Iran’s 40 Years of Isolation
It’s time leaders of the Islamic Republic looked for ways to rejoin the world.
Time for him to drink from the “cup of poison.”
Photograph: Associated Press
Forty years since the Islamic Revolution toppled Iran’s monarchy, the country has little to celebrate. The theocracy has endured, but it has failed miserably to live up to the enormous potential of Iran’s resources, human as well as petrochemical. There’s been little political progress: Voters elect a president and parliament every four years, but real power still rests with a clerical clique led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s adventurous foreign policy has bought influence in the Middle East from Syria to Yemen, but at great cost in lives and treasure — at a time when the regime can ill afford it. It has also provoked lasting Arab hatred for Tehran.