The Iran National Front and the Struggle for Democracy: 1949–Present explores the activities of the Iran National Front (INF). The INF is a coalition of parties, groups, and individuals and Iran’s oldest and main pro-democracy political party. This book presents a political history of the INF from 1949 to the present day. It discusses the current platform of the INF, its leadership, policies, strategies, as well as criticisms and weaknesses. The volume draws on a rich range of primary sources, INF documents, and interviews, including translated transcripts with the top leader of the INF. As it is one of the major political parties opposing the current regime in Iran, the book also examines the current situation in the country. It provides an analysis of the nature of the political systems under the Shah and the Islamic Republic.

The Iran National Front and the Struggle for Democracy: 1949–Present explores the activities of the Iran National Front (INF). The INF is a coalition of parties, groups, and individuals and Iran’s oldest and main pro-democracy political party. This book presents a political history of the INF from 1949 to the present day. It discusses the current platform of the INF, its leadership, policies, strategies, as well as criticisms and weaknesses. The volume draws on a rich range of primary sources, INF documents, and interviews, including translated transcripts with the top leader of the INF. As it is one of the major political parties opposing the current regime in Iran, the book also examines the current situation in the country. It provides an analysis of the nature of the political systems under the Shah and the Islamic Republic.

The Iran National Front and the Struggle for Democracy: 1949-Present presents a comprehensive overview of the Iran National Front (INF) as a historical and potential future political force. Drawing on a range of primary sources, interviews, and tr

As new nations were formed from the declining British Empire, a murky world of diplomats, oil executives and spies were determined to maintain London's grip on Iran and its strategic oil reserves. Directed from Whitehall by successive governments, this book explores the complexities and ambiguities of British policy in Iran and demonstrates its centrality to post-war imperial reorientation. Situating Iran within Britain's 'informal empire,' Jack Taylor demonstrates that Clement Attlee's Labour Government saw Iranian oil as critical to the construction of a domestic New Jerusalem, and used coercion, propaganda, and espionage to preserve their control over it. In doing so, they were forced to confront not only the emerging Cold War, but local resistance expressed through diverse forms including trade unionism, Soviet-inspired Marxism, and popular nationalism. Oil, Nationalism and British Policy in Iran offers new insight into the scale of British interference in Iran and its ultimate failure. It reveals that as London's policy floundered the United States independently took steps to safeguard their own regional economic and security interests. Although British actors were critical in the operation to depose Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh following his government's nationalisation of the oil industry, they were ultimately unable to sustain their informal empire in Iran.

The contributors of this book undertake a fundamental reexamination and reappraisal of the phenomenon of leftist activism in Iran.

New perspectives on Iran's relationship to democracy Can Islamic societies embrace democracy? In Democracy in Modern Iran, Ali Mirsepassi maintains that it is possible, demonstrating that Islam is not inherently hostile to the idea of democracy. Rather, he provides new perspective on how such a political and social transformation could take place, arguing that the key to understanding the integration of Islam and democracy lies in concrete social institutions rather than pre-conceived ideas, the every day experiences rather than abstract theories. Mirsepassi, an Iranian native, provides a rare inside look into the country, offering a deep understanding of how Islamic countries like Iran and Iraq can and will embrace democracy. Democracy in Modern Iran challenges readers to think about Islam and democracy critically and in a far more nuanced way than is done in black-and-white dichotomies of Islam vs. Democracy, or Iran vs. the West. This essential volume contributes important insights to current discussions, creating a more complex conception of modernity in the Eastern world and, with it, Mirsepassi offers to a broad Western audience a more accurate, less clichéd vision of Iran’s political reality.

This book discusses the general problematic of Islam and democracy and the ideas of certain Iranian religious modernists on the issue. Examining the development of religious intellectualism in post-revolutionary Iran, it presents Abdolkarim Soroush's novel approach to this pertinent topic.

2020 marks 75 years since the end of World War II, yet even as the war slips from living memory, its legacies continue to influence current political and military thinking. This anthology will analyze these legacies for a number of countries and regions including China, Russia, the United States, the Near East, and Germany illustrating in detail how World War II is not merely a historical event, but a defining moment for current military and political thinking around the globe. This book will therefore be of interest for those interested in history, but also political and military decision makers, and followers of current political and military affairs.

This book analyses the distant and proximate causes of the 1978 revolution in Iran as well as the dynamics of power which it set in motion. The volume explains the complex and far-reaching processes which produced the revolution, beginning in the late nineteenth century. In explaining the more proximate causes of the revolution, the book analyses the nature of the old regime and its internal contradictions; the emergence of some fundamental conflicts of interest between the state and the upper class; the economic crisis of 1975-8 which made possible a revolutionary mass immobilisation; and the emergence of a new religious interpretation of political authority and the unusual spread of the ideology of political Islam among a segment of the modern intelligentsia. The volume relates the diverse aspects of class, ideology and economic structure in order to provide an understanding of the political processes.