The Iranian Revolution Turns Forty | ISPI
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Dossier

The Iranian Revolution Turns Forty

Annalisa Perteghella
11 February 2019

When in 1979 the Air France flight carrying ayatollah Khomeini back to Iran after 15 years of exile landed in Tehran, nobody knew what the future had in store. Not the USA, caught by surprise by the events unfolding in what was at the time one of its major allies in the Middle East; nor the Iranians, who were demanding justice and freedom, and had just gotten rid of a government perceived as corrupt and authoritarian; probably not even Khomeini himself. When asked by an American journalist how he felt about his return, he replied: "Hichi” (Nothing). And yet, the seemingly impossible revolution became one of the most significant events of the Twentieth century. What has happened since then? At what cost can the survival of the State be combined with the survival of the Revolution? What is left of the ideals of the revolution, and of the generation of revolutionaries, in the changing Iranian society? And how has the Islamic Republic interacted with a region – and a world – that has often failed to accept its full normalization?

Independence, Freedom, Islamic Republic: Talking About a Revolution, and its Promises
Annalisa Perteghella
ISPI
Why the Islamic Republic Has Survived
Pejman Abdolmohammadi
University of Trento and ISPI
Iranian Society Forty Years after the Revolution: A New Framework
Stella Morgana
Leiden University
US Sanctions: Mobilizing Iran’s Eroded Middle Classes?
Tamer Badawi
European University Institute
Iran in the Middle East: The Notion of "Strategic Loneliness"
Adnan Tabatabai
Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient
Europe-Iran Relations: Back to the Future?
Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi
RUSI
Iran's "Neither East Nor West" Slogan Today
Clément Therme
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
China-Iran: A Complex, Seesaw Relationship
Jacopo Scita
Durham University
Forty Years Later, What is Left of Iran's Generation of Revolutionaries?
Tiziana Corda
University of Milan
Versione stampabile

Edited by

Annalisa Perteghella
ISPI Research Fellow - Iran Desk

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