What did the successful overthrow of the Iranian government in 1979 signify

With its platform of social justice and autonomy, the Iranian Shi’i theocracy had a potentially destabilizing effect on neighboring countries with Shi’i populations. Worried over Iran’s call to oppose corruption and foreign influence, particularly U. S. and Soviet policies, neighboring governments feared internal social unrest. Iran supported developing African nations, Cuba, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), among others. Iraq, with its Shi’i majority in numbers, but minority in terms of access to power, felt particularly threatened and invaded Iran in 1980. The invasion was an effort to preempt a possible Shi’i attempt to gain political power and overthrow the Sunni-controlled government of Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein. Thus began a costly and bloody eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, in which Iraq was largely supported by the United States and most Arab regimes. The war had an unanticipated consequence: Iranians with previously divergent views banned together behind their government in the face of this external threat. This development reinforced the outcome of the revolution. At the same time, as it united Iranian hard-liners and moderates even more against the United States, it influenced the nature of the future relationship between the two countries.