In recent years, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has threatened to annihilate Israel, punish the United States for its foreign policy, and engaged in various terrorist attacks. These include blowing up buildings housing US military personnel, to assassinating government officials, as well as planting bombs on passenger planes. Simultaneously, Iran has given aid to the predominately Christian country of Armenia in its war against the overwhelmingly Muslim country of Azerbaijan, called for the umma to unite in providing justice and material assistance for the poor, and asked Shia Muslims in Afghanistan to work with coalition forces there to overthrow the Taliban and help stabilize the country. So which one of these two series of events represents the real Iran? In this analysis of Iran's foreign policy, the author Eric Wentz reveals the logic behind a sometimes bewildering display of both revolutionary zeal emanating from its founding as an Islamic state in 1979, as well as the pragmatism and seeming contradictions of realpolitik.