My country – Iran

My country, Iran, officially called Islamic Republic of Iran and named Persia before 1935. It is in Western Asia. Our population is around 77 million. For the multi-ethnic country, its main ethnic Persians made up 66% of the total population. We speak Persian language. Shia Islam is the official religion, which has believers over 90% of the citizens. Iran's theocracy as unique in the world, it is running a social system by religious leaders. Tehran is our capital.

Iran was an oil-rich country. However, because of the poor and weak technology, the benefit of the petroleum did not go to the Iranians but the foreigners, especially the British. In the early 1920s, Through the establishment of the ''Anglo-Iranian Oil Company'', which the British government account for a large shares, the Britain gained the vast majority of Iran's oil revenue. At that time, many of us believed that once Iran nationlized the company, problems would be solved. The democratically elected leader Mossadegh deeply advocated the nationalization of the Iranian petrol. Seeing their interests were going to be compromised, British reacted strongly and they failed the discussion with Mossadeq. Therefore, they wanted to overthrow the government. 1953 Iranian coup was a turning point in modern history. During the coup, Mossadegh government was overthrown, the nationalist movement suffered setbacks, the democratization process advocated by the modern middle class was also unsustainable, Iran resumed authoritarian regime. The United States had played a vital role, without the active participation of the US, successful coup might not be achieved. Why was the US being important but not the British? A shocking fact was disclosed in the last year. The CIA admitted that th...

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...te and they had close religious academia exchanges. Hence, Iran's power expanded in both political and culture sphere of influence. In addition, the US removed the Iranian rivals, Iraq by the Iraq War. Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown. Iran also devised huge economic benefits with the soaring energy prices. Nowadays, Iran was one of Asia's major economies. In 2012, its GPA ranked the 21st in the world. It was also the fourth largest oil producer.

This year was the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran. Iran made initial progress in nuclear talks with the World's top six (United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany). We were expected to resume normal economic and trade exchanges with the West. I believed that Iran will be getting better if it can be more open-minded for communication and cooperation with other countries.