Eternal Iran Continuity and chaos
Patrick Clawson
Michael Rubin
Palgrave Macmillan
The Middle East in Focus
The Middle East has become simultaneously the world’s most controversial, crisis-ridden, and yet least-understood region. Taking new perspectives on the area that has undergone the most dramatic changes, the Middle East in Focus series, edited by Barry Rubin, seeks to bring the best, most accurate expertise to bear for understanding the area’s countries, issues, and problems. The resulting books are designed to be balanced, accurate, and comprehensive compendiums of both facts and analysis presented clearly for both experts and the general reader.
Series Editor: Barry Rubin
Director, Global Research International Affairs (GLORIA) Center
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal
Editor, Turkish Studies
Turkish Dynamics: Bridge Across Troubled Lands
By Ersin Kalaycıoğlu
Contents
Series Editor’s Foreword / vii
Acknowledgments / ix
Introduction / 1
1. Land and People / 5
2. From Empire to Nation / 11
3. Qajar Iran: Decline and Tumult, 1786–1921 / 31
4. A New Order, 1921–1953 / 51
5. Modernizing Iran, 1953–1978 / 69
6. Revolution and War, 1978–1988 / 87
7. The Second Islamic Republic, 1989–2005 / 115
8. Foreign Relations under Khatami / 139
9. Summary and Prospects / 159
Notes / 163
Index / 197
SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD
More than a quarter-century ago, Iran’s revolution took its place alongside those of America, France, Russia, and China as one of those rare but massive events that changed the course of history.
Iran’s revolution, like its predecessors, ushered in a chain of developments that shook the world. It originated a whole, original ideology capable of mobilizing millions of people and a new form of government. Although the resulting Islamism did not take power elsewhere in the Middle East, it staged armed uprisings, international wars, and unprecedented terrorist attacks.
Yet meanwhile the new order in Iran carried on. It tried to build an alternative political, economic, and social system, though often having to compromise with the necessities required to remain in power. In some ways, its experiences paralleled those of other dictatorial regimes and absolute ideologies though, in each aspect, with a flavor of its own.
By the 1990s, widespread disillusion set in among Iranians to the point that a majority of the population voted against the regime’s candidates in elections. Yet the rulers outmaneuvered their opponents. And by the twenty first century, Iran’s Islamist regime remained in control, despite war, emigration, economic problems, and international pressure.
Indeed, it is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. Almost everything about Iran is controversial; the most basic facts about it can be disputed. And these myriad events and crises also make earlier work on that country outdated.
Telling the story of modern Iran, then, is both a task of the greatest importance and of the most exquisite difficulties. Patrick Clawson and Michael Rubin, two long-term and dedicated students of Iran, are well qualified to navigate these treacherous waters. In this book they have told the complex story of Iran’s modern history, assessed its institutions, and chronicled its strengths and weaknesses as well as the ideas of its defenders and critics.
They have thus provided the most reliable guide to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their book provides a welcome addition to our series on the Middle East.
Barry Rubin
Director, Global Research
in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center,
and editor of the Palgrave Middle East in Focus Series
Acknowledgments
In our day jobs at our respective think-tanks, we are each wrapped up with current policy concerns and U.S.-Iran relations. Having a deadline to produce this manuscript forced us to carve out more time for exploring Iran’s history, a topic for which we both have great affection.
The Iranian fashion is to apologize that we humble servants are not fit to speak when there are so many more knowledgeable than we. Indeed, the list of those who have helped us learn more is so long that we can only mention but a few. Yale University historian Abbas Amanat has been invaluable, as has the noted historian Willem Floor with whom Mr. Clawson had the privilege of working on several coauthored articles. We have learned much from many of our colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and our gratitude is due to those two institutions and especially our supervisors, Danielle Pletka and Robert Satloff. We had the invaluable help of our assistants, Suzanne Gershowitz, Molly McKew, Naysan Rafati, and Haleh Zareei. Mr. Clawson owes a debt to his many Persian-language instructors, especially Simin Mohajer, and Mr. Rubin wishes to acknowledge the patient instruction of Fereshteh Amanat-Kowssar. Our editors, David Pervin and Barry Rubin, have been patient and understanding. Most important, in our respective visits to Iran, we owe much to the many Iranians who have helped us better understand their fascinating and complex land. Of course, the errors in what we have written are our own.
Introduction
A pivotal country at the juncture of the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia, Iran, with ambition, oil, the sheer size of its 70 million–strong population, is a regional power. Iran’s geography and history contribute much to its sense that it is a great country under siege. Whereas its neighbors only coalesced as countries and gained independence in the twentieth century, Iran in one form or another extends back to the centuries before Islam when it was among the ancient world’s great empires. Such self-conception does much to explain the proud nationalism that has remained at the center of Iranian politics as the country has gone from being an American ally, and what former President Carter called a “pillar of stability” in the Middle East, to a revolutionary state exporting terrorism, and thus a member of President Bush’s “axis of evil.”
Iran has long surprised the West. A medieval monarchy until the midnineteenth century, Iranian shahs undertook ambitious drives to modernize their country helped along by Western investment, loans and, as the twentieth century dawned, growing oil wealth. In the first decade of the twentieth century Iranians fought a bitter civil war to win a constitution and parliament. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Iranian government raced ahead with economic, social, and legal reforms that paralleled and, sometimes, exceeded those implemented in Turkey. Despite the 1951–1953 confrontation over oil nationalization under Prime Minister Muhammad Musaddiq, Iran continued to modernize rapidly, experiencing growth rates that were among the world’s highest in the period 1953–1978. Then came the Islamic Revolution in 1979; Iranians shocked the world, though, not so much by overthrowing their increasingly autocratic and aloof shah, but by replacing him with a theocracy.
Contradictions have accelerated under the Islamic Republic, though. Young men might chant “Death to America” in the morning, but return to home to watch American soap operas on their illegal satellite receivers. Woman sporting the cloaking chador might be concealing the latest Western fashions and hairdos. Millions of Iranian youth are more likely to argue about the Chicago Bulls’ NBA draft picks than about questions of religious jurisprudence. While officials of the Islamic Republic rail against the moral corruption of the West, Iranian municipalities seek to control burgeoning drug and prostitution problems. Even as President Muhammad Khatami called for a “dialogue of civilizations,” Iranian authorities paraded missiles draped with banners threatening the United States and calling for Israel’s ...
Patrick Clawson
Michael Rubin
Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos
Palgrave Macmillan
Palgrave Macmillan
Middle East in focus
Eternal Iran
Continuity and chaos
Eternal Iran
© Patrick Clawson and Michael Rubin, 2005.
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ISBN 1–4039–6275–8
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clawson, Patrick, 1951–
Eternal Iran : continuity and chaos / Patrick Clawson and Michael Rubin.
p. cm.—(Middle East in focus series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1–4039–6275–8—ISBN 1–4039–6276–6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Iran—History. I. Rubin, Michael, 1971– II. Title. III. Series.
DS272.C58 2005
955—dc22 / 2005045941
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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First edition: November 2005
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Printed in the United States of America.
