In case Evan doesn't receive my PM soon, here's the summary for

[b]Persia[/b]: Persia has underwent quite a radical change in the past decade. After a period of intermittent upheaval in the two decades following the close of the Great War, in 1927, which nearly brought the monarchy to its knees, pitting it first against the communists, then against the various ethnic groups, and finally the most extreme religious figures, the country stagnated socially and politically under the reign of Fereydoun Shah Qajar, who lacked the will to contest the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's increasingly powerful grip on the nation. This period came to an end with the assassination of the sick Shah along with his presumptive heir on December 8th 1970 by Kurdish terrorists, secretly supported by the Shah's very own son, Ali Mohammad, convinced of the necessity of radical change.

 Immediately following his accession to the throne, his elder brother Qoram having been excluded of the succession for his communist sympathies, the Shah announced sweeping reforms, the foremost being the organization of free elections to elect a constituent assembly whose mission would be to draft a democratic constitution for the country, up to then an absolute monarchy. 

 The Shah's first move was to strike the Anglo-Persian by nationalizing it, returning its assets and revenues to the government. Less than a month after his arrival to power, the Shah was confronted with the necessity of intervention in neighboring Saudi Arabia, whose civil war was threatening to destabilize the entire Middle East. In conjunction with Ethiopia, a quick war was fought in late December-early January, which led to the partition of the country, the eastern regions, along with the Trucial States and Oman, populated mostly by Shi'a, and holding most of the oil reserves, going to Persia, while Hejaz went to Ethiopia, Najd itself remaining as an independent country, the Saudi family ousted from power. Yemen declared its independence in October 1971, concluding the collapse of the Saudi monarchy.

 In his first six months of power, the Shah enacted a number of decrees introducing freedom of the press, of religion and giving civil rights to women, all of which were threatened in the immediate aftermath of the elections of July 1971 when a slight majority of the seats were found to be filled by conservative to extremely hard-line Islamists, resulting in massive protests. Eventually the constitution, adopted in November 1971, was written along much more consensual lines, safeguarding fundamental democratic rights and organizing the country along federal lines, to accommodate the ethnic minorities, which represent a sizable part of the population as well as of the parliament. 

 In the years since, the government, mostly centrist, has overseen an economic boom in Persia, fueled by the growing global demand for fossil fuels, serving the industrial take-off of the country, allowing it to adopt a number of social policies such as minimum wage and a basic social net, among others. Furthermore, it has spearheaded the modernization of the country, bringing running water, electricity and roads to the country's poor and isolated rural areas, as well as the development of an efficient and compulsory education system. 

 In international diplomacy, the country remained for the better part of the decade more or less neutral, intervening only to safeguard its immediate interests such as on Iraq, threatened with an invasion by the Ottoman Empire, or in India, where the communist-backed UFI was making significant inroads. There, starting from 1976, the persian government massively supported the local Punarjanam movement, a disparate group lead by Kanda Timay Bagalkoti, calling for the regeneration of the country on its own terms, within a framework of democratic debate and reform of the country. In late 1977, an armistice was signed between the two sides, setting the stage for the peace treaty which gave India its current political system, that of a federal republic neutral in ideological terms and in international affairs. Furthermore, Persia unofficially involved itself in the civil war wracking the Ottoman Empire, supporting the rebel movements, and secretly backing the new Armenian nation, building extremely close economic and military ties with it.

 These successes, accompanied by the flowering of a modern persian culture, brought on by westernization and the increasingly fast urbanization of the population, left however the nation torn between several antagonistic groups, the most liberal groups opposing the most staunchly conservative ones. On a backdrop of corruption, this lead to a near-reenactment of the civil war in 1978-1979, bringing about the most unexpected result of a victory of the Communist Party of Persia in the urns in August of 1979, leading to the formation of the first ever democratically-elected communist government in the world. 

 With the reassurance that the party, actually only the leader of a wide coalition, would guarantee the democratic form of government, the Shah, recognizing his failure at preventing the near-collapse of the nation in the past years, acquiesced to the drafting of a new constitution, which would leave him as much more of a ceremonial figurehead. This constitution, as of 1980, is still being written, clearly entrenched in secularism and preserving the many radical social and economic reforms passed in the second half of 1979, among which the total re-foundation of the judiciary system, divorce at the instigation of the wife, the right to abortion, a universal healthcare system, the legalization of homosexuality, and significant urban development plans for the poorest, as well as a land reform in favor of small owners. In an uneasy situation, the government has not, however, clearly aligned itself on China nor sought to grow closer to the 3rd international, more so because the communist party has significantly drifted apart from the communist mainstream, evolving into a more moderate and national-oriented political formation.

 In short, the country, whose rebirth has been acknowledged by the organization of the 1980 Olympic summer games, remains at a historical crossroads, ripe with opportunities and threats.

(Sorry for the text wall. I can't do anything about my natural propensity to expansiveness.)

EDIT : It's less of a wall now.