Iran : a country study

Iran's future course in the late 1980s hinged upon a number of factors. These included the smoothness with which it would be able to make the transition to Ayatollah Khomeini's successor; the duration, cost, and settlement terms of the war with Iraq; the direction of Iran's foreign policy, in relation both to the superpowers and to the remainder of the world, particularly the countries of the region; and the skill of Iranian technocrats in taking the necessary steps to address the country's economic difficulties. Members of the Achaemenid royal bodyguard, from a bas-relief at Persepolis THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION in 1979 brought a sudden end to the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty, which for fifty years had been identified with the attempt to modernize and Westernize Iran.