Iran's Islamic Revolution: Back to the past

International attention is riveted on the Islamic Republic of Iran, now in its 29th year, where looming storm clouds threaten an impending clash between Tehran and Washington, to whom, judging by the nearly daily statements by administration officials, the Islamist revolutionary regime has become public enemy number one. The nearly three decade old Iranian revolution has passed through several successive stages since the overthrow of the Shah: an eight-year long war with Iraq, the succession to the revolution's leader and spiritual father Ayatollah Al-Khomeini, the consolidation of the "revolutionary state," and even the launching of a "dialogue of civilisations" initiative.

Yet, throughout these changes and transformations, it never lost sight of that paramount constant upon which it was founded: the "rule of the clergy", in accordance with which principle the nation's Supreme Revolutionary Guide resides in a lofty zone above the constitution. Thus, in spite of shifts in domestic policies, the comings and goings of political faces, and various overtures to the world abroad, the ruling religious establishment, in alliance with the "bazaar", or merchant class, has continued to hold sway in Iran, against the backdrop of a turbulent regional environment and a narrowing margin of maneuverability internationally.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has ridden out successive waves of American pressure, all the while clinging, regardless of the political and ideological orientations of its rulers, to the fundamental ambition of the modern Iranian state, which is to impose itself as a regional power.

Thus, with the patience and skill of a Persian carpet maker, it has woven for itself an axis of alliances stretching from its western borders through Iraq and Syria to southern Lebanon, as the result of which not only is Iran strategically poised, as always, over the Gulf, but, also, through the expansion of its influence, it now overlooks the Mediterranean, as well.

The actions of the Bush administration, parading under the banner of the war against terrorism, helped pave the path for this expansion. In toppling the reactionary Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the United States cleared the way for the extension of Iranian influence northward. Hard on the heels of this, the same administration swept away the Saddam Hussein regime, which Tehran had been unable to budge throughout the protracted Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Then, on top of this enormous service, America's relentless pressures on its Middle Eastern allies created a gaping regional power void that constantly whetted Iran's appetite.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/833/re2.htm