U.S.-Iranian relations have remained hostile since 1979. The U.S. has maintained sanctions against Iran. Iran has pursued nuclear technology and supported anti-Western groups across the region. Multiple diplomatic openings (the Iran nuclear deal of 2015 being the most significant) have not produced lasting reconciliation. The Iranian Revolution remains one of the central facts of Middle East geopolitics today.

Why this is the canonical case: The Iranian Revolution is the canonical case for Unit 10.8 because it shows in one event how modernization imposed from above can produce backlash, how religious authority can mobilize mass opposition, how secular and religious oppositions can ally tactically before fighting over the outcome, and how a Western-aligned regime can fall to a fundamentalist alternative. Maria should be able to describe the Shah's modernization, the sources of opposition, Khomeini's role, and the establishment of the Islamic Republic in detail.

III. Turkey Under Atatürk: The Counter-Case

If the Iranian Revolution shows what happens when modernization fails to win popular legitimacy, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Turkey shows what happens when modernization is carried through forcefully and successfully. Atatürk reshaped Turkey from the seat of an Islamic caliphate to a secular nation-state in roughly two decades. His example is the model that Reza Shah Pahlavi attempted (less successfully) to follow in Iran.