Iran and the Gulf Arabs

by MERIP's Special Correspondent in Iran
published in MER156

Within weeks of Iran’s surprise acceptance of a ceasefire in its war with Iraq last July, perceptions of the regime in Tehran on the Arab side of the Gulf underwent a radical transformation. Governments in Kuwait, Riyadh and Bahrain pledged to forget past clashes, restore full diplomatic ties and launch a new era of political cooperation. Dollar signs danced in traders’ eyes as they saw a revival of a once booming reexport business with ports on the Persian coast.

Iran and Lebanon

A Conversation with Ahmad Baydoun

by Irene Gendzier
published in MER156

What are current relations between Iran and Lebanon? What has been the import of Iran’s revolution on Lebanon’s Shi‘i community? These were the questions we put to Ahmad Baydoun, poet, man of letters and professor of history at the Lebanese University, in Boston in late October.

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The Revolution's First Decade

by Fred Halliday
published in MER156

It is now ten years since the triumph of the Iranian revolution and the assumption of power by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his forces on February 11, 1979. If the revolution itself was a surprise, destroying an apparently strong and capable regime and bringing a most unexpected clerical leadership to power, its subsequent course has also contained quite a few unanticipated elements. In the first place, the Islamic Republic of Iran has survived: The clerical regime has consolidated its hold on the country, crushed its many opponents, greatly reduced external political and economic influence within Iran, and overcome the supreme test of foreign invasion.

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"There Is a Feeling That the Regime Owes Something to the People"

by Ervand Abrahamian , James Paul
published in MER156

Ahmad Ashraf is an Iranian sociologist currently teaching in the United States. He is presently working on a book with Ali Banuazizi on social classes and the state in contemporary Iran. Ervand Abrahamian and James Paul spoke with him in New York City in late October.

How would you describe the regime’s social base of support?

The regime consists of different factions, and each of them has certain social bases among the populace. The bazaar, for instance, is no longer the social base of the government in general, but rather of a group collaborating with the regime.

What are the main currents, and which social bases are aligned with them?

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The Islamic Republic at War and Peace

by Eric Hooglund
published in MER156

Ten years after the Iranian revolution swept the Shah from power, and contrary to innumerable prophecies of its demise, the Islamic Republic endures. Many of the revolution’s original leaders remain in power and many of their goals, although not yet fulfilled, continue to be policy objectives.

From the Editors

by The Editors
published in MER156

As President-elect George Bush sits down to lunch with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in early December 1988 to discuss the modalities of Detente II, we wonder what the prospects are for any similar sort of US rapprochement with the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It took 16 years, from 1917 to 1933, for the United States to come to diplomatic terms with the Bolshevik Revolution, and the half-century since then has been marked by periods of deep hostility, none more pronounced than the first half of the Reagan-Bush administration.

Letters

published in MER159

Prop. W Not a Setback

A Separation at Iranian Universities

by Nazanin Shahrokni , Parastou Dokouhaki | published October 18, 2012

On August 6, with the new academic year approaching, the government-backed Mehr News Agency in Iran posted a bulletin that 36 universities in the country had excluded women from 77 fields of study. The reported restrictions aroused something of an international uproar.

Mediations

by
published in MER161

Intifada Chic We’re not really sure what this tells us about the present state of the Israeli Jewish psyche, almost two years into the intifada, but here are some of the designer T-shirts being sold these days in Jerusalem:

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Iran in the Campaign's Crosshairs

by Chris Toensing | published October 10, 2012

The war of words over Iran's nuclear program keeps expanding.

It’s now a multi-sided melee pitting Iran against the West and Israel, Israel against the Obama administration, Mitt Romney against Barack Obama, and neo-conservatives like William Kristol against the rest of the US foreign policy establishment.

The rhetoric is more heated, too. President Obama swears that his administration “will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” It’s his clearest indication to date that he would, if he deemed it necessary, order military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.