Iran

Iran, officially The Islamic Republic of Iran (جمهوری اسلامی ايران) is a theocratic country in southwest Asia. Its capital is Tehran and its official language is Persian, or Farsi.

History

Iran was formerly known as Persia, and was the historical centre of a number of empires.

After the CIA-backed coup of 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown and the Shah returned to power. Ayatollah Khomeini emerged as an active critic of the Shah's increasingly autocratic government during this period. Khomeini was imprisoned and later exiled, but popular anti-government sentiment continued to spread. In 1979, the Shah fled Iran as Khomeini returned from exile. The Shah's troops were defeated by the rebels and in the following year, the Islamic Republic was established following a national referendum.

On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students entered the US embassy and took a number of American personnel hostage, citing the overthrowing of Mossadegh in 1953 and accusing the embassy staff of preparing another coup against the revolutionary government. Some of the hostages, including women, African Americans and an employee diagnosed with mutliple sclerosis, were quickly released. Others were held for 444 days before being allowed to leave Iran and return to the United States.

In the 1980s America was rocked by the Iran-Contra Affair aka Irangate, the largest political scandal in the United States during the 1980s, considered by some to be one of the largest political scandals in history. Large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan Administration officials. The affair is still shrouded with secrecy and it is very hard to discover the facts. It involved several members of the Reagan Administration who in 1986 helped sell arms to Iran, an avowed enemy, and used the proceeds to fund the Contras, an anti-communist guerrilla organization in Nicaragua.

Current Status

Iran is currently ruled by the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, the second theocrat of the country, who has a less extreme anti-Western bias than his predecessor. It is governed on a day-to-day basis by the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is suspected by several Western nations to be developing nuclear weapons to use against Israel. Domestically, however, he is facing questioning and possible impreachement by the Iranian Parliament, who see him as to extreme.