Iran foreign policy

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 Table of Contents
Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ 2

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3

Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 4

Lebanon Hostage Crisis .......................................................................................................... 8

Iran’s Nuclear Development Program .................................................................................. 10

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 13

References ................................................................................................................................. 14

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Introduction
For half a century the making of foreign policy has been studied in Western democratic

countries as a field of specialization separate from the making of public policy in general. This

intellectual differentiation rests upon implicit and explicit assumptions about the way the

foreign policy field differs from other areas of public policy (Ansari, 2006). The leading

assumption is that foreign policy is “more important” than other policy areas because it

concerns national interests, rather than special interests, and more fundamental values. A second

assumption builds upon the first: since foreign policy questions evoke a different political

response, it is assumed that political institutions function differently when they confront foreign

policy issues. In addition, of course, different institutions are also involved, in that some

governmental agencies are concerned exclusively or substantially with foreign policy. There is

growing uncertainty among political scientists, in the United States at least, as to the validity of

these assumptions. There is also considerable skepticism concerning the theoretical value of

treating foreign policy processes as analytically distinctive—a skepticism that will undoubtedly

draw all the different public policy research fields closer together in the future. Nevertheless,

the present state of our knowledge reflects, for better or worse, a set of beliefs about the

uniqueness of foreign policy processes within the political order (Arjomand, 2009).

Understanding Iran’s foreign policy is the key to crafting sensible and effective policies toward

Iran and requires, above all, a close analysis of the profound cultural and psychological contexts

of Iranian foreign policy behavior. For Iran, the past is always present. A paradoxical

combination of pride in Iranian culture and a sense of victimization have created a fierce sense

of independence and a culture of resistance to dictation and domination by any foreign power

among the Iranian people. Iranian foreign policy is rooted in these widely held sentiments

(Buchta, 2007).

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Iran’s foreign policy behavior is among the most pressing security challenges facing the world

today. Listed by the U.S. Department of State as a sponsor of terror and developing a nuclear

capability in the heart of the Middle East, understanding Iran’s intentions and motivations is

clearly in the national interest of the United States. It may be possible to predict probable

Iranian responses to future diplomatic or military actions through a proper understanding and

rigorous modeling of historical Iranian state behavior (Buchta, 2007).

Discussion
Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and especially during the war that followed against Iraq,

the media of the Western world have associated Iran mainly with eclipsed and irrational

religious fundamentalism. However, a lot has happened in the Islamic Republic since its

charismatic founder and leader died in 1989, and even though the ideological teachings of the

Revolution remain a central point of reference, Iran today faces great challenges, nationally,

regionally and internationally, which require pragmatic solutions that are not always in

accordance with these teachings (Clawson2009).

Being the world’s second largest exporter of oil, and having by far the largest population and

population density in the geographical Middle East, Iran simply cannot be ignored, either

regionally or internationally. Iran's geopolitical position at the crossroads of the Middle East,

the Gulf Region, the Caucasus and Central Asia has made the country a key actor historically as

well as in modern times, and both regionally and internationally. For the same reasons, Iran is

deeply dependent on its foreign relations. On the basis of the DIIS report in Danish on Iran's

foreign policy drawn up by the present author, this brief offers a short outline of how Iranian

post-revolutionary foreign policy has shaped and been shaped by the country’s national,

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regional and international relations, and discusses whether this foreign policy has been

motivated primarily by rational or ideological issues. In this context, special attention is paid to

the development of Iran’s relations with the West – especially the United States – which has

shown itself to be decisive for the course of Iranian foreign policy. Hence, in spite of its

reputation since the end of the war against Iraq, and especially since the death of Ayatollah

Khomeini, Iran has proved to be a well-institutionalised, rational actor, which has mainly put its

strategic interests before its ideological ones in questions of foreign policy (Clawson2009).

As with other states in the Middle East, Iran’s foreign policy can be viewed as shaped by

pressure from three distinct environments that often pull against one another: (1) the national

environment; (2) the regional environment; and (3) the global environment. In the case of Iran,

as described above, the pressure from the two latter environments has increased considerably

since the terrorist attacks in the United States of 9/11 2001 and the subsequent US-led invasions

of Iran’s two neighbours, Afghanistan and Iraq. During the presidency of George W. Bush,

three questions have been central in relations between Iran and the international community: (1)

the role of Iran in the Israel-Palestine conflict; (2) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and (3)

Iran's nuclear activities (Graetzer et al., 2010).

In respect of the two first points, for years, and especially since 2006, the purpose of and

justification for Iran’s nuclear programme have been topics of heated discussion both within and

outside the framework of the United Nations Security Council, reviving internationally the

question of whether the Islamic Republic of Iran can be viewed as a rational actor in its foreign

policy. But even though the latter may appear to be the case judging from the escalation in anti-

Western and anti-Israeli rhetoric, in reality the neoconservatives who have come to power in

Iran have not changed the degree of rationality in the country’s foreign policy all that much.

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Only where ideological interests appear to coincide with strategic interests, or where the latter

are not very important, are the former allowed to prevail. A good example of this is the contrast

between Ahmadinejad's denunciations of Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people on the one

hand (Israel being an American proxy in this context) and the Islamic regime’s silence vis-à-vis

Russian persecution of Muslims in Chechnya and Chinese persecution of them in Xinjiang

province on the other (Keddie, 2009). While criticising Israel is fairly risk-free at a time when a

further deterioration in relations between Iran on the one hand and Israel and the US on the

other seems almost impossible, the urge to defend the rights of Muslims abroad disappears

when important strategic and economic relations are at stake. Hence Iran's extensive

cooperation with countries like Russia, China and India clearly bears witness to pragmatism

taking precedence over ideology in the country’s foreign relations (Kuhn, 2009).

Yet especially during periods of increased tension and international pressure on Iran, as in the

1980s or from 2001 onwards, the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic has been characterised

by ad hoc strategies and the apparent absence of a long-term strategic foreign-policy plan. Since

9/11, 2001, and especially since the launch of the ‘Axis of Evil’ paradigm in 2003, Iran and the

United States have both been fighting a form of trench warfare, with the security issue at its

core on both sides. In this regard, one can rightfully claim that the Bush and Ahmadinejad

administrations have needed each other. The Bush administration has repeatedly rejected any

form of dialogue between the two countries without Iran unconditionally giving up all its

nuclear activities. Instead the United States has been the active leader of a Western policy

towards Iran that combines economic sanctions and threats of military intervention in an attempt

to influence Iran’s national and foreign policy. Yet this strategy has not had the effect intended:

while it has been successful in further crippling the Iranian economy, rather than softening the

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country’s policy towards the West, this strategy seems only to have served to further isolate and

radicalise the now neo-conservative leadership of the Islamic Republic. And as long as Iran

remains isolated from the West, it is difficult to imagine a more homogenous and long-term

‘Western-minded’ foreign policy emerging from the leadership in Tehran (Kuhn, 2009).

Iranians value the influence that their ancient religion, Zoroastrianism, has had on Judaism,

Christianity, and Islam. They take pride in 30 centuries of arts and artifacts, in the continuity of

their cultural identity over millennia, in having established the first world state more than 2,500

years ago, in having organized the first international society that respected the religions and

cultures of the people under their rule, in having liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity,

and in having influenced Greek, Arab, Mongol, and Turkish civilizations — not to mention

having influenced Western culture indirectly through Iranian contributions to Islamic

civilization (Limbert, 2009).

At the same time, however, Iranians feel they have been oppressed by foreign powers

throughout their history. They remember that Greeks, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, and most recently

Saddam Husayn’s forces all invaded their homeland. Iranians also remember that the British

and Russian empires exploited them economically, subjugated them politically, and invaded and

occupied their country in two World Wars (Ma'oz, 2010).

The facts that the United States aborted Iranian democratic aspirations in 1953 by overthrowing

the government of Prime Minister Muhammad Musaddeq, returned the autocratic Shah to the

throne, and thereafter dominated the country for a quarter century is deeply seared into Iran’s

collective memory. Likewise, just as the American overthrow of Musaddeq was etched into the

Iranian psyche, the Iranian taking of American hostages in 1979 was engraved into the

American consciousness. Iran’s relations with the United States have been shaped not only by a

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mutual psychological trauma but also by collective memory on the Iranian side of 70 years of

amicable Iran-US relations (McFarlane, 2010).

In spite of these historical wounds, Iranians remember American support of their first attempt to

establish a democratic representative government in 1905-1911; American championing of

Iran’s rejection of the British bid to impose a protectorate on Iran after World War I; American

support of Iran’s resistance to Soviet pressures for an oil concession in the 1940s; and, above all

else, American efforts to protect Iran’s independence and territorial integrity by pressuring the

Soviet Union to end its occupation of northern Iran at the end of World War II (McFarlane,

2010)..

Lebanon Hostage Crisis

The Lebanon hostage crisis began in the early 1980s and lasted until approximately 1992. The

hostages, mostly Western European and American, were abducted mainly by Islamic Jihad, an

organization closely affiliated with Lebanese Hezbollah. Lebanese Hezbollah itself was

subordinate to Iran, its principal benefactor (along with Syria). Iran coordinated with Lebanese

Hezbollah through the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the IRGC’s Office of

Liberation Movements (Ma'oz, 2010).

The Lebanon Hostage Crisis, sometimes referred to as the Western Hostage Crisis, did not

originate with the abduction of Western hostages. The crisis began with the abduction of four

politically important Iranians by Christian militiamen in Beruit during the summer of 1982. The

four stopped by Lebanese Forces militia included: Sayyed Mohsen Musavi, Iran’s chargé

d’affaires to Lebanon; Ahmad Motevasselian, the commander of the IRGC contingent at

Ba’albek; Kazem Akhavan, a photographer for the IRNA; and their driver, Taqi Rastegar

Moqddam, a dual citizen of Lebanon and Iran. According to Samir Geagea in 1990, the

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Lebanese Forces commander, Elie Hobeika ordered their execution “within hours of their

arrival.” The government of Iran disputes this account, claiming that all or some of the Iranians

continue to be held in Israeli prisons(Ma'oz, 2010).

In swift response, Iranian proxies abducted David Dodge, the president of the American

University in Beirut (AUB) on 19 July. Taken to the IRGC headquarters at Ba’albek, Dodges’

incarceration continued in Iran until the Syrian government intervened to secure his release the

following year, on 21 July 1983. Despite the obvious connection between the abduction of the

four Iranians by Lebanese Forces, widely viewed as proxies of Israel and the U.S., and the

abduction of David Dodge; no demands or justifications were communicated to the U.S.

government regarding his detention, underscoring the communications difficulties that plagued

kidnapping operations in Lebanon throughout the 1980s. The fact that an immediate response

for the abduction of the Iranians was politically required, combined with the relatively new

IRGC force structure that was still building up in Lebanon, provides a likely explanation for

both the poor communication regarding the purpose of taking David Dodge hostage, as well as

the poor operational security that led to the U.S. discovery that he was taken to Tehran and

incarcerated at the Evin prison. Regardless, upon his release, kidnapping operations would not

resume until early 1984 with the abduction of Hussein Farrash, and the assassination of

Malcolm Kerr.

The first Western hostages were apparently taken in retaliation for the actions of Lebanese

Christian militia forces, but subsequent hostage-taking served a number of purposes, from quid

pro quo prisoner exchanges to demands for changes to U.S. foreign policy. Significantly, the

most tangible result of U.S. hostage-taking was the sale of U.S. arms to Iran, critically needed

by the Iranian government in its decade-long war with Iraq (Ma'oz, 2010).

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Explanations for Iran’s hostage policy draw on its need for regional security, revolutionary

ideological mission, internal factionalist squabbles, long-standing cultural ties with Lebanon,

and iterative processes of negotiation between domestic imperatives and international

relationships. The historical facts of the crisis clearly demonstrate that the majority of these

explanations are not coherent. Iran abandons its rational security interests as a result of

factionalist infighting. In favor of its security interest, Iran consistently eschews its ideology as

well as its cultural ties to Lebanon. Factionalist rivalries and two-level game theory turn out to

be the only explanations that satisfy the requirements of falsifiability, coherence, and simplicity.

Iran’s Nuclear Development Program

Iran’s nuclear development program was long suspected during the 1990s; but it was not until

2002 that an enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water facility at Arak was disclosed by

an Iranian dissident group. Both facilities were primitive, but took the U.S. and the rest of the

international community by surprise. Calls for an immediate suspension of the program were

made, and negotiations began to come up with a longterm solution to international concerns

over Iran’s obligations as a signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Subsequent

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections were suspended, and according to

Mark Fitzpatrick, Iran can produce enough weapons-grade Uranium to be used in a bomb within

“a couple of months.”

Iran’s isolation from the West continued largely until the strategic opening in the aftermath of

9/11. Khatami’s second term and the common interests of the U.S. and Iran against the Taliban

aligned briefly, until the discovery of Iran’s secret nuclear facilities and the Karine A incident

led back to the status quo. Internal politics then took on a roleas the rise of a generation of

neoconservative politicians in 2005, promoting the nuclear issue, attests to the emotive appeal

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of a nuclear capability for much of the electorate. Nevertheless, as the NIC estimate of 2007

points out, the program began several years prior to the public promotion of the issue. The

reasons behind it, therefore, were not related to its domestic appeal.

The principal figures behind Iran’s nuclear development program during the Khomeini era were

Mir Hossein Musavi, the Prime Minister (and “green” candidate for the recent presidential

election), and Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the powerful Speaker of the Majles. Musavi was

a staunch member of the Islamic Left throughout the 1980s, heavily involved with Lebanese

Hezbollah and the arms-for-hostages scandal, as mentioned in Chapter II. Together they

managed to keep Iran’s nuclear program alive throughout the Iran-Iraq War. During his

subsequent terms as president, Rafsanjani managed to begin serious development of the nuclear

program.

Khatami continued Rafsanjani’s efforts until the discovery of the centrifuge enrichment facility

at Natanz in 2002. Further revelations unleashed a firestorm of concern in the West, and

demands for immediate suspension of the program as well as a strict inspection regime per

Iran’s status as a signatory to the NPT. Crossing factional lines, Iran’s nuclear program enjoyed

broad-based support from both the left (Khatami’s reformist movement) and right (both

Rafsanjani’s modern right and Khameini’s traditionalists). It was under Khatami, however, that

the nuclear program flourished, as a result of the premium the Khatami administration placed on

technical expertise as opposed to religious and revolutionary credentials.113 The near-universal

support the nuclear program enjoyed, however, was not unqualified. According to Takeyh,

Iran’s willingness to concede to the demands of the West with a long-term voluntary suspension

of the program was undermined by the U.S. administration’s constant pressure on the Europeans

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for more Iranian concessions. In the end, Khatami’s administration came to an end and

Rafsanjani lost the next election to Ahmadinedjad.

Assuming power in a disconcerting foreign policy climate, Ahmadinedjad, predisposed to

supporting the nuclear development program in defiance of the U.S., found justification in the

comparative outcomes of Iraqi and North Korean nuclear development programs. Iraq, without

a nuclear capability, was invaded by the U.S. North Korea, with its demonstrated nuclear

capability, was not. Ahmadinedjad’s calculation, therefore, was simple. He retained the

eminently efficient Gholam Reza Aghazadeh from the previous two successive Khatami

administrations, until Aghazadeh’s resignation in 2009 (presumably in protest over the

contested elections). Restarting the nuclear program in early 2006, Iran continues to defy calls

for suspending their enrichment program. The 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran

states that Iran could have a nuclear weapon sometime between 2010 and 2015.

Realist explanations for Iran’s nuclear program, as well as factional and two-level game theory

explanations, are all coherent. Iran would likely be more secure as a result of having a nuclear

capability. There is no political faction within Iran that is opposed to a nuclear capability,

though there are factions that would accept a security guarantee from the U.S. and renewed

economic ties in lieu of continuing the program. Two-level game theory explanations likewise,

taking advantage of realist and factional explanations, maintain coherence. Ideological and

constructivist explanations both fail to address why Khomeini would break with his stated

opposition to nuclear weapons by maintaining a nuclear program throughout the 1980s, or why

Khameini and the rest of the “revolutionary” clergy would explicitly break with Khomeini’s

ideology in order to develop a weapons program

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Conclusion
In spite of its reputation for religious fanaticism, at least since the end of the Iran-Iraq war the

Islamic Republic of Iran has shown itself to be a rational actor in foreign policy overall. Yet

since 9/11, 2001, and particularly since 2003, the dialogue between Iran and the West, which

will be crucial in bringing Iran out of international isolation and thus brightening its economic

future, has seemed increasingly impossible. The combination of economic sanctions and threats

of military intervention against Iran, launched to promote political reforms, has been shown to

have had little or no effect other than further alienation.

The interplay of harsh mutual rhetorical outbursts and retorts and threats of military action of

recent years have not only marred relations between the Iran and the United States (and the

West), but also the prospect of stability in the Middle East and Western Asia, a process in which

Iran is a key actor. However, as with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, initiating a precondition-

free dialogue between Iran and the West, rather than continuing on the current course of mutual

confrontation, remains the only way to turn this negative situation around. With a newly elected,

and apparently dialogue seeking President Barack Obama in the White House, and with an

Iranian presidential election coming up in 2009, it remains to be seen whether such dialogue

will, after all, prove possible.

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References

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Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy, by Brenda Shaffer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Arjomand, Said (2009). After Khomeini: Iran under his successors. New York, NY: Oxford

University Press.

Buchta, Wilfried (2007). Who Rules Iran? The structure of power in the Islamic Republic.

Washington D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Clawson, Patrick, (2009). "Middle East Forum," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2007,

http://www.meforum.org/1068/could-sanctions-work-against-tehran.

Graetzer, Hans G., and David L. Anderson (2010). The Discovery of Nuclear Fission. New

York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Keddie, Nikki (2009).Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution New Haven: Yale

University Press.

Kuhn, Thomas, (2009). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Chicago: University of Chicago.

Limbert, John W. (2009). Negotiating with Iran. Washington D.C.: United States Institute of

Peace.

Ma'oz, Moshe, (2010). Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking. New York: Clarendon

Press, Oxford.

McFarlane, Robert, (2010). "Document 60: Draft National Security Decision Directive, "U.S.

Policy toward Iran," 17 June 1985." In The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History,

edited by Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm Byrne, 225. New York: The New Press, 1993.

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2002.

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