MER Article Iran and Lebanon 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. irene gendzier • 3 min read
MER Article The Revolution's First Decade 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 leadersh Fred Halliday • 9 min read
MER Article "There Is a Feeling That the Regime Owes Something to the People" 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 reg Ervand Abrahamian, James Paul • 17 min read
MER Article The Islamic Republic at War and Peace 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. Eric Hooglund • 23 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1989) 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 The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article Bayat, Workers and Revolution in Iran Asef Bayat, Workers and Revolution in Iran: A Third World Experience of Workers’ Control (London: Zed Press, 1987.) The participation of workers in the anti-shah struggle, the rise of factory councils in 1979 and 1980, and their battles with the new Islamic state over workers’ control and other Val Moghadam • 1 min read
MER Article Dorman and Farhang, The US Press and Iran William Dorman and Mansour Farhang, The US Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987). Ervand Abrahamian • 4 min read
MER Article An Islamic State? How applicable are the classic concepts of “state” and “politics” to the world of Islam? The current prominence of Islamic politics and the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Iran poses this question anew. Sami Zubaida • 13 min read
MER Article Cover-up and Blowback The House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition. Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair. (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1 Jonathan Marshall • 10 min read
MER Article Reagan's Iran Despite its reputation for having inflexible ideological positions on all foreign policy issues, the Reagan administration actually came to office in January 1981 without a coherent policy for dealing with Iran. At first the new administration was content to let Iran fade from the spotlight of natio Eric Hooglund • 8 min read
MER Article Hiro, Iran Under the Ayatollahs Dilip Hiro, Iran Under the Ayatollahs (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985). Although this book is thin on analysis, it is filled with valuable details about political and economic developments during the first five years of the Islamic Republic. It is thus a good source book for information abo Eric Hooglund • 1 min read
MER Article Beck, The Qashqa'i of Iran Lois Beck, The Qashqa’i of Iran (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986). The Qashqa’is are a confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes dispersed in the three southwestern Iranian provinces of Fars, Isfahan, and Bushehr. Historically, they have been one of the most important tribal groups in the Bahman Abdollahi • 2 min read
