October 21, 2026, 9:01 am
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been in the eye of a political storm ever since its advent 47 years ago. It has faced and weathered many domestic and foreign policy challenges within a jihadi (combative) and ijtihadi (pragmatic) paradigm. It is now once again under unprecedented pressure from massive public protests, which it has sought to quell at the cost of thousands of lives, and from the US and Israel, which want at the minimum to denuclearise and disable it, and at the maximum to see it replaced by a favourable order.
This lecture by Emeritus Professor Amin Saikal AM, FASSA, looks at three central issues. The first is the turning points in the historical animosity between the Iranian Islamic regime and its domestic and foreign opponents. The second is how the regime has managed to survive thus far while internally besieged and externally sanctioned and isolated for most of its life. The third is to discuss critically the trajectory of what is likely to emerge from the prevailing confrontational situation between the regime and its domestic and foreign adversaries
Content Creator – Australian Institute of International Affairs
