Abstract
In this book, the author, Mahmood Monshipouri, analyses internal, regional and international issues regarding the US–Iran relations. The first part of the book focuses on the internal context of Iranian politics since the 1979 Revolution. This section deals with contemporary US–Iran relations and explains the checkered relationship between the two.
The second part examines three axes at the level of regional analysis of the relations and focuses on the ideological and geopolitical components of Iran’s foreign policy and their effects on regional policy in the South Caucasus and the Middle East, especially in Syria and Yemen. In the third part, the international context has been examined and special attention has been paid to Iran’s nuclear programme under Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The author is familiar with political movements inside Iran and considers historical as well as ideological and geopolitical competitions at regional and international levels that are effective in relations between the two countries. The importance of this issue is that Iran and the US relations are dynamic and complex, which requires the analysis of Iran’s power structure and its effects on regional and international politics.
Since the foreign policy of the regime that emerged in 1979 was revolutionary with ideological values of political Islam, it had a revisionist view towards the international system and order. From the revolution until the end of the Iran–Iraq war, Iran’s foreign policy can be generally explained by agent-oriented theories of foreign policy, as the revolutionary regime had a confrontational approach towards the international order and did not recognize it. Therefore, this foreign policy could not be explained in the form of structuralism. A structure-oriented approach in foreign policy could not noticed due to a host of factors, including the end of Iran–Iraq war that wreaked great havoc on Iran, change of the international system from bipolar to unipolar following the collapse of the Soviet Union, ascendance of Hashemi Rafsanjani’s technocrat government to power, Ayatollah Khomeini’s death and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
The author has also discussed the 1979 revolution, which created a fundamental change in relations between Iran and the United States, and the influencing factors on the foreign policy of the revolutionary system. He considers the role of ideas and immaterial factors as important in their relations after the 1979 Revolution (p. 39) and from the 1830s when Americans first travelled to Iran as missionaries. Then, their history is considered from the period of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, when the relationship was formed through the presence of Morgan Shuster during the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911), which provided the basis for the extensive American presence in Iran.
According to the author, the era of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a turning point. In those days, through a ‘positive nationalism’ policy, and especially in the form of a ‘national independence’ policy, the Shah provided the ground for Iran to become the Protectorate of the United States and be part of the Nixon–Kissinger’s twin-pillars policy; thus, Iran played the role of regional gendarme in securing the interests of the United States. In return, the United States supported Pahlavi to the extent that he overthrew Mossadeq’s government in the 1953 coup.
On the other hand, the identity of the revolutionary regime and the anti-American approach have been considered a central variable regarding the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. However, Monshipouri believes that despite this identity and a history of mistrust, the two countries were able to negotiate and reach an agreement on the nuclear issue during the Obama presidency, which was the first not-so-direct negotiation between the two countries after the 1979 Revolution.
In this regard, the author did not pay attention to Iran’s unfavourable economic situation and Obama’s foreign policy in the Persian Gulf to focus on restraining China. The acceptance of this agreement by Iran’s ‘deep state’ was only to reduce pressures caused by sanctions and normalize the nuclear issue, and was not a platform for improvement with the United States. Accordingly, the nuclear agreement failed since it did not provide the basis for the normalization of Iran’s relations with the United States on regional issues.
The author’s theoretical framework in this book is based on the combination of neorealism, liberal institutionalism, constructivism and securitization of the Copenhagen School. According to the author, some theories of international relations, including neorealism and the English school, ignore Iran’s internal issues (p. 26). Although the combined analytical framework can pay attention to various aspects of Iran–US relations, its problem is that it includes many variables whose weights are unclear, and does not show which variables, whether domestic, regional or systemic have had a greater or lesser impact on their relations.
The main question in Iran–US relations is whether reconciliation between the two countries is possible, considering the nature of their respective political system. The author believes this process will be a long-term possibility. Contrary to this view, the nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran does not allow for the improvement of relations to the extent that it becomes normal. However, Monshipouri believes two states can pursue common areas for cooperation and the policy of excluding Iran from regional equations and the continuation of the maximum pressure policy has led Iran being drawn towards Russia and China, which is not in the interest of the United States (p. 194).
The author considers the deepening of Iran’s ‘Look to the East’ policy as an outcome of the US pressures, while this policy is also a result of the competition between Iran’s internal groups and the deep state’s greater control over Iran’s power structure. In other words, the ‘Look to the West’ policy was tolerated by the ‘deep state’ when the presidencies of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khatami and Hassan Rouhani did not disrupt the foreign policy that provides the interests of the deep state.
Although the identity resulting from the Iran 1979 Revolution has had an impact on its foreign policy regarding the United States, the more important issue has been the competition of power groups inside Iran. The perception of the United States by rival groups in the power structure has led to the weakening or stabilizing of their position in the system. Based on this, Ayatollah Khamenei, a pragmatic person when elected as the leader, put forward more anti-American positions compared to the Islamic leftists, so that he could establish himself in the political power structure in competition with them.
This book has examined various internal, regional and systemic variables in the relationship between Iran and the United States using a combined analytical framework. The historical look at their relations and the transition conditions of the world order makes this book a suitable source for those interested in Iran and US studies.
