Understanding the unfolding geopolitical drama around Iran requires an understanding of its history. There is perhaps no better English language source for such a review than Abbas Amanat’s Iran: A Modern History, first published in 2017.

Any accurate strategic analysis of the situation in Iran must draw on information relevant to the history, politics, and culture of the nation. Western familiarity with Iran can be limited to a view through reflection of US history, focusing on the revolution and the US Embassy hostage crisis in 1979 and more recent wars with Iran’s neighbours.

In contrast, Amanat traces the development of today’s modern state, the latest iteration of what has been a millennia-long nation in some form or another. Beginning with the emergence of the Safavid Empire, Amanat recalls the rise of a distinctly Shia Persian Iran whose realm nevertheless encompassed a range of ethnically and religiously diverse groups along the periphery of what the Safavids then called ‘the guarded domains of Iran’. Tension between the powerful Shia Persian core and other groups—including Kurds, Azeris, the Baloch, Arabs and Turkmens—is a longstanding feature of Iranian statehood, with various groups repeatedly unwilling to sacrifice their cultural identities in favour of a narrow, monocultural conception of Iranian identity.

Much of the book is dedicated to the 20th century. Amanat details the pivotal moments in Iran’s modern history: the 1905–1911 Constitutional Revolution; the two world wars; the 1953 coup backed by the CIA- and MI6; the 1979 Islamic Revolution; and the 2009 Green Movement. Recurring historical themes dominate: Persian centralisation of power, including over natural resources; the persecution, state-directed or otherwise, of both ethnic minorities, such as the Kurds, and religious minorities, such as Baha’is; the marginalisation of women; a tense rural-urban divide; modernisation; the arts; agriculture; foreign influence; and the role of Shia clergy.

Amanat should be praised for his focus on two themes often obscured from historic, and strategic, analysis.

The first is Shi’ism and the role of Iran’s clerical authorities in the state. Islamic jurisprudence and the complexity of Shia governance is a theme with which many Western readers would be unfamiliar, and the book deftly guides readers through its essential role in society, religion and politics in Iran.

The task demands meticulous analysis and sophisticated explication, and Amanat patiently describes terminology that is perhaps unique to Shi’ism and the Islamic Republic’s form of governance. No understanding of modern Iran is complete without a grasp, even faintly, of the role of the country’s ecclesiastical establishment in politics.

The second is the description of the arts. Forays into Iranian architecture, music, handcrafts, poetry and cinema convey beauty, while also explaining Iran’s social and political history.

If there is one take-away from Iran: A Modern History for Australian policy makers, diplomats and strategic analysts, it is Iran’s sense of itself as a nation of consequence and Iranians as custodians of a great intellectual, artistic, technological and cultural heritage that has enriched human civilisation. Yet today, many Iranians feel that the country fails to live up to this legacy, floundering as a global pariah and stifled at home.

However, when Iran is given to rapid and revolutionary changes, the ensuing leadership often represent a narrow grouping of Iranian society. Amanat has elsewhere indicated his disdain for revolutions because they have been ‘miserable in terms of their outcome’. He argues that narrow political representation is a recipe for instability, for example the 1953 coup, the White Revolution and the Islamic Revolution.

And this instability tends to be at the centre of challenges to Australia’s interests in relation to Iran. Instability can result in: oil shocks; sanctions that stifle trade, tourism and research cooperation; armed conflict; hostage diplomacy; human rights abuses; and espionage activities on Australian soil. Additionally, the growing Iranian diaspora will also want to see Australian parliamentarians raise their concerns here and abroad.

A word, too, on media discourse as it prevails in the West and in Australia in particular. Most Iranians—including non-Persians and non-Shias—value the political unity of Iran as single state. They view ethnic, religious (including, increasingly, agnostics and atheists) and ideological heterogeneity as a characteristic feature, if not a strength, of the nation. For this reason, separatist struggles are largely absent from recent Iranian history.

Naive suggestions by commentators that regime change in Iran can be implemented by arming and supporting separatist movements are ill-informed and, if acted upon, likely to result in a response reminiscent of the bloody suppression of Kurds following their uprising against Saddam Hussein. Even in the context of Israel’s bombing of Iranian nuclear sites and top military brass, many Iranians eschew violence as the path to change.

However Iran emerges from the conflict with Israel, Australia, as a leader in human rights advocacy and the rules-based order, should support the Iranian people to realise their potential and exercise their rights. This is work that Australia has done, principally through the United Nations, for decades. A more equal Iran is a more stable Iran.