Realism and Liberalism in U.S.
One of the longer international conflicts in recent history is the perpetual state of conflict which has existed between the United States and Iran, a revamped Cold War of ideological rivals that has simmered since the 1979 Islamic Revolution resulted in a prolonged hostage crisis. Beginning with President Jimmy Carter's humiliation at the hands of the embassy hostage takers in Tehran, and continuing through the 1980's as the Reagan Administration retaliated to Hezbollah terrorist attacks by shooting down Iran Air Flight 655 in an ostensibly erroneous application of military power, the state of international relations between America and Iran has been defined by hostility and distrust. When President George W. Bush included Iran in his now infamous "Axis of Evil" soliloquy during his 2002 State of the Union address, this invective signaled that the impasse between these two nations, both considered economic and cultural powers within the Western and Islamic cultures respectively, had continued to harden with the progression of time. Today, the nuclear aspirations of Iran's dictatorial regime represent the most current manifestation of this increasingly volatile standoff, as President Barack Obama engages in a practical process involving stern diplomacy, targeted economic sanctions, and the use of social media to sabotage Iran's established ruling order.