Abstract
The Islamic Republic of Iran remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.2 This terror is directed at a range of targets: regime dissidents at home and abroad, Israel, other Muslim states in the region, the United States, and other Western interests. Th is commitment to terrorism reflects various interlocking motivations but is rooted in the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, who insisted that the regime’s survival lay in “exporting the revolution.” As the quote above makes clear, Khomeini’s successor as Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamene’i, fully subscribes to this view.
& [E]xporting the revolution is like glitter of the sun of which rays & brighten the entire world.
Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, April 19881
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Notes
Quoted in Bruce Hoffman, Recent Trends and Future Prospects of Iranian Sponsored International Ter rorism, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1990, 2.
Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi’a Islalm, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.
Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, New York: Times Books, 2006, 225.
Daniel Byman, Shahran Cubin, Anoushiravan Ehteshami, and Jerrold D. Green, Iran’s Security Policy in the Post-revolutionary Era, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001, 93–94.
Kenneth Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, New York: Random House, 2004, 355–357.
Gregory Giles, “Command and Control Challenges of An Iranian Nuclear Force,” in Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt (eds.), Deterring the Ayatollahs (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2007), 12–15.
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© 2009 Michael T. Kindt, Jerrold M. Post, and Barry R. Schneider
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Giles, G.F. (2009). “Like Glitter of the Sun”: Iran and Terrorism. In: Kindt, M.T., Post, J.M., Schneider, B.R. (eds) The World’s Most Threatening Terrorist Networks and Criminal Gangs. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230623293_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230623293_4
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