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Article: Iran's fragile fault lines.(Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First-Century Iran)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Policy Review
- Article date:
- October 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Hoover Institution Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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GENEIVE ABDO AND JONATHAN LYONS. Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First-Century Iran. HENRY HOLT & CO. 320 PAGES. $25.00
THE WAR IN Iraq has been both a blessing and a curse for neighboring Iran. On the one hand, the conservative clerics, grappling to retain their hold on power, should applaud the American "Great Satan" for removing Iran's two most menacing enemies--the Taliban to the east and Saddam Hussein to the west. Moreover, in the face of growing domestic dissent, the war has enabled and justified a conservative crackdown to preserve the facade of clerical unity. In essence, the Iranian government has used the war to its advantage--to ...