The remarkable events of the recent past, however, have had a subtle yet perceptible impact on Tehran’s foreign policy, opening the possibility of international pressure having a measurable impact on Iran’s behavior. Throughout the late 1990s despite the assumption of the presidency by the reformist Muhammad Khatami, factional politics, competing centers of power and the legacy of revolution obstructed Iran’s uneasy transition from a revisionist to a pragmatic state. Too often, national interests were sacrificed at the altar of revolutionary dogma.