For most in the West, it is difficult to understand the Muslim world. The tendency is to associate Islam with Arabs and Arab culture. Yet the vast majority of the practitioners of Islam are not Arabs. In fact, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation. Likewise, there are Middle Eastern cultures that were important long before the ascendancy of Islam. Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Turkey and Iran had flourishing civilizations long before he words of the Prophet reached the ears of their citizens. The languages, tridents and cultures of these nations differ essentially from those of the Arab peoples.
In reality, it may be fair to say that, more than the Arabs, it was the Ottoman Turks who provided the political vehicle for the rapid spread of Islam.

This article provides a brief overview of the history and present status of Iran , exploring its high pre-Islamic culture and examining briefly its developing role in Near Eastern politics. Applications for employing greater understanding in developing non-violent conflict resolution approaches between Iran and the West are also discussed, with reference to non-violent conflict resolution techniques.

During the European and Near Eastern hegemony of the Roman Empire of the East and its Byzantine successor, Greek officials and their courts were prominent in the life of the area. Yet Persia remained a challenger to the power of the Roman East until that empire's fall in 1453, ushering in the Ottoman era. Through the unifying force of Shiite Islam, Persia was able to resist full incorporation into the Ottoman Empire (Mackay,1998).

After the decline of the Ottoman Empire during and immediately after World War I, the British hegemony in India placed that nation in a position to exercise major influence in most of the countries in Central Asia and the Near East. With the withdrawal of the British from the Indian Sub-continent and from Central Asia after the Second World War, the United States entered the picture to fill the void left by the British. Iran and the Muslim nations of Central Asia and the Middle East became players in the Cold-War struggle between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The struggles that have ensued have largely been attributed to economic interests and political motivations. Yet, the cultural and spiritual differences between the civilizations have often been overlooked.

The world view represented by Islam is essentially a reflection of a spiritual conception of the nature of man and the relation that man has with the creating forces of the universe. During the cold war, under the more dogmatic from of Marxist-Leninist Communism, there was a greater affinity with spiritual, non-directly materials values shared by the two Muslim societies. However, in the post-Soviet era, Russia has clearly re-emerged as a materialist, non-dialectical society (1).

Iran played a pivotal role in the cultural struggle between the former Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc of nations and the United States and it allies. Iran was contra posed by the United States to Iraq, a state heavily dependent upon the Soviet Union. It is well known that both Iraq and Iran are important to the current world economies due to their oil deposits. Yet, as important as oil may be to the current economies of the West and its allies, including Japan, current conflicts of interest are not as much centered on oil as upon differences in values and the conception of the meaning of human existence. While Dialectical Materialism provided an essentially spiritual cultural link between Iraq and the former Soviet Union, Iran and the United Sates were bound by a blatantly material relationship. This emphasis on material ties, manifest through Washington's emphasis on using Iran to counter-balance the Soviet Union's influence in Iraq, was destined to result in major difficulties between the two nations.

It should be notes here that there have been long-standing and major differences between Iran and Iraq. These differences are reflected in political ramifications based upon Sunni and Shiite theology (Mackey, 1968). However, in a real sense the differences are not disagreements in fundamental worldviews. Iran and Iraq both are Muslim or Islamic societies, although their interpretation of the structure of the ideal Islamic society differs somewhat.

Both Iraq and Iran are multi-ethnic nations, and thus might actually be thought of as empires. Iraq is a society dominated by the Sunni version of Islam, with strong cultural ties to the Arab tradition, although the cultural importance of Iraq precedes the Arab conquest. Some of the most revered places in Islam are located in Iraq, and Iraq is important for the historical development of Islam. On the other hand, Iran has represented the non-Arab element of Islamic culture, although both Iran and Iraq are comprised of several ethnic groups, Iraq is dominated by Arab influences, whereas Iran retains a measure of cultural independence reflected in its Shiite Muslim majority. This non-Arab, Shiite Muslim element is shared, along with Sunni influences, by many nations in Central Asia and Indonesia, and represents millions of Muslims in Europe, Africa, China, North America and the Indian sub-continent as well.

But, unifying both traditions of Islam, Sunni and Shiite, is an explicit understanding that Islam is the only true religion and that it is destined to prevail over other beliefs. Sufi thought (2) represents A third current of understanding of Islam, arising from the Persian view of Muslim reality. The Sufi way of thinking of Islam is open to tolerance of non Islamic ways of knowing and serving God. This third way of understanding the reality of Islam appeals to many in the West, but seems important only among the educated elite in Muslim nations.

Difference between the cultural backgrounds of Iran, a state with peoples firmly devoted to the clearly Mediaeval world view represented by Islam (Lerner and Mahdi, 1963), and the United States, a materialist democratic nation (3), led to serious misunderstandings and tensions between the two nations. Such misunderstandings and tensions may be illustrated by such cases as the following:

During the height of the Cold War, the United Sates looked upon Iran as a close ally, supporting the military regime of the Shah. Not only did the United States government supply materials and advisors to Iran, but many U.S. companies ware also engaged in the transfer of technologies that were thought to be useful for defense. Iran was considered an offsetting military power, counter balancing the presence of the Soviets in Iraq and the increasing influence of the Kremlin in Egypt and other nations in the region.

Thousands of U.S. citizens were recruited and deployed in Iran to assist the Iranian government in modernizing its military regime and capabilities. In order to provide a suitable level of technical assistance, many Vietnam era veterans were recruited and deployed as civilian advisors to the Shah's military forces. The available pool of talent for these positions included individuals who had been unsuccessful at re-integration into the fabric of American society after their experiences in Vietnam. Many had problems with substance abuse, and had experienced other psychosocial difficulties that impacted upon their employability. Yet they possessed technical skills that allowed them to be useful in a military environment such as that in Iran.

Because of the fundamentally materialistic point of view of the American companies and the underlying assumptions that spiritual values had little to do with business, situations, which were overtly insulting to the Iranian sense of dignity, were created and fostered. Americans were sent to Iran with the title of technical advisors, yet they were often delegated to actually perform the tasks that they were supposed to teach. In part, this was because of the feeling of class separation in Iranian Muslim thinking, which held that persons enjoying certain status should not have to perform manual work. In addition, in some cases women were designated as supervisors, which violated the assumptions of the society regarding male and female roles (4). Other incidents involved numerous episodes in which Americans used and abused alcohol and other drugs and allegedly injured Iranian citizens. These Americans were protected through patronage and bribes from the strict laws of Islam, engendering resentment and hatred of the American presence.

In fact, there was in Iran at that time a conflict of worldviews between the secular materialism of the United States government and the spirituality of the people of Iran. The presence and intrusion of a secular, materialistic force challenged the essentially mediaeval, spiritually oriented worldview of an Islamic society. Hatred developed, not for the American people, because such hatred is forbidden by Islam, but for the philosophy of materialism. Such materialism is directly opposed to a theocratic worldview such as is present in most nations within the Muslim world. There is strong evidence that the hatred of the Iranian people is not directed toward the United States and its people as such, but at the "Satan" of secular materialism championed by the U.S., Europe, and Israel.

Americans as guests of the Shah's government were publicly intoxicated on the streets of major cities. Women wore shorts and revealing clothes outside of the designated compounds. Iranian's were ridiculed and called "rag heads." Executives who had allegedly committed serious crimes were protected. These were acts of aggression arising not out of military suppression, but from insensitivity to cultural norms.

The failure of the U.S. interventions in Iran in the 1960s should provide material for lessons learned. Importantly, Western democracies have developed more realistic and effective methods of approaching communication with Muslim nations (5). There is some evidence that the United States and the United Nations have learned from errors in Iran and elsewhere that cultural incompetence can be deadly. The effects of this learning may perhaps be seen in strategies adopted in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

(2) As expressed in the works of Rumi and others.

(3) The founding authors of the United States are alleged to have had predominantly deistic worldviews.

(4) The author reports such attitudes here without expressing agreement with them.

(5) Although there are many differences among Muslim nations, the Holy Koran provides a template for universal identity. There is no doubt that Muslims support a world-wide Islamic social order, since such an order is based upon the teaching of the Prophet.

Robert W. Hotes, Ph.D., RODC, LMHC is a practitioner of Organizational/Industrial Psychology and a licensed mental health professional. He has direct experience in organizational change initiatives for Iran and several other nations. Dr. Hotes also serves as Executive Director of the American College of Counselors.