ABSTRACT
Iran has been facing a spiral of tightening economic sanctions soon after the advent of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which brought down its monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, a core ally of the United States. The Americans suffered a grave strategic loss with the fall of the Shah. His exit meant that Washington had lost its influence over a frontline state — a pillar of the international Cold War edifice in the region facing the former Soviet Union. From an American perspective, the emergence of revolutionary Iran — presumably an anti-status quo hub in the heart of the Persian Gulf — endangered the stability of neighbouring Arab petro-monarchies, the vital elements of a Western-friendly international petroleum order.
