Seventeen years after the revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has fallen on hard times. Indeed, argues Wright, author of In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade (1989), "the Islamic regime can no longer hope to survive over the long term under the economic and political system established after the 1979 revolution."

Iran's population has almost doubled since the revolution--from 34 million to nearly 65 million. Oil revenues have dropped about two-thirds, driven down by falling prices. The country's oil industry is badly in need of modernization, Wright says, as is industry in general. While the regime poured billions of petrodollars into the military during the 1980-88 war with Iraq, it left industry to stagnate. Today, up to two-thirds of Iran's factories run at limited capacity because they lack raw materials, spare parts, and new equipment. Unemployment has climbed to 30 percent, and among those aged 15 to 24, it is twice that.

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