ABSTRACT
The American people got a good glimpse of the chaos in Iran in 1979 when Americans were held hostage for more than a terrible year—but perhaps one really had to be in the Middle East to see and feel what a profound effect the “Islamic Revolution” had in that era on the entire region. Once that war ended inconclusively in 1989, very slowly the whole idea of a Persian Islamic revolution transmogrified into the multitudinous international Islamic movements, most definitely including the terrorist ones of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which threaten the United States and the West today. This could signal the rise of the modernized Turkeys and the beginnings of the ends to the revolutionary “Islamic republic’s”—and to Islamic terrorism. Iran and Iraq had attacked each other, and a horrendous nine-year war ensued in which more than a million people died mostly agonizing deaths.
