invasion of Iraq in 2003, which belatedly educated Americans about the ancient schism between Sunnis and ShiвЂ™ites.Дuring those decades, scholars in the field of international relations were obliged to admit that seemingly atavistic religious motivations still mattered a great deal after all.

But the dark side of the force was just as apparent in that Iranian Revolution, genocidal wars in the former Yugoslavia, the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, and the insurgency following the U.S. In fact, religious actors played important roles in the democratization of 48 countries between 19. In 1994, Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu and penitent clergy in the Dutch Reformed Church were among the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Two years later, Russian Orthodox clergy and faithful babushkas shamed soldiers in Moscow into disobeying the orders of the Communist coup-plotters trying to save the Soviet Union. Lutheran churches encouraged the East German protests that toppled the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Polish labor leader Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II prayed to the Black Madonna of Czestochowa for divine protection over the Solidarity movementвЂ™s defiance of their Communist government. Liberation Theology, a volatile mix of Catholic social thought and Marxist analysis, inspired left-wing politics in Latin America. The Filipino Catholic Church was instrumental in the popular overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos regime. Events in the subsequent decade repeatedly underscored the growing role of faith-based movements.ДЇor instance, the Afghan mujaheddin who defied the Red Army were also Muslim jihadis who cried вЂњAllah O AkbarвЂќ as they shot down Soviet helicopters with Stinger missiles. Indeed, Carter himself made an ecumenical appeal for peace when the devout Southern Baptist brokered the 1978 Camp Accords between Israel and Egypt. Why did it come as a terrible shock? The revival of religious influences on international politics was already evident in the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian, Indian-Pakistani, and Northern Irish conflicts. Nobody saw it coming, least of all the Central Intelligence Agency, but just thirteen months after CarterвЂ™s visit the Shah was in exile and his regime replaced by a theocratic Islamic Republic, whose leaders denounced the United States as the Great Satan. Just a few weeks later, strikes and protests erupted, which metastasized over the coming year into a revolution led by ShiвЂ™ite Muslims loyal to their exiled Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Khomeini. This is a great tribute to you, your majesty, and to your leadership and to the respect and the admiration and love which your people give to you.вЂќ ally in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East, as вЂњan island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world. The President took the occasion to laud Iran, a reliable U.S. On December 31, 1977, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi hosted Jimmy Carter at a state dinner in Tehran.

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