ABSTRACT

Iran is not an Arab country—the majority of its population is ethnically and linguistically Persian, and there is a significant Azeri (ethnic) and Turkic (linguistic) minority. Also, since the 1979 Islamic (or Iranian) Revolution, it has had a very different government from the rest of the Arab world—it is an Islamic theocracy, a system of government in which religious leaders (in this case, Islamic leaders) govern the state based on holy scripture. This makes it unique not just in the Middle East, but in the world. Yet both before and after the revolution, Iran has shared with the Arab regimes a number of instruments of governance. These have all been geared toward repression. The country’s governing system is currently managed by hard-line Islamic clerics who, in the name of Islam and the Islamic Revolution, suppress any independent political activity and numerous personal freedoms.