ABSTRACT
Any discussion of Islamic Iran’s foreign policy must start with the centrality of the struggle with Iraq since 1980. Indeed nearly eight years of hostilities have made the war and the revolution merge in historical consciousness and in Iranian myth. How its outcome will affect the future of the regime, indeed the revolution itself, cannot yet be assessed in the present situation of no-peace/no-war. Undoubtedly the post-war situation is a critical concern for Islamic Iran. The Islamic world which Iran invoked as a constituency served several functions for Iran. It provided, of course, a source of legitimacy and validation of Iran’s broader claims for its revolutions, but at the same time it enabled Iran to transcend the limitations inherent in either Iranian nationalism or Shi’i sectarianism. Inevitably, the revolution was to have its most direct impact on Iran’s immediate neighbors.
