the windfall from record oil prices, partly hides Iran’s economic stagnation and brewing social crises. Most Iranians desire an end to the Islamic Republic’s pariah status, and many chafe under clerical rule. Women, for whom “Islamic dress” is mandatory and whose civil rights have been curtailed, are an important voice for change, as are the generations that grew up after the revolutionary fervor had faded.

Facts and Figures »