reconciliation islam democracy and the west

Ultimately, it will enable a more comprehensive approach to countering Islamist extremism-from both Sunni and Shia extremist groups that hijack a religion of billions for their own political and ideological ends.

Unpacking the ideology of Iran’s revolution will not only help policymakers formulate better policy towards Iran it will also give insight into the challenges the region and its leaders are facing. This report is a first step to understanding the effect and influence of Shia Islamism since 1979. Despite episodes of rapprochement between Western powers and Iran, antipathy towards the United States (US) has become a greater focal point for the regime under Iran’s incumbent supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, than it was under Khomeini. The lack of understanding means that Western policymakers have severely underestimated the extent of Iran’s commitment to upholding and exporting 1979’s revolutionary ideology. It has claimed lives not only in intractable conflicts in the region, such as in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, where Hizbullah changed the face of the country, but also as far afield as Bulgaria and Argentina. The totalitarian and divisive worldview legitimised by state leaders, which promotes repressive governance on religious lines and hostility to the West, has been a driving force of instability and violence for decades. Western foreign policy towards Iran has consistently overlooked the power of the ideology born in the revolution. The ideology of the Islamic Revolution bolstered Islamist groups and set an example that power through force was possible. The events of 1979-not just the revolution but also the storming of Islam’s holy city of Mecca by extremist insurgents and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan-set major powers in the Middle East on a knee-jerk path to religious conservatism and away from modernisation, altering the entire relationship between religion and politics in the Muslim world. It is the entrenchment of a dogma, levelled against perceived enemies of Islam, that has been Iran’s most potent resource. Yet material support for destabilising forces is just one weapon in Iran’s armoury. Support for militarised dissidents in the Islamic world is both an ideological and a constitutional commitment. Despite a crippled economy and domestic dysfunction, the Iranian regime continues to divert Iran’s critical resources-including billions of dollars-to proxies across the region. “The Iranian people’s revolution is only a point in the start of the revolution of the great world of Islam.” These words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, marked the beginning of a project: to inspire and enable an Islamist revival across the Muslim world.įour decades on, Khomeini’s words still resonate, and the ricochet effects of the Islamic Revolution are still felt in the region and beyond.

Reconciliation islam democracy and the west