Narratives in regional arms control negotiations

Both the United States and Iran have been disproportionately affected by the global Covid-19 pandemic. In early 2020, news and pictures of plague victims shifted the worldwide attention away from the renewed escalation of the decades-old conflict between Iran and the United States. The Iranian leadership was sure that this announcement would generate a maximum of international attention. According to Khomeini, the Iranian Revolution implied an obligation to reintroduce Islam as a revelation for the whole of humankind, not only for the Muslim world. The devastating consequences of the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s and Iran’s subsequent near-total international isolation added to the country’s woes. On July 3, 1988 the US destroyer Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft over the Persian Gulf. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Fen Osler Hampson and Amrita Narlikar;individual chapters, the contributors.