When studying the history of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, a question that usually comes to mind is that why the Western countries were worried about it despite the fact that there have been several revolutions in Europe, Russia and the United States. Which aspect of the Islamic Revolution has worried them the most? No doubt, it is the Islamic, ideological and transnational feature of that revolution that has caused concern for the Western powers. The Iranian revolution, which calls for political and economic reforms, was based on the idea that the only solution to problems the Islamic nations were facing was their liberation from Western colonial powers and Israel.
By focusing on that principle the regional nations could secure their economic and political prosperity as well as their national interests. In other words, fighting the Western colonialism was in line with their national interests. The Iranian revolution implied that the two concepts of national and Islamic interests could not go against each other but on the contrary, they were intertwined.
When Iran’s Islamic Revolution occurred, some Arab countries and some Palestinian groups were agreeing with the Zionist regime to end the Palestinian issue. Those Arab states were frustrated and had agreed with the occupation of Palestine after their consecutive defeats against the Zionist regime in their wars such as 1967 and 1973. Such ineffectiveness of Arab nationalist and ethnic discourses against Israel had created an atmosphere of frustration and disappointment in the region.
The victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 put forward a new discourse based on religious teachings that prevented the realization of Israeli and American goals about Palestine and the region.
Soon after, inspired by the Iranian revolution’s trans-national and Islamic ideas, Islamic resistance movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad emerged.
Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups in the region had reached the conclusion that practical and political Islam was much more effective than the ”American Islam”, which had abandoned the struggle against the Israeli occupation, and that relying on ethnic and nationalistic approaches rather than Islamic beliefs could not alleviate the pain of the Islamic nations.
The Iranian revolution’s emphasis on the struggle against the Zionist regime, which showed itself in the form of the closure of the Israeli embassy in Iran and opening of the Palestinian embassy along with the support for the nations in the region resulted in an economic war in the form of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran with the aim of preventing the spread of the revolution’s ideas.
During the past four decades since the Islamic Revolution, the Americans used all their tools against the Islamic Republic of Iran to such an extent that, according to American officials, if the same method of sanctions, blockade and war had been used against the United States itself, a country by the name of the United States would cease to exist today.
KI