U.S. Paradoxical Decision Making Towards Iranian Revolution, 1976-1979

A review of the history of Islamic revolution shows that the decisions and policies of Pahlavi’s government were; to a great extend، under the influence of western bloc including U. S. leaders. It is aimed in this paper to find out the impact of Carter’s paradoxical decisions on the occurrence of Islamic revolution in Iran. With this in mind as main objective، the principles of “decision making model” in foreign policy are applied to the making of decisions during Pahlavi’s regime and Islamic revolution. Then، this paper addresses the impact of Carter’s paradoxical decisions on both Pahlavi’s regime and the process of Islamic Revolution. It is also tried to examine the capability of decision making theory in the explanation of Islamic revolution.