Large masses adhered to coup-affiliated generals in Spain and revolutionary leaders in Iran as a result of a combination of ideology and religion that skillfully used religious rituals and imagery to cement and unify an entire social bloc and articulate its grievances against the ruling government. The celebrations of Semana Santa and Ashura became not just a vehicle to unify different competing factions in Civil War Spain and Revolutionary Iran; they were also reinterpreted through the lenses of nationalism and socialism and weaponized against their enemies. The appropriation and reinterpretation of Christ's Passion and Hussein's martyrdom at Karbala helped indoctrinate the population with the idea of a new National Catholicism and Islamic Socialism, and thus achieve the Gramscian objective of constructing a new moral order and a new type of society.

Las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Pakistán alcanzaron su punto más bajo durante los años de la administración Carter (1977-1981). Decidido a poner los derechos humanos y la lucha contra la proliferación nuclear en el centro de su política exterior, Carter colisionó de inmediato con la determinación de las autoridades pakistaníes a no ceder a las nuevas exigencias de Washington. El idealismo de Carter pretendía enterrar el realismo de Nixon y Kissinger y abrir un nuevo capítulo en la relación de Estados Unidos con el mundo. La invasión soviética de Afganistán, sin embargo, propició un giro abrupto en la agenda de Carter y reforzó la posición de Islamabad en su relación con Washington.

¿Será este el año del ¿momento Chernóbil¿ iraní? Por ¿momento Chernóbil¿ entendemos una catástrofe que pone de relieve la incompetencia y corrupción de un régimen autoritario y sus intentos fallidos por encubrirlo en una espiral de mentiras. La muerte de Soleimani en enero, el pésimo manejo de la crisis con el derribo de un avión de pasajeros y los burdos intentos de encubrimiento así podrían indicarlo; como también la bochornosa gestión del brote de coronavirus y su torpe ocultación. Este ensayo quiere descifrar los errores estratégicos del régimen iraní tras el episodio de la eliminación física de Soleimani y sus implicaciones futuras.

Carter llegó a la Casa Blanca con el propósito de corregir el curso de la política iraní marcado por Nixon. La nueva administración buscaba priorizar la mejora de los derechos humanos en Irán así como la apertura de un proceso de liberalización a las vez que trataba de reducir las exportaciones de armas a Irán. Sin embargo, en un contexto de grave crisis económica, las reformas tardías del Sha no pudieron prevenir el inicio de un proceso revolucionario en el país. En 1978 Estados Unidos primero ignoró y malinterpretó el creciente descontento popular contra el Sha y luego fue incapaz de adoptar una política coherente y decidida para hacer frente a la crisis. Ante la negativa a apoyar una represión generalizada de las protestas por parte del ejército y ante la falta de un acuerdo con la oposición, Carter finalmente optó por apoyar una transición ordenada que dejase un ejército intacto que luego pudiese actuar de contrapoder al gobierno revolucionario.

After the Islamic revolution in Iran in early 1979 and the hostage crisis that began at the U.S. embassy in Tehran later that year, the Carter administration launched a public diplomacy campaign specifically directed at Muslims, the first of its kind. The idea was to counter the narrative of a Western crusade against Islam while highlighting the differences between the United States and militant Islam. In time, the damage control effort was transformed into an attempt to rally Muslims¿both outside and inside the Soviet Union¿against Soviet Communism. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan created an opportunity for the United States to bolster its standing in the Islamic world. Influencing Muslim opinion was no longer just a matter of delegitimizing the discourse of radical Islam, but also one of using the growth of religious sentiment among Muslims against the Soviet Union. The initiative's spearhead was the increased multilingual radio broadcasts directed at Muslim audiences across the globe.

Jimmy Carter¿s arrival to the White House and Washington¿s new focus on human rights caused an early, although subtle, rift between the United States and the Shah¿s Iran. The aim of this paper is to explore how the Bureau of Human Rights¿ activist approach, under the leadership of the outspoken Patricia Derian, muddied the waters between Tehran and Washington, while using the export of riot control equipment as the spearhead of Carter¿s human rights policy abroad.

During the first two years of Carter's presidency, Iran entered a spiral of violence and unrest that ended with the exile of the Shah and the establishment of an Islamic Republic. The Iranian revolution was first neglected by American diplomats and intelligence officials. When Carter finally became aware of the extent of the disturbances in Iran, he refused to explicitly back the iron fist policy sought by the Shah. The Iranian monarch was unwilling to decisively tackle the protests without Carter's blessing and thus he proceeded with a failed policy that mixed concessions with repression, which only served to postpone the inevitable. This book looks at recent declassified documents from several archival resources that provide an unprecedented picture of the Carter administration's uneasiness regarding the Shah's Iran. Gil Guerrero analyzes the disputes between Washington and Tehran concerning human rights and arms exports, the divisions inside the White House, and the Shah's uncertainty regarding Carter's support. The sources gathered all point to a late process of political liberalization encouraged by American officials that only served to weaken the Shah's authority while emboldening the opposition, in the words of Ayatollah Khomeini, to 'seize the moment." They offer an unprecedented picture of the forces that enabled Khomeini's triumph, altered America's perception of Islam, and fundamentally changed the United States' relationship with Iran.