Over the last 39 years Iran's vision of the country's tasks and priorities has undergone a deep transformation. Once a loyal ally of the US in the Middle East, Tehran became one of the most active opponents of the West and its partners in the region. Initially, this evolution was the result of the social explosion caused by the Islamic revolution of 1978-9 that brought to power clerical circles and those political groupings that rejected the heritage of the previous regime – the Pahlavi monarchy. By applying religious dogma and romantic theories about social justice they tried to create a new type of governance as an alternative to either the ‘capitalist’ or communist theories of state-building dominant at that time. Yet, at the same time, it was not a disruption of the political process but its continuation. The history of Iran during the last two centuries could be described as ongoing struggle for independence against the great powers. To a certain extent, the Islamic revolutionaries led by Khomeini offered their own model of how to ensure the country's independence and, to a certain extent, the model they tried to promote was the answer to a 150 year quest for the country's sovereignty. Thus, in the 19th-early 20th centuries Iran was basically divided into zones of influence between the British and Russian empires that made Persia politically and economically dependent on their will.

During the 1920s-1930s, various hopes in Iran's struggle for independence were connected to Reza Shah (1878-1944) who, in 1925, was proclaimed the new ruler of Persia. He became the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty and a long-sought leader of the nation who made an attempt to modernize the country and overcome its dependence on world powers. His foreign policy strategy was based on the principle of active neutrality and counter-balancing the influence of Great Britain and the USSR through cooperation with third countries such as the US and Germany. Yet, this approach obviously failed when the country was occupied by Allied forces on a largely invented pretext. Political turmoil and economic havoc caused by the invasion clearly proved that the policy of neutrality and reliance on ‘third’ countries as a counterbalance to the influence of the main international players could not guarantee Iran's independence and sovereignty. In other words, in order to protect its independence, Tehran was compelled to pick a side in the confrontation between two political systems – communist and capitalist – which started immediately after the end of the Second World War. Initially, the choice was made in favor of the US.