Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty, joins the show to talk about the origins, evolution, and possible future of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What forces produced the 1979 revolution, and how did it reshape Iran’s political and religious order? What are the psychological and sociological impacts of this revolution? How have the regime’s leaders interpreted and sustained the revolutionary project, and what have the major challenges been? As Iran enters a new and uncertain phase under Mojtaba Khamenei, can the Islamic Republic endure, or is there a potential for future revolution in Iran?
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Times
02:07 Living through the Islamic Revolution
04:12 A diverse Iran
05:50 How did the revolution succeed?
14:06 Khomeini & Khamenei
20:46 Too cautious
22:35 Dynastic succession
34:00 Iran vs. Venezuela
38:35 Regime resiliency
44:30 Beginning of the end
50:14 Threshold states
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