On May 7, Hussein Banai, associate professor of International Studies at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, delivered a public lecture at Stanford University’s Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies. The lecture, titled “Enmity and Revolution in Iran,” presented a new interpretive framework for understanding the Islamic Republic’s postrevolutionary trajectory — one that centers not on ideology, religion, or geopolitics alone, but on enmity as both a political practice and a psychological disposition.
Banai argued that enmity has functioned as the central axis around which the Islamic Republic has organized its internal consolidation and external projection since the revolution. From the mobilization of revolutionary fervor in its earliest years to the institutionalization of grievance and the inflation of foreign threats, the politics of enmity, he contended, animates the regime’s symbolic vocabulary, shapes its policy decisions, and undergirds its collective self-understanding. Crucially, the same logic that the regime deploys against foreign adversaries has also been turned inward, serving as a mechanism for suppressing domestic dissent and foreclosing political alternatives.
The lecture drew on Banai’s sustained research into Iran’s political development, a body of work that includes Hidden Liberalism: Burdened Visions of Progress in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Republics of Myth: National Narratives and US-Iran Conflict (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022), co-authored with colleagues. Together, these works situate Iranian political culture and U.S.-Iran relations within longer historical arcs — an approach that also informs Banai’s recent Foreign Affairs article on the divergent strategic objectives of the United States and Israel in the current conflict with Iran.
That the lecture was hosted by Stanford’s Moghadam Program — one of the nation’s foremost centers for the study of Iran and the Persian-speaking world — underscores the recognition Banai’s scholarship has earned among peers in the field. His invitation to speak at a moment of acute international attention to Iran reflects the relevance of his long-term research to the most pressing questions now confronting policymakers and analysts alike.
For students at the Hamilton Lugar School, Banai’s work exemplifies the depth of expertise available to them as they pursue studies in international affairs, Middle Eastern politics, and U.S. foreign policy. His research and teaching connect the history and political culture of Iran to the contemporary dynamics that make it one of the most consequential cases in the study of global security and international relations.
