Lecture 7
R. K. Ramazani: Reflections on Iran's Foreign Policy: Defining the "National Interests"
One of the most crucial intellectual challenges facing Iran as it enters the third decade of its
revolution is how it will define its "national interests" (manafa-e melli).
This essay is not intended to answer the question.
Profound cultural, social, political, and psychological challenges that beset Iran as a
Third World society in transition all have bearing on how Iran will ultimately settle on
a conception of its national interest.
o And such a goal will come within the reach of Iran only when its triple-
hybrid civilization (Iranian, Islamic, and modem) is able to cope with the
drama of its encounter with the realities of the modem world on its own
terms.
Instead, through this essay, I propose to explore this conundrum.
Doing so requires that I set forth the following basic assumptions:
o 1. In order to pour meaning into the abstract concept of national interest, it is
necessary to identify the character of polity;
o 2. More than two decades of discourse about the Islamic Revolution have
obscured the deeper reality: that the Iranian state and society are both in a state
of transition;
o 3. Definition of national interest is affected by the nature of the polity's
interaction with the domestic situation, including politics, and with the
external situation, including international politics.
o 4. Definition of the national interest requires taking into account world views
of leaders as well as their foreign policy in action.
I explore the meaning of Iran's national interests in terms of four ideal types of interest as
guides to foreign policy in Iran's modern history.
These are Sultanic, Ideological-Islamic, Pragmatic-Islamic, and Democratic-Islamic.
The revolutionary types are not mirror images of historical reality but rather analytical
devices.
As such, they overlap in historical reality.
,Sultanic Interest
In Weberian terms "sultanism" arises whenever traditional society develops "an
administration and military force which are purely personal instruments of the master."
Within sultanism, the master makes decisions on the basis of "nonrational discretion."
The Iranian historical experience includes two types of sultanism: traditional and
modernizing or transitional.
The ruler's mastery of the bureaucracy and the military obtains in both types.
But the bureaucracy and the military in the traditional type are more informal than
formal and the opposite holds true in the transitional type.
The best example of the traditional Sultanic type of interest prevailed during the Safavid
dynasty.
Shah Abbas I represents sultanism in the extreme.
The interest that guided Iran's foreign policy was his self-interest.
Shah Abbas l's ties with European powers aimed at using them as a counterweight
against the Ottoman Empire.
Neither he nor other Safavid kings had any genuine interest in understanding the
underpinnings of European civilization and power.
The great age of European religious revolution passed by Islamic Iran.
The rule of Mohammad Reza Shah represents modernizing sultanism.
Iran's interest was defined in terms of his self-interest.
He and his father modelled their rule after the Sassanians.
His absolutism matched Shah Abbas I's, especially after his return to the throne as a
result of the CIA-engineered coup.
The Shah personally made all important military, political, economic, educational,
social, and other decisions, because " He is convinced that his personal rule is the
only way Iran can be governed."
Foreign policy decisions were his special preserve.
His foreign-policy blunders contributed to losing America in the end.
In his last will Khomeini labelled the Shah's Sultanic polity as satanic rule.
Ideological-Islamic Interest
,The interest that guided Iran's foreign policy during the Khomeini era reflected more the
influence of his interpretation of Twelver Shii Islam than the interest of Iran as a nation-state.
As a historical member of the League of Nations, Iran had defined its interest ever
since the late 19th century and particularly after the Constitutional Revolution in terms
of its "political independence and territorial integrity."
o Modem ideas entered Iranian diplomatic thought-including the concepts of
"foreign policy” and "national interest."
Khomeini rejected this idea, as it derived from his dislike of the idea of
"nationalism", and instead introduced the notion of Islamic governance, derived from
his interpretation of Twelver Shii jurisprudence.
o His favourite motto was "independence, freedom, and the Islamic Republic."
The Islamic Republic idea stemmed from his conception of velayat-i faqih, the rule
of the jurisprudent.
This rule emanated from the belief that sovereignty belonged to God, to the
Prophet, and by extension to the Faqih.
Khomeini believed that the existing world order should emulate his version of the
Islamic state paradigm.
The most vivid example of the interjection of this worldview into Iranian foreign
policy concerned the Soviet Union.
o In Khomeini's letter of 1989, to Mikhail Gorbachev, he castigated the bankrupt
materialist ideologies of both the East and the West and offered to fill this
"ideological vacuum" with Islamic values that can be a means for the well-
being of all nations.
The interest that guided Iran's foreign policy on the basis of this tenet of Khomeinist
ideology was twofold:
o negation of both superpowers' domination of the international system as
evidenced by his slogan “Neither East, nor West, but the Islamic Republic”,
and the export of the Islamic Revolution across the world.
No wonder then that Iran's interest defined in terms of these doctrines put it at odds
the rest of the world in practice. Consider these examples:
o The revolutionary government headquartered numerous foreign "liberation
movements" in Tehran and was suspected of acts of international terrorism.
, o Khomeini wished to see Gulf Arab monarchies adopt governments
similar, not identical to that of the Islamic Republic of Iran, cut their ties with
the superpowers, and all find safety under the Iranian security umbrella.
o Perhaps the most clear indication of Iran's national interest defined in terms of
ideology is the annual dispute between Iran and Saudi Arabia over
political demonstrations of the Iranian pilgrims in Mecca.
Yet, the definition of Iran's interest even during the Khomeini decade was not completely
devoid of practical and national considerations.
As a nation-state, Iran had to live in the real world of the international system.
o For example, after the hostage crisis, when Western powers imposed sanctions
on Iran, Khomeini declared, “We must become isolated in order to become
independent.”
o Yet, after the consolidation of power by his supporters and the settlement
of the hostage dispute, he blamed his followers for Iran's "hermit" status
in world affairs.
The best example of the consideration of pragmatic interests in Iran's foreign policy
during the Khomeini era is the secret purchase of arms from the United States and
Israel.
o Iran's defensive war against Iraq required such a bold move.
o Embarrassed by the disclosure of the secret deal by a militant Islamist, all
Iranian leaders tried to cover up the transactions by denouncing the Great
Satan and ridiculing the American mission arriving in Tehran with a bible
and a cake!
o In the end, Khomeini himself intervened to quash a demand for parliamentary
investigation of the scandal, known in the United States as the Iran-Contra
Affair.
Pragmatic-Islamic Interest
The end of the Khomeini era witnessed a shift in the balance between the influence of
ideological and pragmatic aims in Iran's foreign policy in favour of the latter.
The shift was gradual and lasted eight years.
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