THE HISTORY OF A VERY IRANIAN REVOLUTION

A young woman protests in Iran's so-called "Green Revolution" (for greater democracy) in 2009. The country is currently experiencing a wave of environmentalism, in part supported by Iranian Vice President Ebtekar

I had a look at - as distinct from a full reading of - Michael Axworthy's "Revolutionary Iran" over the Easter Bank Holiday. Whilst the book is now on my "To Read" list, just thought I'd share a few thoughts on a history which has just been brought bang up to date by Penguin (an updated paperback version came out this spring).

However, let me first caveat my comments by saying that I have never visited Iran and met very few Iranians. Other reviewers have described Axworthy as an "Iranophile" and some people may not share all his views. Nevertheless, the book resonates with my own limited knowledge and experience.

Ironically, perhaps most of all for the Americans, Iran has been an unexpected beneficiary of the  former United States-led "War on Terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan (countries where previous regimes and extremist groups had received US assistance before they turned against their western benefactors). As Axworthy points out: "The Iranians helped the coalition powers to set up the new democratic structures in both countries, though this has often gone unacknowledged. Instead, Iran has perversely been blamed for the fact that the removal of these enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan has enhanced Iran's regional (ie Middle Eastern) influence".

Although Axworthy locates the Iranian Revolution of 1979 - and the removal of American together with other western powers from the country - within the great revolutionary trajectory which started in France and moved through Russia and thence to Tehran, I see Iran more as the location of the 20th century's third great revolution, following on from the Soviet and the Chinese. The question will be whether the key religious dimension of "Revolutionary Iran" will be sustained in the future, or whether Iran, like Russia and China, will be overcome by the same kind of secular materialism which has engulfed these and most other countries. Only time will tell.

For the 2014 Penguin edition of  "Revolutionary Iran" see  http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141046235,00.html
Iranian Vice President Massoumeh Ebtekar's "Persian Paradox" Blog can be found at  http://ebtekarm.blogspot.co.uk/