ABSTRACT
Ayatollah Khomeini preached Islamic revolution and, as a result, found himself in an eight-year war with Iraq, which attacked Iran in 1980. The Iranian threat has been highlighted because of the failure of the United States to win the war in Iraq and the Shia empowerment taking place throughout the region, most dramatically in Iraq and Lebanon. Talk of Iranian hegemonic aspirations is given greater credence because the Islamic Republic is well on the way to developing the technology to give it nuclear weapons. In the mid 1970s, at the height of his power and wealth, His Imperial Majesty, the Shah-an-Shah of Iran, was known to muse whether his country would be the new Germany of the Middle East. By 1988 Khomeini was forced to end the war on terms favourable to Iraq. The country entered a period of retrenchment and pragmatism under President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
