lic. During the 1980s and 1990s, Iran suffered from isolation. Most neighboring Arab
leaders scorned it for fear that the Islamist message of Iran’s mullahs would inspire
their own populations to rise up against them, and Western nations, particularly the
United States, considered it a pariah. Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho-
meini and his successors also faced endless domestic stresses during these decades,
including the ravages of an eight-year war with Iraq, constant dissension over how far
to take the Islamic revolution, and the failure of Khomeini’s theocratic system to pro-
vide all the answers for managing a state in modern times.
The 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq handed Iran an
opportunity to strengthen its position in the region. Washington’s removal of long-
time Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein eliminated any lingering security threat that Iraq
posed to Iran. The subsequent rise to power of the majority Shiites in Iraq—many of
whose leaders had spent years in exile in Iran—provided Tehran natural allies in the
country that long had been its enemy. Moreover, stumbles by the George W. Bush
administration in Iraq after the 2003 invasion undermined the broader U.S. position
in the region, and thus, in the zero-sum game of Middle Eastern politics, Iran bene-
fited through an increase in its own influence.
378 IRAN