Photo by:  Gary Raynaldo  /  Symposium on Inside Iran: Forty Years After the Iranian Revolution at Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan Feb. 6,  2019.

By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Iran’s Islamic Revolution 40 years ago was a political earthquake that shook the world, particularly America. On November 4,  1979 revolutionary  students stormed the United States embassy in Tehran seizing 52 American diplomats and staff. Dramatic images of blindfolded U.S. hostages paraded by their captors, and Iranians burning American flags shouting ‘Death To America’  were televised and plastered  on front pages of newspapers around the world.  Almost overnight, Iran was transformed from a constitutional monarchy to a theocracy as US-backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution.   Whether a new “Revolution” in Iran is going to happen anytime soon is subject to debate. 

Credit:  https://www.britannica.com /    Blindfolded American hostage with his Iranian captors outside the U.S. embassy in Tehrān, November 9, 1979.

Photo by: Gary Raynaldo /   Panel discussion at Council on Foreign Relations ‘Inside Iran’ Symposium in Manhattan Feb. 6, 2019.  From left to right:  Richard M. Nephew, Research Scholar and Program Director, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and Ray Takeyh, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies, Council on Foreign Relations spoke in person at CFR.   On the right via video stream from Washington D.C.,  are Robin Wright, Joint Fellow, U.S Institute of Peace and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Gerald F. Seib, Executive Washington Editor and Chief Commentator,  Wall Street Journal.

The CFR Iran symposium examined how the country has transformed since the fall of the Shah’s government, the effects of the revolution on Iran’s  domestic and foreign policies, the internal and external challenges facing the country, and the future of the unstable relationship between Iran and the United States.  Some observations:

“In 1979, Iranians wanted the revolution. And they got it! But 40 years later, Iranians are having buyers’ remorse.”

-Ray Takeyh,   Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies, Council on Foreign Relations.

“We are not going to see the demise of Iran anytime soon. Iran is not at the juncture where the Soviet Union was just before it collapsed.”

-Robin Wright, Joint Fellow, U.S Institute of Peace and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Photo by: Gary Raynaldo /  Richard M. Nephew, (L) Research Scholar and Program Director, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and Ray Takeyh, (R),  Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies, Council on Foreign Relations at CFR  Iran symposium spoke on the political, economic situation of the Islamic Republic, in addition to the impact of sanctions,  and the relations ship between Iran and the United States. The two countries have not had diplomatic relations since 1980, and President Trump withdrew U.S. from an international agreement meant to curb Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions.

“Iran is one of the most emotional issues in foreign policy and has been now for forty years. Iran has—for us in Washington particularly, it seems always to be—whether it’s—you know, they call us the great Satan, or the kind of axis of evil that we’ve called Iran—it has been a very tumultuous relationship. But a lot actually has changed in Iran.  When you look at the political system in the early years, it was a one-party state, the Islamic Republican Party. It was a system dominated—61 percent of those elected to the first parliament were clerics. Today you have a multi-party, a multi-factional state with very deep divisions, even among those who support the system. And you have a society that is very vocal; it’s no longer a totally state-controlled media. There are a lot of different opinions, and as Gerry and I were talking about before we started, you walk down the street in Tehran, and Iranians are very vocal. They were very vocal in griping under the Shah, and they are very vocal in griping about the revolution.” 

-Robin Wright

“The Iran today resembles very much the Iran of 1978, although it may not end the same way. The class cleavages are pronounced. The ostentatious display of wealth by those connected to the regime is quite remarkable. So the state and society are more distant from each other than ever before, and all those tech-savvy individuals that Robin is writing about—or talking about are aware of what the problems are and who is responsible for it. So all those schisms and cleavages are there, more so than at any point, I’d say, since 1978—and a regime that has proven itself incapable of reforming itself.“

-Ray Takeyh

“I think the key question really is how much more pressure can the current sanctions regime bring to bear, and then of course politically, what does that economic pressure result in. And those are different sorts of questions, and they lead to different sorts of answers. But I think that, you know, with oil being where it is, with the fact that reductions, you know, have been pretty significant, there is no question the Iranian system is under strain.   

-Richard  M.  Nephew

“The next question really comes, what is the oil market going to look like, you know, six months from now and six months thereafter, and what degree of cooperation is the Trump administration going to get from the Japanese, from the Koreans, from the Chinese, and from the Indians to continue reductions.”

“I do think that the next year is going to be very interesting to watch in terms of how the system in Iran adapts to sanctions. I covered Iran throughout the 1980s. I’ve been going to Iran almost every year since 1973, and I covered those eight war years when sanctions on Iran, the shortages in Iran were stunning. You would go into a store and there would be a few bags of rice, a few bags of tea, you know, a couple of condiments, and very little else; where all meat was rationed, and you had coupons; all gas was rationed. Kids were often not taken to school because their parents didn’t have the gas to take them, and the public transportation system was either non-existent or pretty poor. And that’s not what we’re likely to see in Iran over the next year. Iranians are very good, very wily at figuring out how to get, you know, the stuff they need.”

-Robin Wright 

The Council on Foreign Relations, founded in 1921, is a United States nonprofit think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. It is headquartered in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C