Iran’s Foreign Policy
Elite Factionalism, Ideology, the Nuclear Weapons Program, and the United States
By Masoud Kazemzadeh
Routledge; 1st edition (May 5, 2020)

This book analyzes both domestic and international factors that have influenced Iran’s foreign policy since 1979. It looks not only at the perspectives of the ruling elite, but also of civil society and opposition groups. Furthermore, it also analyzes the interactions among Iran’s policies and those of regional and global powers.

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran’s foreign policy has appeared both threatening and puzzling. Some have described it as ideological, whereby the regime has been attempting to export its Islamist rule to neighbouring countries and challenging the international order. Others consider Iran’s foreign policy to be primarily pragmatic, concerned with survival of the regime and expanding its power not unlike other powers in the system. This book attempts to go deeper than most conventional analyses. It demystifies Iran’s foreign policy by describing, in great detail, foreign policy decision making in Iran. Iran is not a one-man dictatorship. Rather, it is rule by an oligarchy of Shia fundamentalists. The regime’s ideology has not been cohesive, nor has it remained consistent in the past 41 years, nor all members of the ruling oligarchy have articulated an identical version of it. The book describes foreign policies of various factions and their leading figures as well as analysing their evolutions since 1979. It explains how various intra-elite configurations of power have influenced the regime’s foreign policy regarding the nuclear weapons program and the relations with the United States.

Iran’s Foreign Policy: Elite Factionalism, Ideology, the Nuclear Weapons Program, and the United States adds fresh and critical perspectives on scholarly and policy debates on Iran’s foreign policy.

Masoud Kazemzadeh is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Sam Houston State University, USA. He received his BA in international relations from the University of Minnesota, and his MA and PhD in political science from the University of Southern California. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Introduction

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran’s foreign policy has appeared both threatening and puzzling.  Some have described it as ideological, whereby the regime has been attempting to export its Islamist rule to neighbouring countries and challenging the international order.  Others consider Iran’s foreign policy to be primarily pragmatic, concerned with survival of the regime and expanding its power not unlike other powers in the system.  This book attempts to go deeper than most conventional analyses.  

In this book, I attempt to explain and demystify Iran’s foreign policy by describing, in great detail, its foreign policy decision making.  Iran is not a one-man dictatorship.  Rather, it is ruled by an oligarchy comprised of fundamentalist Shia clerics and lay fundamentalists.    

In Chapter 1, I demonstrate how foreign policy is formulated and conducted by analysing the roles of factions and their leaders within various institutions and offices such as the Supreme Leader, Presidency, Supreme National Security Council, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).  The role and power of each of these offices has ebbed and flowed since 1979.  I situate the evolution of these offices within the struggles among various factions and their leaders.  

I show that the regime’s ideology has not been cohesive, nor has it remained consistent since 1979, nor all members of the ruling oligarchy have articulated an identical version of it.  The chapter describes views and foreign policy proposals of various factions and their leading figures as well as analyses their evolutions since 1979.  It analyzes how various intra-elite configurations of power have influenced the regime’s foreign policy regarding the nuclear weapons program, relations with the U.S., and Iran’s regional policies.  Although the 1979 Constitution and the 1989 revised Constitution gave the office of the Supreme Leader enormous powers, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ascended to that office in 1989, has had to struggle with other members of the oligarchy for exercising actual power to make binding decisions.  He has not always been successful.  At many junctures, he has had to acquiesce to the wishes of other members of the oligarchy. 

In Chapter 2, I analyse the foreign policy orientation of the most powerful figure in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  I show that both ends and means in the regime’s foreign policy contain both ideological and pragmatic elements.  In other words, perspectives that argue that the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy is either ideological or pragmatic are over-simplifications.  This chapter demonstrates the ideological (Shia fundamentalist) and pragmatic elements in both the ends and means of IRI’s foreign policy.  Moreover, I show that some of the elements are consistent with Shia fundamentalists ideology but not with a secular rationality.  

Chapter 3 attempts to provide a more nuanced analysis of the foreign policy of a major faction within the fundamentalist oligarchy through analysing the views and policies of Hojatolislam Hassan Rouhani, one of the leading figures in the regime since 1979.  Much of the scholarly, policy, and journalistic works on Iran tend to either exaggerate the differences among the fundamentalist elites or totally dismiss them.  This chapter builds upon the materials presented in chapters 1 and 2 and shows both similarities and differences among the elites ruling Iran.    

This book analyses both domestic and international factors that have influenced Iran’s foreign policy since 1979.  It looks not only at the perspectives of the ruling elite, but also the perspectives of civil society and opposition groups.  In chapter 4, I analyse the interactions among Iran’s policies and those of regional and global powers as well as the views of Iran’s main opposition groups.  

Chapter 5 further expands the analysis of Iran’s foreign policy by situating it within broader grand historical transformations that have been occurring in the Middle East and North Africa in the past 100 plus years.  The fundamentalist regime is both a product of these transformations and a major spur to some of them.  This chapter argues that there are four major crises convulsing the Middle East.  They are the Shia-Sunni conflict, rise of extremist militant fundamentalists (both Shia and Sunni), ethno-national demands, and pro-democracy movements.  These have given rise to four clusters of actors.  The chapter analyzes the ideological sources of Sunni and Shia fundamentalism as well as Iran’s grand strategy and American strategies and policies since 1979 trying to respond to these crises and challenges.  It discusses the reasons for successes and failures of American policies and identifies lessons for future American policies toward the Middle East.   

In Chapter 6, I present diverse policy options as well as discuss and analyze their consequences for various actors.  This chapter does not recommend one particular policy.  It does, however, analyse which options and policies would be the worst-case-scenarios for some or all players.  

In Chapter 7, I argue that a potential war between the U.S. and Iran would, in all likelihood, contain major asymmetrical elements.  In its conflicts with others, the fundamentalist regime has utilized terrorism and hostage-taking as tools of statecraft.  Utilizing its previous clandestine actions, I show what might be some likely actions that the fundamentalist regime may carry out inside the United States.  

In this book, I use the term “fundamentalist regime” for “Nizam Velayat Faqih.”  The literal translation would be the “system of rule by a high-ranking Shia cleric.”  This system was established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran after the 1979 revolution.  

I use the term “fundamentalists” for the supporters of Khomeini and his regime.  This includes the officials and supporters of the Islamic Republican Party (IRP).  Between February 1979 and June 1981, many non-fundamentalists were part of the post-revolution governing structure.  For example, liberal Islamist Liberation Movement of Iran, under the leadership of Mehdi Bazargan, who served as the prime minister in the provisional government, was a main element within the governing structure.  Also the first elected president was Dr. Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, a progressive liberal Islamist.  The non-fundamentalists also included the secular liberal democrats and secular social democrats of the Iran National Front under the leadership of Dr. Karim Sanjabi.  All the non-fundamentalists were purged from positions of power by June 1981.  The fundamentalists then eliminated many non-fundamentalist groups and individuals (e.g., Marxists, left-wing Islamists, and ethnic minority parties) through violence and mass executions.   

I use the term “fundamentalist oligarchy” to refer to those who supported Khomeini’s interpretation of Islam and were officials in the post-June 1981 regime.  The IRP soon split into three main factions: left, center, and right.  Around 1997, the left faction of the fundamentalist oligarchy (e.g., Mohammad Khatami, Mir Hussein Moussavi, and Mehdi Karrubi) chose the name “reformist,” while the right faction (e.g., Ali Khamenei) became known as “hard-liners” or “principlists.”  The center faction (e.g., Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Hassan Rouhani) became known as “moderates,” or “pragmatic conservatives,” or “expedients.”  Some fundamentalists use the term “khodi” [of one’s own] to refer to the members of the fundamentalist oligarchy and use the term “gher-e khodi” [not of one’s own] to refer to non-fundamentalists.    

The first three chapters present domestic and foreign policies of each faction and its leaders as well as their evolutions since 1979.  All the chapters attempt to explain the complex interactions of domestic and international factors in the making of Iran’s foreign policy.  This book hopes to add fresh perspectives on scholarly and policy debates on Iran’s foreign policy.