Iran: An Overview.

Introduction

Dating to ancient times, Iran has played a significant role in the development of the society, economy, and politics of Central Asia and the Middle East. The modern country of Iran ranks eighteenth in size of geographic land mass, with a population of over ninety million in 2023. Iran’s central geographic location means that it links Eastern and Western Asia, as well as the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. Oil plays an important role in the economy and social order of Iran, both directly and indirectly.

Iran relies heavily upon its oil industry, with oil and gas accounting for a significant percentage of the country's export earnings. The Iranian production of oil contributes greatly to the global economy, with Iran continuing to rank in the top ten in daily oil production into the 2020s. Iran also possesses strategic access and potential command of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, which could be controlled to potentially close down the primary oil exporting sea route through which the global oil supply is transported.

Iran is an Islamic theocracy, run largely according to the dictates of Shia Islam, as interpreted by the country's top clerics, most importantly the Supreme Leader. The religious leadership of Iran attempts to exert itself globally, working to promote Shia Islamic teachings. This leadership has utilized financial and military assistance to support various Shia movements throughout the region.

While most experts and commentators agreed that Iran's policies and actions continued to represent a danger to regional and international interests, including those of the US, disagreement persisted over how best to address the complex threat of Iran. The debate only increased in the 2020s, as Iran unprecedentedly advanced its nuclear program while remaining a perceived state supporter of terrorism and taking controversial militaristic actions.

Understanding the Discussion

Iranian Guardian Council: A twelve-person council created to exercise a great deal of power and influence over the Iranian Republic. There are six Islamic jurists on the twelve-member council. The council is chaired by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati.

Iranian Revolution of 1979: A sociopolitical movement that resulted in the resignation and exile of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979. The Islamic Republic of Iran was created, and the republic became heavily influenced by the conservative Iranian Guardian Council and the theological council of the ayatollahs.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC): The IRGC was a paramilitary organization founded to protect the Islamic Republic of Iran from any enemies of the revolution of 1979.

Satrapies: A provincial governmental organization, administered regionally through a large empire.

Shi'ism: A school of Islamic faith, also called Shia Islam, that is defined by its following of the Imam Ali, believing that Ali was the rightful successor of the Prophet Mohammad. (He was the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law.) This creates a conflict between the Shia and the Sunni school, which holds that religious leaders should be elected.

Strait of Hormuz: The narrow waterway allowing access to the Persian Gulf from the Indian Ocean and the open sea lanes. The straits are bordered by Iran on the north and Oman on the south.

History

Modern Iran can trace itself to the ancient northern kingdom of Medes under the monarchy of Deioces in the late eighth century BCE. This conquest and consolidation of the Meden Kingdom by Cyrus the Great was a key component in the establishment of the Persian Empire of the sixth century BCE. The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BCE), with its established capital in Persepolis (located near the modern Iranian city of Shiraz), grew to conquer and administer the largest empire of the ancient world, stretching close to 5 million miles.

The Achaemenid Persian empire expanded to include a multiplicity of ethnicities, encompassing the lands stretching from Egypt to modern Afghanistan, and from the Persian Gulf to the Caucus Mountains, as well as the Black and Caspian Seas in the north. The population of the Persian Empire included Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, Armenians, Babylonians, Sumerians, and Greeks, which made up the tapestry of ethnicities being ruled by the Persian hierarchy.

After several attempts to invade mainland Greece at the beginning of the fifth century BCE (490 and 480;478 BCE), the Persian Empire was defeated and conquered by the Macedonian Greek empire of Alexander the Great in 330 BCE. Upon Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, the Macedonian Empire was divided into satrapies by Alexander’s generals.

Eastern Satrap, which included most of modern Iran and large portions of Iraq, retained the name of the Persian Empire under the Macedonian General Seleucus I. The Greek Seleucid empire continued, assimilating a Greco-Persian culture, and survived until approximately 250 BCE. It was replaced by an Iranian Arsacid-led tribe that the Parthian Empire (also referred to as the Arsacid Empire) ruled from 247 BCE until 224 CE. In 226 CE, another Iranian tribe rose and defeated the Parthians under Ardashir I, creating the Sassanid Empire, which ruled the region from 224 through 651 CE.

In 642 CE, the Sassanid Empire was defeated by Arab forces at the Battle of Nihawand, which led to the fall of the Sassanid Empire in 651 CE and the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate of Baghdad. Islam replaced Zoroastrianism as the dominant religion and Arabic became the spoken language of the ruling class of the former Persian Empire. Persians became an important component to the administration of the caliphate by assuming bureaucratic positions.

The evolution of the Islamic faith in Persia developed predominantly through the Shia school of teaching, following the works of the Imam Ali (son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed). This resulted in the development of the only primary Shia kingdom in Islam.

With the successive rise and conquests of Seljuk Turks and Mongols over the caliphate (1037 and 1219 CE, respectively), the Persian bureaucracy continued their service to these new rulers. In 1501 CE, a new Iranian dynasty arose to assert control over the eastern portion of the caliphate. The Safavid Dynasty ruled from 1501 to 1736, when the Persian Empire was invaded by Imperial Russian forces along with Ottoman Turkish allies. This initiated the first contact with European Imperialism, which stretched through the twentieth century. This new Persian Empire was the center of a struggle between the Russian, Ottoman, and British empires, which created a quasi-independent Persia. Through the nineteenth century, diplomatic maneuvers were utilized by the Persians, by playing the Russians and British off each other.

The cessation of British and Russian competition after the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention resulted in the creation of western regions of influence in the Persian Empire, with Russia in the north and Great Britain in the south. The events in Europe in 1914 led to World War I, and created a new threat for Persia in the Ottoman alliance with Germany. This progression of events led to the destabilization of the Qajar Dynasty, which soon resulted in the rise of the Pahlavi family, with Reza Shah Pahlavi becoming the ruler of the Persian Empire in 1925. This new dynasty had the strong support of Great Britain and gained control of the Persian Empire. In 1935, the Persian state changed its name to Iran.

The Pahlavi Dynasty, with the support of the United States and Great Britain, secured and maintained their rule from 1925 through 1979. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had assisted the Iranian secret police (Saavik) to put down an attempted revolution in 1953. The Pahlavi Dynasty attempted to modernize Iranian culture through major advances in social changes, including women’s suffrage, the elimination of illiteracy, land ownership reform, and modernized educational systems. These advances were met with resistance by conservative religious elements, led by its Islamic clerics, the ayatollahs, who saw the socioeconomic changes and the growing middle class as threats to their power.

Beginning in 1978, a movement for reform began in Iran, which resulted in the 1979 exile and overthrow of the shah’s government, and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Ayatollah Khomeini returned from his exile in Paris, establishing himself as the leading cleric and voice of radical reform and influence over the new republic’s policies. The youthful Iranian Guardian Council evolved as a means of enforcing the ayatollah’s socio-political reforms.

On November 4, 1979, radical students associated with the Iranian Guardian Council stormed the US Embassy of Tehran and took sixty Americans hostage for the alleged crimes of the US government in supporting the Pahlavi regime. This hostage crisis lasted 444 days, culminating with the departure of President Jimmy Carter and the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan.

In 1979, a war lasting ten years was initiated against Sunni Muslim–controlled Iraq on behalf of Shia Muslims in southern Iraq. This conflict dominated Shia Iran and Sunni Iraq, draining the Republic of Iran of its human and economic resources. This war, combined with actions against Western and US naval vessels in the Strait of Hormuz by the Revolutionary Guard patrol boats, and sponsorship of terrorism in Lebanon during the 1980s, created greater isolation for the Republic of Iran from the global society and economy. This resulted in rising inflation and economic hardships for Iranians.

Iran’s interest in developing nuclear technology began in the 1970s, under the Pahlavi rule, but its progress in constructing and purchasing nuclear power reactors came to a halt with the 1979 revolution. In 1970, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which allows for the “peaceful” use of nuclear technology, but advocates for disarmament and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. As a signatory of the NPT, Iran is allowed to enrich uranium for the purposes of nuclear power development; however, this ability is contingent upon inspections and approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an organization that seeks to inhibit military applications of nuclear technology and to promote its use for applications such as power and fuel.

During the 1990s, Iran enlisted the help of scientists from Russia to develop and improve the nuclear program started under the shah. Given Iran’s persistent support for terrorism, its geographic location, potential control over the Strait of Hormuz, and the regional political atmosphere, the United States and other Western nations became concerned over the possibility of a “nuclear Iran.” The possibility of a nuclear Iran and its destabilizing impact on the Middle East created a greater degree of consensus among Western nuclear nations in controlling Iran’s access to nuclear technology.

After Mohammad Khatami, a political reformer, was elected president in 1997, conservative bureaucrats (many of whom were members of the 1979 Iranian Revolutionary Guard) in unelected positions blocked Khatami's reform efforts. The August 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president completed the conservative resumption of control of the elected government positions.

The reestablishment of conservative influence over the government was marked by a combination of aggressive language against the Western nations, antisemitic rhetoric, promotion of a ballistic missile program, and the development of a nuclear program. In addition, there were allegations of Iranian support and training of insurgent elements in Iraq. This created alarm among Western nations, who feared a nuclear-equipped Iran would create conflict and control the flow of oil out of the Middle East.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the IAEA, which reports to the United Nations Security Council, sought to suspend Iran’s right to nuclear technology, citing its limited access to Iran’s nuclear program and stating that the country was deliberately deceiving the international community in regard to its nuclear program. Between 2006 and 2008, the United Nations Security Council passed four resolutions calling for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program and imposing sanctions for its failure to do so. This required the United States to get Russia and China to join in supporting the limiting of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

In 2009, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the victor in a disputed election that resulted in mass protests and deaths from government response to the protests. The crackdown on these protests resulted in over four thousand identified arrests. In 2013, the more moderate Hassan Rouhani was elected president. Overall, Iran’s activities in the Middle East region, along with its identified role as defender of the Shia branch of Islam, its support of terrorism, and its push to develop nuclear technology continued to draw global attention and the concern of Western powers. Beyond the issues and concerns over regional peace and security, the world’s heavy dependence on oil added additional relevance. In the early twenty-first century, accusations arose from US intelligence that Iran was training and arming insurgents in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Concern over Iran’s nuclear activity increased in 2011 and 2012. The Bushehr I Reactor, Iran’s first nuclear plant, was opened on September 12, 2011. In November 2011, the IAEA accused Iran of undertaking clandestine nuclear research and development. As global economic sanctions against Iran continued to harm the country’s economy, Iran undertook a series of multilateral negotiations with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to try to reach a comprehensive agreement about the Iranian nuclear program that would result in the easing of sanctions. The negotiations revolved around the fact that Iran wanted the ability to enrich uranium for the purpose of generating nuclear power, while the other six powers wanted assurances that Iran would never be able to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. In July 2015, Iran reached an agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with a contingent of countries led by the United States (and including China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union) to limit its nuclear production by destroying its cache of medium-enriched uranium, lowering its number of gas centrifuges, and other provisions in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. In January 2016, the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States all lifted economic sanctions after Iran met its end of the bargain. However, the arms embargo on Iran remained in place.

Iran tested midrange ballistic missiles on January 29, 2017, and surface-to-air and naval ballistic missiles on March 8 and 9. (In a separate 2015 deal, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, Iran was urged not to conduct activities related to nuclear-capable ballistic missiles for eight years.) The country's leadership maintained that the missile program is its only defensive measure against US or Israeli threats, that the program is not a part of the nuclear agreement, and that, because the missiles cannot carry nuclear warheads, they are permissible under UNSCR 2231. Newly inaugurated US president Donald Trump viewed the January missile launch as a violation of the nuclear deal, despite assessments by the IAEA that Iran was in compliance. In October of that year he declined to recertify the deal, and in May 2018 Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the deal, leaving its future uncertain despite the remaining parties pledging to uphold it. The United States also unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Iran and threatened to sanction companies from other countries that continued to do business with Iran, a significant blow to the recovering Iranian economy. A year later, Iran responded by announcing it was starting to enrich uranium beyond the minimum threshold set by the nuclear deal.

Iran Today

The debate over how to best deal with the threats Iran posed only grew more intense in the early 2020s, as the administration of President Joe Biden failed to progress talks regarding reinstating the effectively inoperative JCPOA, evidence of Iran's support of terrorism remained, domestic unrest increased, and the country's militaristic policies included its support of Russia's invasion of and war with Ukraine as well as taking some of its most aggressive actions against Israel. When protests over the death of a Kurdish Iranian woman arrested for allegedly violating the country's Islamic dress code erupted nationwide in 2022, the US expressed opposition to the ruling theocracy's subsequent crackdown on such uprisings. Even as the US and other Western nations also condemned Iran's further support, including in the form of exported weaponry, of Russia's unjustified war with Ukraine that had begun in 2022, by 2024 some US experts were reporting that Iran had developed its nuclear program to the point where it could produce enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon in a very short amount of time. Meanwhile, Iran had also escalated what had long been considered a shadow war with Israel, launching an unprecedented, large-scale direct attack using missiles and drones in April 2024.

These developments led to reinvigorated discussions about how the US had approached the issue of Iran in the past and what, if anything, needed to be changed to have a more influential effect. Points of contention included whether and how to go about further diplomatic efforts or adopt different strategies, and the best way to address the multiple issues rather than focusing on one or another at a time.

These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

Atwood, Kylie, et al. "US Imposes New Sanctions on Iran's Main Airline over Tehran Supplying Missiles to Russia." CNN, 10 Sept. 2024, www.cnn.com/2024/09/10/politics/iran-sanctions-ukraine-russia-blinken/index.html. Accessed 18 Nov. 2024.

Axworthy, Michael. A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind. Basic Books, 2008.

Diamond, Jeremy, et al. "Iran Launches Unprecedented Retaliatory Strikes on Israel in Major Escalation of Widening Conflict." CNN, 14 Apr. 2024, www.cnn.com/2024/04/13/middleeast/iran-drones-attack-israel-intl-latam/index.html. Accessed 18 Nov. 2024.

Fikenscher, Sven-Eric, and Robert J. Reardon. “The Fool’s Errand for a Perfect Deal with Iran.” Washington Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 3, July 2014, pp. 61–75.

Hafezi, Parisa. "What Has Changed in Iran One Year since Mahsa Amini Protests Erupted?" Reuters, 12 Sept. 2023, www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/what-has-changed-iran-one-year-since-mahsa-amini-protests-erupted-2023-09-11/. Accessed 18 Nov. 2024.

Hansler, Jennifer, and Kylie Atwood. "Blinken Says Iran's Nuclear Weapon Breakout Time Is Probably down to 1-2 Weeks." CNN, 19 July 2024, www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/politics/blinken-nuclear-weapon-breakout-time/index.html. Accessed 18 Nov. 2024.

“Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.” Council on Foreign Relations, 12 Nov. 2024, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/irans-revolutionary-guards. Accessed 18 Nov. 2024.

Jablonski, Camille, et al. "Key Takeaways from the Latest Country Reports on Terrorism." The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 20 Dec. 2023, www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/key-takeaways-latest-country-reports-terrorism. Accessed 18 Nov. 2024.

Joyner, Daniel. Iran's Nuclear Program and International Law: From Confrontation to Accord. Oxford UP, 2016.

Kennedy, Merrit. "Iran Takes Another Step to Enrich Uranium, in Another Blow to Nuclear Deal." NPR, 5 Nov. 2019, www.npr.org/2019/11/05/776387549/iran-takes-another-step-to-enrich-uranium-in-another-blow-to-nuclear-deal. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

Kinzer, Stephen. All of the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terrorism. 2nd ed., Wiley, 2008.

Landler, Mark. "Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned." The New York Times, 8 May 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

Polk, William R. Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Ahmadinejad. Palgrave, 2009.

“The Pros and Cons of the Nuclear Deal with Iran.” Congressional Digest, vol. 94, no. 9, 2015, pp. 12–31.

Zarif, Mohammad Javad. “What Iran Really Wants.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 93, no. 3, 2014, pp. 49–59.