Iranian revolution in the context of "Arab Cold War"

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⭐ Core Definition: Iranian revolution

The Iranian Revolution or the Islamic Revolution was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Imperial State of Iran by the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was superseded by Ruhollah Khomeini, an Islamist cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions. The ousting of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, formally marked the end of Iran's historical monarchy.

In 1953, the CIA- and MI6-backed 1953 Iranian coup d'état overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The coup reinstated Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as an absolute monarch and significantly increased United States influence over Iran.

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👉 Iranian revolution in the context of Arab Cold War

The Arab Cold War (Arabic: الحرب العربية الباردة al-ḥarb al-`arabiyyah al-bāridah) was a political rivalry in the Arab world from the early 1950s to the late 1970s or early 1990s and a part of the wider Cold War. It is generally accepted that the beginning of the Arab Cold War is marked by the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which led to Gamal Abdel Nasser becoming president of Egypt in 1956. Thereafter, newly formed Arab republics, inspired by revolutionary secular nationalism and Nasser's Egypt, engaged in political rivalries with conservative traditionalist Arab monarchies, influenced by Saudi Arabia. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the ascension of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as leader of Iran, is widely seen as the end of this period of internal conflicts and rivalry. A new era of Arab-Iranian tensions followed, overshadowing the bitterness of intra-Arab strife.

Nasser espoused secular pan-Arab nationalism and socialism as a response to the perceived complicity of the Arab monarchies in Western interference in the Arab world. He also opposed the monarchies' support of rentierism and Islamism. Later Nasser embraced the Palestinian cause, albeit within the framework of pan-Arabism. After Egypt's political victory in the 1956 Suez Crisis, known in the Arab world as the Tripartite Aggression, Nasser and his associated ideology quickly gained support in other Arab countries, from Iraq in the east to French-occupied Algeria in the west. In several Arab countries, such as Iraq, North Yemen and Libya, conservative regimes were overthrown and replaced by revolutionary republican governments. Meanwhile, Arab countries under Western occupation, such as Algeria and South Yemen, experienced nationalist uprisings aimed at national liberation. At the same time, Syria, which was already strongly Arab nationalist, formed a short-lived federal union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Several other attempts were made to unite the Arab states in various configurations, but all attempts were unsuccessful.

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Iranian revolution in the context of Iranian diaspora

The Iranian diaspora (collectively known as Iranian expats or expatriates) is the global population of Iranian citizens or people of Iranian descent living outside Iran.

In 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran published statistics which showed that 4,037,258 Iranians are living abroad, an increase from previous years. However, this number includes people of Iranian ancestry living in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Israel, Turkey and Bahrain whose families left Iran many years, if not many decades, prior to the 1979 revolution. This number also includes people with only partial Iranian ancestry. Over one million of these people and their extended families live in the United States, with anywhere between 100,000 and 500,000 living in countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Additional communities exist in numerous other countries, including many European nations, China, India, and the United Arab Emirates, along with several other Middle Eastern and Levantine nations. Many of these individuals relocated to other countries following the Iranian Revolution.

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Iranian revolution in the context of 1978 Asian Games

The 8th Asian Games (Thai: กีฬาเอเชียนเกมส์ครั้งที่ 8), also known as Bangkok 1978 (Thai: กรุงเทพมหานคร 1978), were held from 9 to 20 December 1978, in Bangkok, Thailand. Originally, the host city was Singapore but Singapore dropped its plan to host the Games due to financial problems. Then Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, was decided to host the 8th Games. But Islamabad also dropped its plan to host the Asian Games due to conflicts with Bangladesh and India. The Imperial State of Iran withdrew because of the Iranian revolution.

Thailand offered to help and the Asiad therefore was held in Bangkok. On the political front, Israel was expelled from the Asian Games. A total number of 3,842 athletes, coming from 25 countries, competed in these Asian Games. Debuting sports were archery and bowling.

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Iranian revolution in the context of Iran–Iraq War

The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for nearly eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides. Iraq's primary rationale for the attack against Iran cited the need to prevent Ruhollah Khomeini—who had spearheaded the Iranian revolution in 1979—from exporting the new Iranian ideology to Iraq. There were also fears among the Iraqi leadership of Saddam Hussein that Iran, a theocratic state with a population predominantly composed of Shia Muslims, would exploit sectarian tensions in Iraq by rallying Iraq's Shia majority against the Baʽathist government, which was officially secular but dominated by Sunni Muslims. Iraq also wished to replace Iran as the power player in the Persian Gulf, which was not seen as an achievable objective prior to the Islamic Revolution because of Pahlavi Iran's economic and military superiority as well as its close relationships with the United States and Israel.

The Iran–Iraq War followed a long-running history of territorial border disputes between the two states, as a result of which Iraq planned to retake the eastern bank of the Shatt al-Arab that it had ceded to Iran in the 1975 Algiers Agreement. Iraqi support for Arab separatists in Iran increased following the outbreak of hostilities; Saddam disputedly may have wished to annex Iran's Arab-majority Khuzestan province.

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Iranian revolution in the context of Ahmad Fardid

Seyyed Ahmad Fardid (Persian: سید احمد فردید) (Born in 1910, Yazd – 16 August 1994, Tehran), born Ahmad Mahini Yazdi, was a prominent Iranian philosopher and a professor of Tehran University.

He is considered to be among the philosophical ideologues of the Islamic government of Iran which came to power in 1979, following the revolution. Fardid was under the influence of Martin Heidegger, the influential German philosopher, whom he considered "the only Western philosopher who understood the world and the only philosopher whose insights were congruent with the principles of the Islamic Republic. These two figures, Khomeini and Heidegger, helped Fardid argue his position."

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