Iran is an ancient country known for most of its history as Persia. It has existed in one form or another for thousands of years. The original Zoroastrian religion was replaced by Islam when Iran was conquered in 651 AD. The Iranians are predominantly members of the Shiite branch of Islam.
Iran occupies a strategic location in the Middle of Asia bordering Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey and other countries as well as the Persian Gulf. It over six hundred thousand square miles in size and has a population of seventy five million. With huge reserves of oil and natural gas, it is a main supplier of fossil fuels to Europe and Asia.
Anger over loss of territory to Western powers and granting of concessions to foreign countries spurred the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1906 to over throw the Shah and create a parliament. The ruling Qatar dynasty was overthrown by Reza Khan in 1925. He then instituted a number of reforms to modernize Iran. In 1941, the United States and Britain made him abdicate the throne in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi because Khan had close ties with Germany. In 1951 after that assignation of Prime Minister Ali Razmara, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected Prime Minister by a Parliamentary vote which was ratified by Shah Pahlavi. Mosaddegh was enormously popular after he nationalized the Iranian oil industry and oil reserves. This angered the British who instituted an Iranian oil embargo. The British involved the U.S. in a plot to remove Mosaddegh. In 1953, he was arrested and removed from office. The U.S. began cooperating with Iran in the development of nuclear reactors for power generation as part of the Atoms for Peace program.
Following the coup that removed Mosaddegh, the Shah gathered more and more power to himself. A powerful cleric named Ruholla Khomeini became a vocal critic of the Shah. He was arrested, imprisoned and eventually exiled. Eventually living in France, Khomeini kept in touch with revolutionary forces in Iran through audio tapes of his sermons and personal representatives. The Iranian people rose up against the Shah in 1978 and forced him to flee in 1979. Khomeini returned from exile to head the theocratic revolutionary government that came to rule Iran. U.S. and Iranian relations soured during 1979 and in November of the year, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized and the staff taken prisoner by a group of students. Fifty two of the embassy personnel were held for 444 days and released after the election of Ronald Reagan to the U. S. Presidency in 1980. U.S. assistance in nuclear research and development in Iran ended with the taking of the hostages. Khomeini disbanded a secret nuclear weapons research program because he objected to nuclear weapons on religious grounds.
Taking advantage of the disarray in the Iranian military, Saddam Hussein in Iraq attacked Iran. A horrible war raged for eight years during which time there were many casualties on both sides. Iraq was encouraged and assisted by the United States. Because of the bad relations between the U.S and Iran, the U.S. felt that the war between Iraq and Iran would seriously weaken Iran and prevent it from being a strong regional power hostile to the U.S. The war ended in 1988. After the death of Khomeini, nuclear weapons research was expanded in Iran. Iran’s first nuclear power plant was completed with assistance from the Russians in 2011. Iran has uranium mines and is known to have three uranium enrichment plants. Iran has said that it will continue to build reactors for power and develop more uranium mines.
The International community is very worried that Iran is working on the creation of nuclear weapons. They have the technology and a number of facilities have been built underground to protect them from possible bombing. They also have a robust missile program that would allow them to send warheads to Europe, Asia, Russia, Africa and all of the Middle East. Iran claims that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons but refuses to all full inspection of all of its nuclear research facilities. Estimates of when Iran might have a working nuclear bomb vary from months to years.
The leaders of Iran have made some very hostile and provocative statements towards Israel. Some Israeli leaders have responded by advocating attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities with the assistance of the United States. The situation is very fluid and there are fears that Israel may decide to strike Iran without any outside help.
Arak IR-40 nuclear reactor in Iran - Nanking2012:
