Between Feb. 11, 1979 and April 1 of that same year, Iran's stewardship changed hands. With the ousting of the shah, a modern, forward-thinking – though rather autocratic – emperor, who had no qualms about allowing his secret police, the dreaded Savak, to maintain order, Iran's political pendulum went full swing to the other side. Power fell into the hands of ultra-conservative Shiite clerics, who's supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – a rather ruthless dictator – had even less qualms than the shah, letting loose his Revolutionary Guards, secret police, and assorted revolutionaries on the populace to execute people by the hundreds to keep the Islamic revolution on track.

Khomeini's vision was to export his revolution and version of Islam beyond Iran and to the rest of the region as a first step. And why not beyond, as a second step?

But, from the very start, Khomeini realized that it was proving far more difficult to export his revolution than he anticipated. A primary reason was that Iran is an overwhelmingly Shiite country surrounded by a sea of Sunni Muslims. To say that the two have a hard time getting along would be a gross understatement. The animosity between the two main branches of Islam dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad, when followers and descendants of the Imam Ali, a cousin of the prophet, clashed with the Sunni majority over who was to be the true successor to the Prophet.

That battle continues to this day and is most prominent in the violence that has been gripping Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. Memories carry long in this part of the world and Iran's Sunni neighbors were not about to change century-old norms. Iran has tried repeatedly to impose itself as the dominant player in the Middle East and the Gulf region. Yet in 29 years, the truth of the matter is the Shiites have very little to show for it. Despite having invested hundreds of millions of dollars supporting various groups and movements that the clergy in Tehran believed would help spread Khomeini's dream of expanding his revolution, the dream has not materialized.

In 29 years of continued strife and trying to foment Islamic revolutions hither and yonder, Iran has very few concrete results to show for its efforts. Until the war in Iraq the only foothold Tehran had in the Arab world was in Lebanon, due to its support of the country's important Shiite community. Following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which gave birth to the Lebanese Shiite movement known as Hezbollah, Iran saw a golden opportunity to establish an outpost in the center of the Sunni heartland, and at the same time in the only Middle Eastern country with a large Christian population. Iran invested heavily in Lebanon's Hezbollah, and continues to do so to this day.

Always looking for new alliances, Iran has more recently supported the Sunni group, Hamas, in the Palestinian territories. But by any standards these are rather slim results, considering that the Arab League has 22 member countries and the Organization of the Islamic Conference has 58 countries and that Iran has invested heavily in its revolutionary vision for 29 years. In fact, many analysts would argue that the revolution hit a brick wall a long time ago. And that the revolution had in essence stalled, sputtered and come to a complete halt way back.

However, the war in Iraq is – just like the eight-year Iran-Iraq war was – for lack of better words, "a godsend," that has kept the Islamic revolution going.

Enter Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a young maverick who now tries to inject new life in the revolution. And what better way to accomplish this than to use the strategy that fired up the 1979 Islamic Revolution. That is, simply, to stoke and feed a high level of antagonism with the United States.

But, Ahmadinejad takes matters steps further. Blatant verbal attacks against Israel will always grab the media's attention. And then, there can be few better ways to provoke the wrath of the United States and the Europeans than to delve into nuclear technology, knowing this will raise large red flags flying over the Islamic republic.

Realistically, though, is there a genuine Iranian threat today?

Not from a nuclear perspective. The ruling mullahs know full well that even if the Islamic republic becomes a nuclear-armed, its arsenal – if ever developed – would never come close to anyone in the Western alliance.

No indeed, the threat from Iran is far more low-tech, emanating principally from Tehran's ability to infiltrate agents in Europe and the United States, to support groups involved in terrorist activities and to finance organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas to counter U.S. and European influence in the Middle East. Tehran's friendship pact with Damascus is about as far as Tehran will get with any Arab country.

And how long is it likely to last?

After years of berating Damascus, the sudden silence regarding Syria in President George W. Bush's final State of the Union address was deafening. Syria is already looking ahead to the post-Bush years, hoping to convince the next U.S. administration that perhaps in return for the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, and a free hand in Lebanon, Damascus would be willing to scrap its alliance with Tehran.

In its run-up to the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution next year, the mullahs would be pretty much back at the starting block where they began. The difference now, though, 30 years later, is that a large segment of the population of Iran has stopped believing in the Islamic Revolution.