IRAN

Country in southwestern Asia between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Iran has an area of 636,290 square miles and an estimated population of 67 million (2004). It is bounded on the north by the Caspian Sea and the republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan; on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; and on the west by Turkey and Iraq.

Land and Climate

Iran lies on a high plateau with an average altitude of around 4,000 feet, surrounded by the Zagros Mountains, running from the Armenian border to the shores of the Gulf of Oman, and in the north by the Elburz Mountains. An extensive salt desert in the interior is separated from a sand desert by two mountain ranges in the east. Temperatures reach a low of -15°F in the harsh winters of the northwest and a high of about 123°F in the south during the summer, with most of the country enjoying a temperate climate. Average rainfall ranges from 80
inches along the Caspian coast to less than 2 inches in the southeast.

Population

With an estimated population of 67 million in 2004, Iran is one of the most populous countries in the Middle East. It had grown at over 3 percent per annum from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. However, the successful family-planning campaign begun in the late 1980s has decreased the rate to about 1.6 percent. Iran's population is comparatively young; 45.5 percent of the population was under 15 years old in 1986, but that percentage fell to 40 percent in 1996 due to the sharp decline in population growth rate. Approximately two-thirds of Iran's people live in the cities: In 1996 the capital, Tehran, accounted for 7 million; Mashhad for more than 1.9 million; and Tabriz, Isfahan, and Shiraz for more than 1 million each.

About 80 percent of Iran's population is of Iranian origin, of whom the ethnic Persians are predominant. According to the 1986 census 82.7 percent of the population (90.9% in the urban areas and 73.1% in the rural areas) could both comprehend and speak Persian, and another 2.7 percent could understand it. Persians are overwhelmingly Shiʿite Muslims. Azeris, or Azerbaijanis, are Iran's largest linguistic minority. Estimated at 25 percent of the population, they are concentrated in the provinces of East and West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, and Zanjan, as well as in and around the cities of Qazvin, Saveh, Hamadan, and Tehran. Iran's second largest ethnolinguistic minority, the Kurds, make up an estimated 5 percent of the
country's population and reside in the provinces of Kerman and Kurdistan as well as in parts of West Azerbaijan and Ilam. Kurds in Iran are divided along religious lines as Sunni, Shiʿite, or Ahl-e Haqq. The predominantly Sunni Baluchis reside mainly in the Sistan/Baluchistan province and make up 2 percent of Iran's population. Other ethnic minorities include the Shiʿite Arabs (5%) and the Sunni Turkmen (2%). Also residing in Iran are nomadic and tribal groups, including the Qashqaʾis, Bakhtiaris, Shahsevans, Afshars, Boyer Ahmadis, and smaller tribes.

According to the 1996 census, 99.5 percent of the population was Muslim. Followers of the other three officially recognized religions included 279,000 Christians, 28,000 Zoroastrians, and 13,000 Jews. An additional 56,000 were listed as followers of other religions, and 90,000 did not state their religion. The majority of the latter two groups are presumed to be Bahaʾis, followers of a religion that has not been officially recognized by the government and has been subjected to persecution since the 1979 revolution.

Education

The modern national education system emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, when the influence of the religious establishment was repressed and the control
of the rising nation-state over the school system was established. The period from 1956 to 2002 saw the rapid expansion of modern education. The number of students at all levels rose from 1.1 million in 1956 to 7.5 million in 1976, 16 million in 1992, and 18.3 million in 2000 (nearly 30% of the total population). The percentage of girls in elementary schools rose from 21 percent of total enrollment in 1926 to 38 percent in 1976 and 47 percent in 1996; girls in secondary schools increased from 6 percent to 35 percent and then to 47 percent in the same years; and the number in universities leaped from almost none in 1926 to 28 percent in 1976, 57 percent in 1996, and more than 61 percent in 2001. As a result of the adult literacy campaign and the expansion of primary education, the literate population age six and over increased from about 15 percent in 1956 to approximately 62 percent in 1976 and 80 percent in 1996.

The educational reforms of 1966 to 1978 marked the transformation of Iran's school system from the French model to one similar to that of the United States. The structure and organization remained virtually intact after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but the focus of educators became shaping pupils' behavior according to Islamic values through curriculum and textbooks. Other measures included converting all coeducational schools into single-sex institutions and imposing Islamic dress codes. In 1992 secondary education was reduced from four years to three years and divided into general education (including academic and technical-vocational divisions) and professional education (focusing on
specific, practical work-related skills). The twelfth year of high school became a college preparatory program accepting only high school graduates who pass the entrance examination.

In May 1980 the government closed all universities and appointed a panel, the Cultural Revolution Headquarters, to provide a program of reform for higher education in accordance with Islamic values. When the universities were reopened in October 1981, the University Jihad and other militant groups took control and purged 8,000 faculty members (about half). Following disputes between these groups and the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education over reform issues, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution was founded in 1984 to supervise the reconstruction of universities. In 2000 government-sponsored colleges and universities accredited by the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education and technical, vocational, and teacher training schools (primarily two-year junior colleges) administered by the Ministry of Education and other government agencies enrolled 413,000 students. In addition, the Open Islamic University (836,000 enrollment in 2000) is open to any student upon the payment of fairly steep tuition and fees.

The Economy

Iran's economy is a mixture of large state and semi-public enterprises, small-scale private manufacturing, trade and service ventures, and village agriculture. State enterprises have expanded substantially since the revolution, and market-reform plans set in motion in the 1990s have made little progress toward privatization of large public enterprises. As noted by the International Monetary Fund in 2003, the "Iranian economy continues to face important challenges: employment creation has not been sufficient to meet the rapid increase in the labor force; inflation is high and rising again; and price subsidies and control continues to hinder economic efficiency; and structural impediments for private sector development remain" (International Monetary Fund, p. 1).

The Iranian economy is heavily dependent on oil, which accounted for 15 percent of the total value of gross domestic product (GDP), 50 percent of state revenue, and 75 percent of total exports from 1996 to 2001. It is estimated that Iran's oil reserves are about 93 billion barrels, or 10 percent of the world's total. Iran also possesses the second largest natural gas reserve in the world, estimated at about 20 trillion cubic meters, or 15 percent of the world's reserves. Hydropower, coal, and solar energy resources are also significant, and there are substantial deposits of copper, zinc, chromium, iron ore, and gemstones.

From 1963 to 1976, Iran's GDP grew by an average annual rate of around 10.5 percent in real terms, and per capita income leaped from some US$170 to over $2,060. The 1978–1980 period of revolutionary crisis saw the flight of skilled workers and entrepreneurs, the transfer of large sums of capital abroad, and the abandonment of many productive establishments. Under these circumstances, the GDP in constant 1974 prices fell from 3.7 trillion rials in 1977 to 2.5 trillion in 1980, and per capita GDP declined from 108,000 rials to 63,000 rials. Following a short period of increase in oil revenues and financial recovery, the period of 1985 to 1988 saw an annual GDP decline of 4 percent due to the fall in oil revenues, negative fixed capital formation, and the heightening of the "tanker war" in the Persian Gulf. In the postwar period and between 1988 and 1992 the rise of oil revenues led to an average annual growth rate of 8 percent in the GDP. The annual growth rate of the GDP fluctuated considerably for the next eight years, but averaged about 4 percent. In 2001 agriculture accounted for 19 percent of Iran's GDP, industry for 26 percent, and services for 55 percent. The state together with semi-public organizations created after the revolution own all heavy industries, many other large industrial establishments, and all major transportation networks and agroindustries. Nationalization of large enterprises and confiscation by the revolutionary government considerably expanded the public sector. As a result, all banks (and insurance companies) were owned by the state until 2000, when a more liberal interpretation of the revolutionary constitution led to the enactment of a new law permitting the establishment of privately owned banks and, later, insurance companies. Four newly established private banks compete with state-owned banks.

Modern industry made its appearance in Iran in the early twentieth century, but it was not until the late 1950s that the government adopted a clear industrialization policy. By the early 1970s the average annual growth rate of the industrial sector was more than 10 percent. From the early 2000s, Iran has had an industrial base consisting mainly of import-substituting industries that are subsidized and heavily protected, and dependent on imported materials. Steel, petrochemicals, and copper ore remain Iran's three basic industries.

Only about one-fourth of Iran is potentially suitable for agricultural production—the other three-fourths receives less than 10 inches of rainfall per year—and less than half of the crops grown are irrigated. In 2001 wheat production amounted to 9.5 million, sugar beets 4.6, potatoes 3.6, barley 2.4, rice 2, and onions 1.3 million tons. In 1998 livestock and dairy products included 763,000 tons of red meat, 5 million tons of milk, 720 tons of poultry, and 625 tons of eggs.

After the revolution, imports fell from $14.6 billion in 1977 to $10.8 billion in 1980 and $8.2 billion in 1988. In 1991 imports rose to $25 billion, then declined between 1993 and 1995 due to the fall of oil revenues, reaching an annual average of $14 billion in the late 1990s. Non-oil exports rose from $2.9 billion in 1992 to $4.2 billion in 2000. In 1999 Iran's total exports (including oil) amounted to $21 billion and its imports amounted to $14.3 billion. Iran's main export markets for both oil and non-oil goods are Japan and United Kingdom; together they accounted for nearly one-third of Iran's total exports in 1999. Germany, with an annual export of $1 to $2 billion goods in the postrevolution period, is the main exporter to Iran.

Government

Iran is a theocratic republic that combines the absolute authority of the ruling Shiʿite jurist combined with an elected president and parliament and an appointed chief of the judicial branch. The sovereignty of Shiʿite clerical authority (velayat-e faqih), the supreme spiritual guide, is the deputy of the twelfth Shiʿite imam, the Lord of the Age. He appoints the head of the judiciary branch and the theologians of the Council of Guardians of the Constitution, and as commander in chief of the armed forces, he appoints and dismisses all commanders of the armed forces, Revolutionary Guards Corps, and security forces and is empowered to declare war. The president, elected for four years, is the head of the cabinet and the civilian wing of the government's executive branch.

The legislature comprises two institutions: the parliament (Majles) and the Council of Guardians. Under the provisions of the constitution all bills must be approved by the Majles and then be ratified by the Council of Guardians before they are signed into law by the president. The Majles is a body of 290 legislators elected to four-year terms. The twelve members of the Council of Guardians, consisting of six clerics and six lay judges appointed by the supreme guide, review legislation passed by the Majles and are empowered by the constitution to veto laws considered to violate Islamic or constitutional principles. The appointed Expediency Council, created in February 1988 and formally recognized in an amendment to the constitution in July 1989, rules on legal and theological disputes between the Majles and the Council of Guardians. It is charged with ruling in the best interest of the community, even when such rulings go beyond a strict interpretation of the tenets of Islamic law. The elected Assembly of Experts determines succession to the supreme guide.

The judicial branch consists of regular civil and criminal courts, as well as a special clerical court and revolutionary tribunals that hear civil and criminal suits concerning counterrevolutionary offenses. The head of the judiciary is appointed by the supreme guide. The minister of justice functions as a liaison among the judicial, executive, and legislative branches. The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution has legislative powers over educational matters.

Iran is divided into twenty-eight provinces (ostans) administered by governors (ostandars) who are nominated by the minister of the interior and appointed by the president. The second level of local government consists of 195 counties (shahrestans) under junior governors (farmandars). At the third level, 500 districts (bakhshs) are under executives (bakhshdars), and at the fourth level, 1,581 clusters of villages (dehestans) are under headmen (dehdars). Villages, the base level, are administered by elected councils. Towns and cities have municipal governments with mayors and councils.

The armed forces and Revolutionary Guards Corps are responsible for defending Iran against foreign aggression. The 300,000-man army is organized into ten divisions and six brigades. The air force consists of about 35,000 men, with more than 400 pilots on active duty and 100 combat aircraft. The 15,000-man navy operates in the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the Caspian Sea. It includes two fleets, three marine battalions, and two Russian-made submarines. The 180,000-member Revolutionary Guard Corps is organized into eleven regional commands with four armored divisions and twenty-four infantry divisions, as well as air and naval capacities. Iran's police force incorporates revolutionary committees and the rural police force into the urban police force. The suppression of opposition to the regime is the responsibility of the Ministry of Information and a 100,000-man mobilization corps (basij) recruited from veterans of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988). Ideological-political bureaus have been established in government agencies and in the armed forces to ensure conformity to the regime's rules of conduct. The armed forces and security organizations are under the command of the supreme spiritual guide.

Since the 1979 revolution various groups, organizations, and factions within the ruling party have fallen into four main political camps. First, those who support the interests of the religious groups (ulama) and the bazaar merchants, and who advocate the traditional Islamic jurisprudence, are referred to as conservatives, traditionalists, or rightists. The conservatives fear the cultural penetration of Western lifestyles and are zealous on cultural issues such as women's rights, Islamic dress codes, music, and the media. In the early post-Khomeini era, a major political shift to the right occurred and the conservative camp prevailed. Second, those who support the cause of the economically deprived (mostazʾafan) and advocate a progressive Islamic jurisprudence, distributive justice, and tighter state control of the private sector are called radicals, leftists, or followers of Imam Ruhollah Khomeini's line. Receptive to Western progressive ideas and more tolerant on cultural issues, the radicals are nevertheless highly suspicious of Western imperialism and Iran's dependency on the world capitalist system. The Bureau for Promotion of Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat), major student unions, and the young Combatant Clerics (Ruhaniyun-e Mobarez) are among the radical organizations. In much of the 1980s the radicals dominated the regime. Third, those who advocate a pragmatic approach—the new middle-class professional and bureaucratic groups—and are concerned with peaceful coexistence in the modern world under a mixed economy are called pragmatists, centrists, or moderates. Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has led the centrist camp since its inception in the late 1980s. In the fourth Majles (1992–1996) conservatives controlled more than two-thirds of the seats, pragmatists around one-fifth, and radicals about one-tenth.

In the mid 1990s a popular, reformist movement emerged when there was a major shift in the ideological orientation of the leftist faction from a radical to a relatively moderate and liberal interpretation of Islam. The roots of this ideological shift can be traced to a series of political developments since the revolution, including various failures of the revolutionary regime to fulfill its populist and egalitarian promises; a considerable erosion in the legitimacy of the ruling clerics; the successful (though largely silent) resistance by youth and women to the culturally restrictive policies of the Islamic Republic; the rise of a distinctly antifundamentalist, liberal-reformist interpretation of Islam by a number of Iranian theologians and religious intellectuals; and the precipitous decline in the popularity of revolutionary ideas in the 1990s.

The main Islamic opposition to the regime inside the country includes the liberal Iran Freedom Movement (Nahzat-e Azadi-ye Iran), established in the early 1960s under the leadership of Mehdi Bazargan, who was prime minister in the provisional revolutionary government of 1979. Also organized by Bazargan to fight against frequent violations of human rights in Iran was the Society for the Defense of Liberty and National Sovereignty of the Iranian Nation. Another organization active in Iran is the nationalist Nation of Iran Party (Hezb-e Mellat-e Iran). These groups have been outlawed and systematically suppressed by the government. Absence of opportunities for genuine political participation, imposition of a strict Islamic code of conduct, and, above all, shrinking opportunities for employment have led to increasing alienation of young intellectuals and students.

There are several opposition groups among the one million Iranian political and cultural exiles in Europe and the United States, including liberal nationalists such as the National Front, whose origin can be traced to the period of Mohammad Mossadegh, and a number of small groups that advocate the establishment of a secular, Western-style parliamentary system in Iran. Also active are monarchists seeking to resurrect Pahlavi rule through the former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. A few small leftist groups conduct a propaganda campaign against the regime through newspapers and magazines. The most active, militant opposition force has been the People's Mojahedin of Iran (Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran). Between 1987 and 2003 it waged guerrilla operations and a military offensive against Iran from its camps across the border in Iraq.

History since 1800

Iran began the nineteenth century under the Qajar Dynasty (1796–1925) and the political and economic influence of Russia and Great Britain. Two wars with Russia were ended by the treaties of Golestan (1813) and Turkmanchai (1828), and Russia took over the area north of the Araks River. Following a futile attempt by Iran to reclaim Herat, its former territory in western Afghanistan, the British waged war in 1857 and forced Iran to give up all claims to British-controlled Afghanistan. To resist the European expansionist schemes, Crown Prince Abbas Mirza initiated a series of military reforms in the 1820s that were continued by more comprehensive reforms of the grand vizier Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Kabir in the mid-nineteenth century. Mirza Hosayn Khan Sepahsalar continued the reforms of his predecessor in the early 1870s.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Russia and Britain increased their economic and political domination over Iran. European companies were granted trade concessions that often were disadvantageous to nascent Iranian industries and local merchants. Meanwhile, new ideas of political freedom were introduced by intellectuals and others who had come in contact with the West. The 1890 grant of a tobacco concession by Naser al-Din Shah to a British citizen provoked the local tobacco merchants and the ulama to instigate riots that eventually forced cancellation of the concession. Many intellectuals and popular religious leaders believed that by reforming the government they could improve the country's economic and social conditions and ensure its political independence. Antigovernment protests were led by a broad alliance of Islamic clergymen, intellectuals, and merchants. On 30 December 1906 the ailing monarch, Mozaffar alDin Qajar, finally yielded to demands for a constitution. In 1907 Great Britain and Russia divided Iran into two spheres of influence and a neutral zone. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Iran declared its neutrality; nevertheless, Britain and Russia occupied the country, spying on each other and engaging in hostilities on Iran's territory.

In February 1921 a pro-British journalist, Sayyed Ziya al-Din Tabatabaʾi, and Brigadier Reza Pahlavi staged a bloodless coup and took control of the government in Tehran. With the army as his power base, Reza became the country's monarch in 1925 and founded the Pahlavi Dynasty. After establishing the authority of the central government throughout the country in the 1920s, he tried to Westernize Iran's economic and social institutions in the 1930s. He replaced the traditional religious schools and courts with a secular system of education and a judicial system based on European legal patterns. He created a modern army and national police force and established a number of state-owned industrial enterprises and a modern transport system. The period of his rule (1925–1941), however, was marked by suppression of individual freedoms and political activities.

In August 1941 troops from the Soviet Union and Britain invaded Iran and forced Pahlavi to abdicate his throne to his son, Mohammad Reza. After the conclusion of World War II, the Soviet Union refused to withdraw its forces from Iran. Through a combination of international pressure and internal maneuverings by Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam, Russia's forces finally left in late 1946, and the pro-Soviet autonomous government of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Kurdistan collapsed. For much of this period, the young shah and his cabinets were forced to conform to the will of the parliament, which was dominated by the old-guard politicians and propertied classes. Following an attempted assassination of the shah on 4 February 1949, the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party was outlawed. The Constitutional Assembly that convened on 21 April granted the shah the right to dissolve the Majles.

At the beginning of the 1950s the National Front, a loose coalition of liberal nationalists under the leadership of Mohammad Mossadegh, demanded greater control over the British-dominated Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The oil industry was nationalized, and Mossadegh became prime minister in April 1951. The Soviet-backed Tudeh Party strongly opposed the nationalization and the Mossadegh government. In a struggle with the shah over control of the armed forces, Mossadegh resigned, and Ahmad Qavam was appointed premier on 18 July 1952. Three days later, riots broke out in Tehran and major cities; Qavam was forced to resign and Mossadegh was reinstated.

In August 1953 a coup conceived by the British MI6 and delivered by the U.S. CIA ousted Mossadegh; Fazlollah Zahedi became prime minister. The new regime ordered the arrest of supporters of the National Front and the Tudeh Party and placed severe restrictions on all forms of opposition to the government. Between 1953 and 1959 the shah's power gradually increased, and the government signed an agreement with a consortium of major Western oil companies in August 1954, joined the Baghdad Pact in October 1955, and with CIA assistance established an effective intelligence agency (SAVAK) in 1957.

In the early 1960s, under increasing pressure from the U.S. Kennedy administration, the shah appointed Ali Amini as prime minister and Hassan Arsanjani as minister of agriculture, and the government initiated a series of social and economic reforms later called the White Revolution. In January 1963 a national referendum supported six reform measures including land reform, women's suffrage, workers' sharing up to 20 percent of industrial profits, and the nationalization of the forests. Major urban uprisings protested the referendum and the government's arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in June 1963. After cracking down on rioters, the shah emerged as an autocratic ruler. He allocated oil revenues among state agencies and projects, and he directly supervised the armed forces and security organizations, foreign policy and oil negotiations, nuclear power plants, and huge development projects. The latter half of the 1960s was marked by relative political stability and economic development, and Iran emerged as the regional power in the Persian Gulf after the withdrawal of British forces in 1971. Following border clashes between Iran and Iraq in the early 1970s, an agreement between the two nations was signed in Algeria in 1975. By the mid-1970s Iran had established close ties not only with the United States and Western Europe but also with the Communist Bloc countries, South Africa, and Israel.

Meanwhile, land reform and the rise of a modern bureaucracy eliminated the traditional foundation of the regime—the ulama, the bazaar merchants, and the landowning classes. They were replaced by entrepreneurs, young Western-educated bureaucratic elites, and new middle classes discontented with the shah and his policies. The entrepreneurial and bureaucratic elites were unhappy with their lack of political power, the intelligentsia resented violations of human rights, and the ulama and the bazaar merchants resented the Western lifestyles, promoted by the state's modernization policies, that contravened Islamic traditions. Under these circumstances, the nucleus of a revolutionary coalition was formed by leaders with ready access to the extensive human, financial, and spatial resources of the bazaar, the mosque, and the school-university networks. They saw an opportunity to challenge the shah after the victory of human-rights champion Jimmy Carter in the U.S. presidential race of November 1976.

In the summer of 1977 a series of open letters written by intellectuals, liberal figures, and professional groups demanded observance of human rights. An article published in the daily Ettelaʾat on 7 January 1978 attacked Khomeini, and violent clashes between religious opposition groups and security forces took place in Qom on 9 January. This conflict marked the beginning of a series of religious commemorations of the fortieth day of mourning (a Shiʿite rite) for those who had been martyred in various cities. In July and August, riots erupted in Mashhad, Isfahan, and Shiraz. September 1978 began with the first mass demonstrations against the shah's regime. Striking government employees brought the oil industry to a standstill on 31 October. Mass strikes continued through early November, when a military government was installed by the shah, and in December hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in Tehran. In all, approximately 2,500 persons were killed in clashes between demonstrators and the security forces from January 1978 to February 1979. The shah left Iran for Egypt on 16 January 1979, and Khomeini returned to Tehran on 1 February. Four days later, he appointed Mehdi Bazargan prime minister of a provisional government. On 11 February the army's Supreme Council ordered the troops back to their barracks. Military installations were occupied by the people, and major army commanders were arrested.

The April 1979 national referendum sanctioned the declaration of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the December 1979 national referendum approved the constitution, and in January 1980 Abolhasan Bani Sadr was elected the republic's first president. He was impeached by the Majles for opposing the ruling clerical establishment and dismissed from office by Khomeini in June 1981. In July Mohammad Ali Rajaʾi was elected president; in August a bomb exploded in the prime minister's office, killing the new president and Mohammad Javad Bahonar, the new prime minister. In October Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenehi was elected the third president of the Islamic Republic, and the Majles endorsed the radical prime minister, Mir-Hosain Musavi.

On 4 November 1979 the U.S. embassy in Tehran was occupied by a group of militant students, and sixty-six Americans were taken hostage. The seizure was in response to alleged U.S. interference in Iran's internal affairs and to the U.S. decision in October to admit the shah for medical treatment. President Carter ordered the freezing of some $12 billion of Iran's assets in the United States on 14 November. After 444 days in captivity, the last of the hostages were released on 20 January 1981 as Ronald Reagan was inaugurated U.S. president. Five years later, in September 1986, it was reported that Iran had secretly received 508 U.S.-built missiles in a clandestine "arms-for-hostages" deal with the United States to intercede for the release of American hostages in Lebanon; this episode became known as the Iran–Contra Affair.

Frustrated by an imposed 1975 border agreement and heartened by Iran's military weakness after the 1979 revolution, Iraq invaded Iran on 22 September 1980. After rapidly occupying large areas of southwestern Iran and destroying the oil refinery at Abadan, Iraq's forces became bogged down in siege warfare. In an offensive in May 1982 Iran recaptured the strategic town of Khorramshahr, and its forces entered Iraq. Initiating the "war of the cities," Iraq's forces launched air attacks on Iran's cities in 1984. In May 1987 the United States began direct intervention in Persian Gulf affairs by escorting eleven Kuwaiti oil tankers under the U.S. flag. This action led to increased attacks against oil tankers and merchant ships. After a long pause, the war of the cities resumed in early 1988, when Iraq launched missile attacks against Tehran and other cities, and both Tehran and Baghdad came under fire from ground-to-ground missiles. On 3 July 1988 the U.S. warship Vincennes, stationed in the Strait of Hormuz near Bandar Abbas, shot down a civilian Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. On 18 July Iran accepted UN Security Council cease-fire Resolution 598. The eight-year Iran–Iraq War left about one million casualties and cost several hundred billion dollars in damages and military expenditures.

On 3 June 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini died, and the Assembly of Experts elected President Ali Khamenehi as the supreme spiritual guide of the Islamic Republic; the change of leadership marked the beginning of a major shift of power from the radical left to the conservative right. In July Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected president, and he was re-elected for a second term in 1993. Rafsanjani's policies for economic, sociocultural, and political reforms were obstructed by the radical faction of the left between 1989 and 1993, and then by the rising conservatives on the right. At this juncture, a new coalition was formed between the moderate, pragmatist group that followed Rafsanjani and the radical, leftist faction within the regime who were excluded from power by the conservative and fundamentalist forces.

Mohammad Khatami's 1997 presidential campaign platform emphasized the rule of law, building a civil society, a moderate foreign policy, and the protection of civil liberties guaranteed by the Islamic constitution. His victory was as much a manifestation of the voters' rejection of the extremist politics of the left in the 1980s and the right in the 1990s as it was an affirmation of Khatami's moderate, well-reasoned, and liberal campaign statements. His 1997 electoral triumph over Ali Akbar NateqNuri would not have been possible, furthermore, without the vast human and financial resources that were contributed to his campaign by members of the pragmatist camp of the incumbent president, Rafsanjani, as well as the many formerly radical elements within the regime. During much of Khatami's first presidential term (1997–2001), his supporters rallied behind the slogans of civil society and the rule of law, but they were besieged by the conservatives, who had gained effective control over key positions within the Islamic state. These included positions in the judiciary and the Council of Guardians, the armed forces and the militia, the intelligence services and vigilante groups working in tandem with them, the broadcast media, and the para-statal foundations. The latter, putatively philanthropic foundations that are not subject to the fiscal and regulatory agencies of the state, form a massive network of patronage and corruption and "an economy within the economy" that effectively controls as much as one-third of the country's domestic production.

Khatami's election victory in 1997 was followed by two other sweeping wins by reformist candidates in the municipal elections of 1999 and the Majles elections of 2000. In the 2000 election the reformists won some 200 of the 290 seats in parliament, thus giving the pro-Khatami candidates a decisive majority in the legislative body, but the conservatives, on the defensive against a formidable majority of the people, resorted to tactics of intimidation and vigilantism against their political rivals. Through their control of the judiciary they started a systematic crackdown of the press, intellectuals, and other outspoken critics of the regime.

In July 1999 Salam, a popular pro-reform newspaper, was closed by the order of the Press Court. Following peaceful demonstrations on the campus of Tehran University against the closure, militia forces entered the student dormitories and brutally attacked students, killing one of them in the assault, and injuring and arresting hundreds. The dormitory assault ignited a series of protests over the next several days that escalated into full-scale riots when the demonstrators were attacked by vigilante partisans of the Party of God (Ansar-e Hezbollah). In April 2000 the conservative-dominated judiciary continued the campaign of intimidation against the press. More than forty pro-reform newspapers and magazines were forcibly closed because of their alleged "denigration of Islam and the religious elements of the Islamic revolution." Over the next several months, journalists and editors were the primary targets of the conservatives' attacks against the print media. Iran's best-known investigative journalist and the editor of the newspaper Fath, Akbar Ganji, was sentenced to ten years in prison (later reduced to six years) for his writings that implicated several senior officials in the 1998 murders of five intellectuals and political activists. This and the imprisonment of another two dozen well-known journalists prompted the Paris-based Reporters sans Frontiers to dub Iran "the largest prison for journalists in the world."

In April 2000 several prominent Iranian intellectuals, journalists, publishers, and women's rights activists traveled to Berlin to attend an international conference on the future of reform in Iran. Upon their return to Iran many of the participants were brought to trial before the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on charges of conspiring to overthrow the Islamic Republic. In March 2001 the judiciary ordered the closure of the religious-nationalist Iran Freedom Movement (the only tolerated opposition group in the country since the revolution) on charges of attempting to overthrow the Islamic Republic, arresting and detaining twenty-one of its leading members. Khatami's failure to implement his promised political reforms and the lack of any significant improvement in the economy during his first four-year term did not prevent him winning the June 2001 presidential election with 77 percent of the vote. In spite of two mandates for change that he has been given by an overwhelming majority of his countrymen, and even though pro-reform candidates are in control of the Majles as well, Khatami faces the same constitutional constraints and political obstacles from his conservative opponents that stymied his first presidential term.

The catastrophic attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 11 September 2001 brought a new phase in United States–Iran relations. Iranian authorities promptly condemned the terrorist attacks, and the mayor of Tehran sent a message of sympathy to the mayor of New York City. The Iranian people showed their sympathy by organizing gatherings in commemoration of the victims of 9/11. In response to the terrorist attacks, the U.S. government put together what it called a coalition against terrorism. As part of this approach, it lent aid to the Northern Alliance, the forces that Iran had supported from their formation in 1996 to fight against the Taliban regime and Osama bin Ladin's forces in Afghanistan. Following 9/11, Iranian and U.S. military advisors worked side by side with Afghan opposition forces to bring down the Taliban. After dismantling the Taliban network and creating a new regime in Afghanistan in Fall 2001, neoconservatives in the Bush administration supported regime change in a number of other countries. This policy unfolded on 29 January 2002 when in his State of the Union address President Bush labeled Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "Axis of Evil." On 13 December 2002 the United States accused Iran of launching a secret nuclear weapons program and published satellite images of two sites under construction in the towns of Natanz and Arak. Iran denied any military purpose behind its nuclear activities and agreed to inspections by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but refrained from "full cooperation." Despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear program—which included uranium-enrichment activities—was designed to meet its energy needs only, the IAEA gave Iran until 31 October 2003 to provide evidence that it was not trying to build nuclear weapons. Persuaded by the foreign ministers of Great Britain, France, and Germany, Tehran agreed to "total transparency" over its nuclear activities, promising full cooperation with the UN's nuclear agency and agreeing to suspend uranium enrichment, while reserving the right to resume the process if it deemed necessary.

The 2003 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Iranian human-rights activist and ardent reformist Shirin Ebadi, boosting Iranian hopes for the rule of law, justice, and democracy. Yet, in spite of the appeal of liberal-democratic ideas of individual freedom, pluralism, and political tolerance, and the overwhelming endorsement of these ideas in four national elections, the reform movement has had but a limited influence on Iran's political conditions. The willingness of the conservative forces to heed the popular mandate for greater political and cultural freedoms, economic reform, and respect for law—and, above all, for an end to the use of violence—will determine whether a gradualist course of reform will succeed.

see also ahl-e haqq; ahvaz; azerbaijan; azerbaijan crisis; baghdad pact (1955); bahaʾi faith; baluchis; bani sadr, abolhasan; bazargan, mehdi; ebadi, shirin; ganji, akbar; hamadan; iran–contra affair; iranian languages; iranian revolution (1979); iran–iraq war (1980–1988); isfahan; kerman; khamenehi, ali; khatami, mohammad; khomeini, ruhollah; kurdistan; kurds; mashhad; mojahedin-e khalq; mossadegh, mohammad; mozaffar aldin qajar; musavi, mir-hosain; naser al-din shah; nateq-nuri, ali akbar; national front, iran; pahlavi, mohammad reza; pahlavi, reza; persian; qajar dynasty; qom; rafsanjani, ali akbar hashemi; shiʿism; shiraz; sistan and baluchistan; sunni islam; tabatabaʾi, ziya; tabriz; tehran; tobacco revolt; tudeh party; turkmanchai, treaty of (1828); united states of america and the middle east; velayat-e faqih; white revolution (1961–1963); zahedan.

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ahmad ashraf