Iran: Thirty-Seven Years after the Revolution. What’s Next?
The Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 was one of the most important events of the 20th Century in the Islamic world. More than thirty-seven years later, what effect has the revolution had on its people, culture, theology, and politics? How has the revolution and its militancy impacted the countries around it and in the wider world? Can Iran remove the Shia ideological and theological straitjacket it is in today? I will try to address these questions and others. A forty-five-minute presentation will only skim the surface, but it should give us all new things to think about.
David C. Champagne received his doctorate in Middle East and South Asia History from the University of Texas at Austin. He is the former Director of the Strategic Studies Detachment in the 4th Psychological Operations Group at Ft. Bragg and has 30 years of experience as a civilian intelligence analyst on Iran and Afghanistan. He speaks Farsi, Dari (the Afghan dialect of Farsi), and French. He was Cultural Advisor to the US Army Ground Commander in Afghanistan in 2005 and former Deputy Director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan from 1968 to 1971. He has traveled widely in Southwest Asia and has been a member of Mary Renault for many years.