Pivotal States Project
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Iran as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World
October 2008
As the third book in the series from the Institute’s Muslim World Initiative on pivotal states in the Muslim world, this lucid and timely volume sheds much-needed light on Iran’s strikingly complex political system and foreign policy and its central role in the region.
Project Chairs
The Pivotal States Project was a series of books focusing on key or "pivotal" states in the Muslim world: Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. By virtue of their influence in regional political, economic, and cultural networks, these states play a critical role not only in the resolution of conflicts in their immediate vicinity, but also in moderating relations between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.
As part of its “Muslim World Initiative,” the Pivotal States project constituted a major analytical effort to examine states that, by virtue of their geo-strategic importance or political and religious influence, play a significant role within the Muslim world. While America's bilateral relations with these states receives intense scrutiny in the public arena, the question of their influence within the broader Muslim world is much less apparent and not well understood. Moreover, despite the heightened level of interest in these countries post-9/11, there is little understanding as to how their political and social evolution will affect U.S. interests across the broader arena of the Muslim world.
As the centerpiece of this research effort, the Institute published a series of monographs based on the premise that a state can be pivotal both in positive and negative terms depending upon its role in the region and beyond. Expanding this notion to the Muslim world and U.S. interests in the Muslim world, this series contended that some states are clearly more important than others and that these states should comprise the focus of U.S. attention and resources.
This series aimed to look at each pivotal state in the Muslim World. Each volume in this series examined the various “vectors” of influence exerted by a state across the Muslim world. These vectors included geostrategic, economic/financial, political/diplomatic, cultural, social and/or legal sources of influence.
The volumes produced in the series can be found here: