Karim Sadjadpour’s recent piece in Foreign Policy, “The Sources of Soviet Iranian Conduct”, likens the Islamic Republic to the Soviet Union and political Islam to communism: in doing so, he reflects a very profound misjudgment. While it may be true that Iran needs America as an enemy as the Soviets did, in also much the same way that it can be argued the United States needs the scourge of terrorism as a nemesis, it is hardly the case that any perceived enmity is artificial and purely for the purpose of internal consumption.
