ABSTRACT
The Iraqi attack on Iran in 1980, and the subsequent formation of the Gulf Cooperation Council to contain Iran's influence, took place against the background of insecurity. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has attempted to champion Muslim interests against the United States and Israel, not just Shia Muslim interests. Iran advocated its ideology of Islamism as a panacea to all the ills of economic underdevelopment and socio-political stagnation in the Muslim world. The mobilization of the Muslim Middle East against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan enjoyed the full support of the United States. Iran's anti-Americanism, as well as its claim to speak for the whole Muslim world and its stance against Israel, made a lasting impact on regional politics and continue to destabilize the Middle East. Most devastating to the idea of pan-Arabism was Israel's crushing defeat of the combined Arab forces in the Six-Day War of 1967.
