Online published on 19 July, 2016.
This article depicts Iran as a nation conflicted between its Indo-European, monarchical and rather sybaritic culture and a more austere Islamic heritage. Before the 1978–79 revolution, the Iranian clergy had been on the sidelines of power and it was an unpredicted set of circumstances, which brought it centre stage in the political arena. The Shah's rapid and often ruthless modernising pro-Western reforms sowed widespread domestic discontent while his nationalistic policies turned the great powers against him and he thus fell to religious and republican forces. However, the results of his efforts at economic and social development are pushing Iran away from the current theocracy.
