ABSTRACT
The French Revolution was the first and the last revolution to escape the wrath of the United States’ foreign policy makers. Since then, the modus operandi of US foreign policy has been based on animosity toward revolutions. To pursue such a policy is ironic for the nation that staged one of the world’s most successful revolutions. In its paranoid aversion toward revolutions, US policy has inadvertently contributed to their radicalization and consolidation. Iran is a perfect example. More than a decade after the fall of the Peacock Throne, in the early 1990s there are those who still insist that the Shi’i fundamentalists (those who advocate the ulama’s direct rule, or the Velayat-e Faqih) ‘kidnapped’ the Revolution, implying that some other forces were more ‘justified’ to win the Revolution than were the fundamentalists. But revolutions are like wars: those who play the game better will win and those who lose will become bitter, indicting everyone for their defeat except themselves. By the time the Shah was forced into exile in January 1979, the fundamentalists had emerged as one of the most powerful forces in the country. The foundation of their victory was, therefore, laid during the course of the revolutionary movement (1977-8) that toppled the Shah.
