Iran and the United States: Foreign Policy during the Khomeini Years
Abootalebi, Ali. "The Struggle for Democracy in the Islamic Republic of Iran." Middle East Review of International Affairs 4.3 (2000): 43-56.
Bakhash, Shaul. The Reign of the Ayatollahs : Iran and the Islamic Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 1984.
Bill, James A. "Iran and the United States: A Clash of Hegemonies." Middle East Report.212 (1999): 44-46.
Bill, James A., and Robert Springborg. Politics in the Middle East. The Longman Series in Comparative Politics. 5th ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2000.
Cottam, Richard W. "Inside Revolutionary Iran." The Middle East Journal 43.2 (1989): 168-85.
Cottam, Richard W. Nationalism in Iran. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979.
Iran and the United States: Foreign Policy during the Khomeini Years
Ali Abootalebi observed the following:
A major shortcoming of Islamic movements, for instance, is that while they are often organized and able to identify and mobilize opposition against a common enemy or threat, once successful, internal power struggles and problems quickly emerge in defining and implementing an Islamic system of government…Indeed, attempts to present an “Islamic solution” to society’s ills have largely failed…In short, “Islamic” politics, like all politics, is about power.56
There are many viewpoints on whether Khomeini was an idealist or realist in the foreign policy arena. Ramazani argued that Khomeini doesn’t belong in either of the two categories because in overseeing Iran’s interests he performed the role of balancer, thus specific circumstances dictated which factions he would align with. His leadership was a complex mixture of both idealism and realism, whereby he could be on two sides of any given issue at any given time.57 Keddie argues that with Khomeini at the helm, “Iran was under a highly ideological ruler who wanted to spread his ideology to the point of controlling other governments – a goal that was essentially lost in the Iran-Iraq war and never had any real chance of success.”58 Pollack believes that, “Khomeini made it very clear that his vision of the Islamic Revolution was the most radical, dogmatic, ideological, uncompromising, and anti-American version of it.”59
Iran and the United States: Foreign Policy during the Khomeini Years
The Iranian revolutionary cry to ‘liberate’ all lands for Islam and export the revolution was taken very seriously in the wider Middle East, and given Iraq’s majority Shi’a population (under the rule of the Sunni minority), the rhetoric from Tehran was perceived as a direct threat by Saddam Hussein. For his part, Hussein believed that Iran was militarily weak following the revolution and hoped to exploit the situation by attacking the oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan. The war, launched by Iraq on 22 September 1980, further radicalized Iranian politics as the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) – the most radical of Iranian political factions – was left at the uncontested helm of Iranian policy-making.Iran and the United States: Foreign Policy during the Khomeini Years
Civil war erupted in full force in Lebanon in April of 1975. The constant armed clashes among Lebanon’s diverse internal factions, exacerbated by Palestinian involvement, Syrian intervention, the meddling of other regional states, and maneuvering by the superpowers, transformed the civil war into an all out regional conflict. The volatility inherent in Lebanon’s political structure was further aggravated by an internal contest over the country’s identity and regional position. The Muslims who at the time constituted the majority of the population sought to change the political system and identify with pan-Arabism and Islam. This was strongly resisted by the Christians and Maronites specifically because it came as a direct threat to their own societal status and to Lebanon’s viability as a West-leaning independent state.Iran and the United States: Foreign Policy during the Khomeini Years
Two weeks after Khomeini’s return to Tehran, on 14 February 1979, 150 members of the Marxist, leftist, Feda’iyan-e Khalq overran the American embassy. Khomeini quickly denounced the attack and dispatched Ibrahim Yazidi, who rounded up hundreds of students from Tehran University and led a counter-attack to free the Americans. Khomeini and his band of mullahs leveled their criticism at the leftists. That same year on 4 November, three hundred Islamic students overran the embassy and took 66 Americans hostage. This time Khomeini gave his approval within two days. Why did he react in the opposite manner to a seemingly similar scenario? On 22 October the United States admitted the Shah for medical treatment for his advanced cancer. While this was perceived as a slap at revolutionary Iran, it alone does not explain Khomeini’s rationale. At the time of the hostage crisis, the admission of the Shah was usually tagged onto the end of listed Iranian grievances – and the hostages were not released when the Shah was forced out of America after completing his treatment on 15 December, nor were they released when he died in Egypt on 27 July 1980.17
Iran and the United States: Foreign Policy during the Khomeini Years
Iran and the United States share a relatively brief but troubled history. America’s involvement in Iran began in the aftermath of the Second World War and intensified as the American-Soviet Cold War smoldered during the later half of the 20th Century. Iran never loomed large upon the horizon of the American public’s list of foreign concerns. For the United States, the defining moment in their relationship came on 4 November 1979, when on the heals of the Iranian Revolution, 66 Americans were seized from their embassy in Iran and held hostage for 444 days.1 Americans saw this as a blatant and undeserved attack and felt powerless as the hostage crisis dragged on. This left a terrible scar on the American psyche and has colored foreign policy decisions towards Iran ever since. Americans today, for the most part, remain cloaked in a shroud of ignorance, ever asking, ‘Why do they hate us?’ For Iranians, America’s 1953 bloodless coup d’état that toppled Mosaddeq was a pivotal moment, creating a legacy etched into the Iranian consciousness. While Mosaddeq’s strategy for oil nationalization relied heavily upon American economic aid, in Iran he is remembered as the man who stood up to the West. The coup brought the Shah back. Iranians who looked to the United States to rid themselves of Britain’s yoke woke up to the new reality that they had merely replaced the British with the Americans. The Iranian sense that other nations have constantly meddled in their internal affairs has remained a driving force behind foreign policy decisions since the 1979 revolution.
A new generation of Iranian intellectuals emerged in the 1960s, reversing previously held convictions and espousing the view that the West was the cause of Iran’s problems.2 By 1977, Iran had become a tinderbox due to economic conditions, the Iranian people’s dissatisfaction with the Shah’s modernization efforts, and disenchantment with the influence of Western values penetrating the country. With nearly all segments of society rising to challenge the Shah, many sought to mold and control the revolutionary explosion.
