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Living with Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

William O. Beeman
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Extract

In the past nine years the Islamic Republic of Iran has posed the most difficult of all foreign policy problems for the United States—a problem usually confronted by marriage counselors rather than diplomats, for Iran is the nation that the United States cannot live with and cannot live without.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 1 , March 1987 , pp. 85 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1987

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References

1 As explained by Ramazani, R.K. in his recent book, Revolutionary Iran: Challenges and Response in the Middle East (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

2 There is one other modern example: post-World War II North Yemen, also a Shi'ite stateGoogle Scholar.

3 See Beeman, William O., “Religion and Development in Iran from the Qajar Era to the Islamic Revolution of 1978–79,” in Finn, James, ed., Global Economics and Religion (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1983)Google Scholar; and Beeman, William O., “Images of the Great Satan: Representations of the United States in the Iranian Revolution,” in Keddie, Nikki R., ed., Religion and Politics in Iran (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

4 See Keddie's, Nikki R. Definitive work on al-Afghani, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “at-Afghani”: A Political Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972)Google Scholar. For more information on the role of Iranian clerics in revolutionary activities before the revolution, see Algar, Hamid, Religion and State m Iran, 1785–1906: The Role of the Ulama in the Qajar Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969)Google Scholar; “The Oppositional Role of the Ulama in Twentieth-Century Iran,” in Keddie, Nikki R., ed., Scholars, Saints, and Sufis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972)Google Scholar.

5 The particular brand of Shi'ism practiced in Iran is known as Ithna Ashari Shi'ism (literally, “Twelver Shi'ism”). There are many other branches of Shi'ism, including Alawites of Syria and the Isma'ilis, whose spiritual leader is the Agha KhanGoogle Scholar.

6 See Michael, M. J.Fischer's important study, Iran from Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982)Google Scholar, for an account of the “Kerbala paradigm” and its functioning in the politics of the revolution.

7 See Beeman, William O., “How Not to Negotiate: Crossed Signals on the Hostages,” The Nation 23:2 (January 17, 1981) 42–44Google Scholar.