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[ 359 ] appendix The Role of Iran in the New Millennium —A View from the Outside This address to President Mohammad Khatami was originally delivered at the United Nations on September 4, 2000, and was subsequently published in Middle East Policy 7, no. 1 (March 2001): 43–47; the author also organized a seminar on democracy for him on September 11, 2006, at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. President Mohammad Khatami, ladies and gentlemen: When I was invited to speak about the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the new millennium in fifteen minutes, I said that I am no academic astrologer, but agreed to think it over for a few days before accepting. I thought because I have tried for half a century to deepen Western understanding of Iran by teaching and publishing in the United States, I should be able to say something near the end of my life that would be worthwhile. I would like, therefore, to talk of three intertwined propositions that might help clarify thinking on Iran’s future role in the world. Let me start by saying that many observers believe that because Iran is strategically significant it will necessarily play a greater role in the world in the future than at present. Such thinkers usually list a variety of factors. For example, they point out that Iran has been coveted by foreign powers from the time of Alexander of Macedonia. It has been the cradle of one of the world’s greatest civilizations . It is located at the center of the world’s largest pool of energy. It straddles prominently the global oil and natural gas chokepoint at the Strait of Hormuz. It provides the cheapest and shortest transit route at the heart of the ancient Silk Road for the transport of energy resources from the Caspian Sea basin to world markets through the Persian Gulf. And it is the most populous country with one of the largest industrial bases in the vast region stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean. My first proposition is that none of these factors, in and of themselves, guarantees that the Islamic Republic will necessarily play a larger global role in the future than at present. Let me say why. If all these factors were enough, then [ 360 ] Appendix Iran should have played a significant role in the international system. Yet, from the nineteenth century, when Iran was sucked fully for the first time into the whirlwind of world politics, to the eruption of the Iranian Revolution, Iran has played either the role of a weak and backward buffer state between imperial Russia and Britain or the role of a surrogate of Britain and the United States. It is important to learn from this searing historical experience. It can help illuminate Iran’s future role in the world. In Cicero’s memorable words: “To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain always a child.” My second proposition is that having learned from such a dismal historical experience, the Iranian revolutionaries created an unprecedented opportunity for their leaders to utilize Iran’s strategic significance in such a way as to enable the people eventually to control freely their own destiny and play a major role on the world stage. To accomplish such lofty goals, the revolutionaries tried to create an authentic revolution. They drew at least in part on the unfulfilled historical aspirations of the people for freedom at home and an independent role in the world. Unlike such other contemporary revolutions as the Chinese, the Vietnamese, and the Cuban, the Iranian Revolution evaded the lure of Marxism-Leninism and created what Forrest D. Colburn calls “the most original of contemporary revolutions.” The unfulfilled quest for independence and freedom strikes deep roots in the collective memory of the Iranian people. Two historic opportunities to ful- fill these principles were quashed by foreign powers. Russia and Britain divided Iran into spheres of influence in 1907 and destroyed any chance for a constitutional government that could realize both independence and freedom. The American Morgan Shuster aptly characterized their imperial interferences in Iran’s internal affairs as “the strangling of Persia.” Decades later, the struggle for independence and freedom was once again stopped in its tracks. Ironically, the American government, the historical champion of Iran’s independence and freedom, used the CIA to destroy the nationalist government of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh. For him the central choice...

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