Iran's Relations with the West since 1979

Under Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran was one of the most important partners for the West in the Middle East, connected through multiple political, economic and institutional links with the US and Western European states. After the Iranian revolution of 1979, international relations between Iran and the rest of the world changed fundamentally.

Existing structures of cooperation with Western states were dissolved according to the revolutionary slogan "Neither East nor West" and increasingly turned into confrontation. However, Iran’s path towards a pariah of world politics was less straightforward than one could assume. “The West”, even in terms of diplomatic conduct, was far from acting as a monolithic bloc as well.

Daniel Walter at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF) will study these processes of Iran’s international and institutional dissociation and reorientation.

 

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