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Article: Challenges to Persian Gulf security: how should the United States respond?(Report)
- Article from:
- Strategic Forum
- Article date:
- November 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 National Defense University. 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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What Drives Iran?
For the United States, any consideration of Persian Gulf security must begin with Iran: its ambitions, perceptions, and behavior. For many in the West, Winston Churchill's famous quip about the Soviet Union--being a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma--could apply equally well to Iran given its complex, opaque, and often turbulent politics. And yet the key to understanding Iran is to figure out what it sees when it looks in the mirror. What are the fundamental influences that shape Iran's view of its role in the world?
The first, clearly, is Iranian nationalism. It is a means of unifying society while assuring territorial ...