Reconceptualizing Khomeini: The Islamic Republic of Iran and U.S. Democratization Policies in the Middle East

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2010
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
In this thesis, I argue that in order to craft effective democratization policies in the greater Middle East, the U.S. must be willing to engage, even if only conditionally, with Islamist opposition groups. I assert that U.S. refusal to engage with such groups is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what Iran and the Iranian revolution has come to mean to Islamist movements throughout the Muslim World. Rather than representing an attempt to reclaim a fundamentalist and idyllic vision of Islamic community that stands in opposition to the modern world, I argue that the Iranian state (and Khomeini's political project) instead represents a progressive attempt to reconcile the perceived conflict between traditional Islamic values and forces of modernity.
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