Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that toppled the Shah and established an Islamic theocracy, Iran’s foreign policy has been focused on not only the self-preservation and survival of the Islamic Republic, but also in the expansion of its national interest throughout the greater Middle East. The 1979 revolution consequently altered the orientation of Iran’s foreign policy and created lingering instability in the Middle East region.1 At the core of Iran’s national interest, is Iran’s tacit leadership of international Shia Islam and its seeming cultural struggle with Sunni Islam led primarily by Iran’s bitter archrival, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This interstate rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a regional microcosm of the bitter rivalry that dominated the latter half of the 20th century between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US) during the Cold War.
Similar to the ayatollah led theocracy established by the Islamic revolution in Iran that toppled the Shah, the Soviet’s came into power after the communist revolution toppled the Czar in Russia. After its initial years in power were focused on survival and two wars with Germany, the Soviet Union as one of the victors of WWII began its global quest for communist expansion around the world through insurrection and proxy wars. Similarly, in the case of Iran, after surviving its initial years following the Islamic Revolution, Iran fought for its survival during a crippling war from 1980 to 1988 with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. According to Mousavian, Iran has been a nation under siege ever since Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade her shortly after the momentous 1979 Iranian revolution took place. During the resulting eight-year Iran-Iraq war, Iraq—the true aggressor in the eyes of the Iranians— enjoyed support from Iran’s old allies including western powers, such as the U.S. as well as regional states like Saudi Arabia.2 As Waltz stated, when “faced with unbalanced power, some states try to increase their own strength or they ally with others to bring the international distribution of power into balance.”3 Since the end of the war with Iraq, Iran’s foreign policy has focused on power politics defined by the realist school of thought in its relations both within the Middle East and around the world.
Throughout the Cold War, what the USSR and the US did, and how they interacted, were dominant factors in the international political arena and at the crux of the realist paradigm of international relations.3 At the heart of the Cold War was power politics under the smokescreen of a global struggle between liberal democracy and communism. It was a struggle for power between the USSR and the US wherein alliances were established and enemies were defined based on national interest. Through shifting alliances and proxy wars in all corners of the world, the USSR and the US sought to check and contain each other’s sphere of influence. Similarly, the rivalry that has established itself in the Middle East between Iran and Saudi Arabia, is a continuation of the Cold War paradigm of power politics cloaked as a regional struggle between Sunni and Shia Islam. Iran has on multiple occasions established its concern about the spread of Saudi “Wahhabism,” which Ayatollah Khomeini called, “America’s Islam.”4 Iran, which is the most powerful and populous Shia country in the world, is driven to some extent by its revolutionary ideas, while Saudi Arabia sees itself as the key Sunni power in the region. Iran empowers both Shia and Sunni groups (including Hezbollah in Lebanon) that pursue an agenda closely aligned with Tehran’s interests.5 As a result, the ongoing rivalry and battle for Islamic supremacy between Iran and Saudi Arabia is played out throughout the Middle East in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen through a combination of sovereign political interference and proxy wars.
Contrary to the popular beliefs held by many in the West, Tehran has “generally demonstrated pragmatism in its foreign policy.”5 Iran has also managed to preserve its Persian culture and its separate language, also known as Farsi, and, by embracing Shiism, has carved out its own distinct place within Islam. But in doing so, Iran has also had to pay a significant—and quite detrimental— price: loneliness. In its neighborhood Iran has no ethnic kin or natural allies, therefore in a world where interdependence seems to be inevitable between nations, Iran has countered the seemingly impossible as it has been left unprotected and isolated.6 Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran has often been described as a completely ideologically driven and irrational actor, impelled by an apocalyptical world-view and the notion of martyrdom, a motif that has shaped the Shia faith since Hussein’s very death at Karbala.5 The Islamic Republic’s foreign policy is also known for being quite reactive. While Iran may be guided by broad strategic principles such as striving for regional supremacy, Tehran more often than not develops its position in response to crisis. This strategy, in which it is not alone, allows Iran to be both flexible and reactive.5 Yet Iran’s foreign policy proves that it is often driven by national and regime interests.5 As noted by Hunter “one can mitigate one’s geographic, and in Iran’s case, cultural misfortune. Given its predicament, Iran needs an essentially nationalist, self–contained, pragmatic, and non-ideological approach to foreign policy.”6
Similar to its regional foreign policy where Iran is in a prolonged and heated rivalry with Saudi Arabia, on a global scale its international politics is defined by its rivalry and relations with the United States. It is precisely because of the economic and strategic significance of the Persian Gulf that Iran, both Islamic and imperial, has consistently sought to project its power in the region. And it is for the same reasons that since the dawn of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 the US has consistently sought to contain the Iranian power in the Persian Gulf, and to increase its own influence in the region. Therefore, it should not be surprising at all that the US and Iran have been engaged in a fierce rivalry in the Persian Gulf for the past 3 decades. In march 2003, the US overthrew Saddam Hussein. On one hand, Iraq—Iran’s archenemy—was defeated and its historically oppressed Shi’a majority, a potential ally for Iran, was liberated and energized, helping Iran to solidify its position in the region. On the other hand, the US virtually encircled Iran, elevating Iran’s threat perception to an unprecedented level.1 The sanctions imposed on Iran by the US compelled Iran to become more self-reliant and build its primitive military-industrial complex, which eventually became the foundation of the country’s relatively advanced missile and weapons programs.1 Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is clearly meant to establish a deterrent against U.S. attempts to topple Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary state and establish itself as a global power by joining the nuclear club of states. It has already been defined by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism and coupled with international pariah states such as North Korea as destabilizing actors in the global world order.