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The Survival and Future of the Islamic Republic

 

Princeton University Press, 2019

 
Never before had a political leader as theologically driven, defiant, and popular as Khomeini burst onto the world scene to lock horns with a superpower like the United States while loudly denouncing another, the USSR … Khomeini’s defiance injected a new catalyst for global political realignment that alarmed regional ruling elites and the United States. The rise of the Ayatollah was to shake the post-Second World War Pax Americana at its foundations in the Middle East - with a dramatic and lasting impact on regional geopolitical dynamics.
 
The bilateral relationship - or the lack thereof - between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States has proved extremely volatile, challenging, and costly for both sides over the last forty years. The Islamic Republic has viewed the US as an arrogant, hegemonic power intent on, at best, limiting and, at worst, destroying the Iranian Islamic government. The US, on the other hand, has denounced the Islamic Republic as a repressive theocracy and treated it as a regional menace and a sponsor of international terrorism, and thus a threat to America’s interests in the Middle East and beyond.

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