Independence without Freedom: Iran's Foreign Policy

Reflections on Iran’s Foreign Policy: Defining the “National Interest”

[ 160 ] “Reflections on Iran’s Foreign Policy: Defining the ‘National Interests’” was originally published in Iran at the Crossroads, ed. John Esposito and R. K. Ramazani (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 211–37, and is reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. reflections on iran’s foreign policy Defining the “National Interest” One of the most crucial intellectual challenges facing Iran as it enters the third decade of its revolution, I would argue, is how it will define its “national interests” (manafa-e melli). Five years before the eruption of the Iranian Revolution, I asked a similar question at the conclusion of a two-volume study of Iran’s foreign policy from 1500–1973, when Iran had been ruled by monarchical dynasties from the Safavids to the Pahlavis in modern history.1 Since the revolution destroyed the ancient monarchical polity, one might inquire why I am still asking such a question. My study of the foreign policy of revolutionary Iran reveals that this question still requires an answer.2 More important , the need to seek an answer has become more acute since the revolution for reasons that will become clear as I proceed. This essay is not intended to answer the question I continue to ask. In fact, I do not believe an answer is in sight in the near future. 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 coherent conception and definition of its national interest. And such a goal will come within the reach of Iran only when its triple-hybricivilization (Iranian, Islamic, and modern) is able to cope more effectively with the drama of its century-plus encounter with the realities of the modern world on its own terms.3 Instead, through this essay, I propose to explore this conundrum. Doing so requires that I set forth, up front, the following basic assumptions that lie behind my exploration of the subject: 1. In order to pour meaning into the abstract concept of national interest, it is necessary to identify the character of polity. 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, as are so many Third World nations. 3. Definition of national interest is affected by the nature of the polity’s Defining the “National Interest” [ 161 ] interaction with the domestic situation, including politics, but not limited to it, and with the external situation, including international politics, but not limited to it. In other words, the concept of “situation” as used here extends beyond the political realm to cultural, social, economic, intellectual, psychological, and philosophical arenas, whether internal or external.4 4. Definition of the national interest requires taking into account worldviews of leaders as well as their foreign policy in action. Various combinations of the above assumptions constitute the underpinnings of my approach, on the basis of which I shall proceed to 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 inclusion of the prerevolutionary Sultanic type in the discussion is necessary. The revolution destroyed the ancient political institution of monarchy, but I submit that it has not done away with Sultanic sociocultural tendencies, which shaped the behavior of individuals and groups even during the revolutionary period.5 It is also necessary to note that the revolutionary types are not mirror images of historical reality. They are analytical devices. As such, they overlap in historical reality. For example, the Ideological-Islamic type of interest corresponds generally with the first decade of revolutionary developments, but it by no means implies that PragmaticNational considerations did not figure in the definition of interest during the Khomeini era. In other words, the ideal types are constructed on the basis of the relative balance between any two components in each type. sultanic interest In Weberian terms “sultanism” arises whenever traditional society develops “an administration and military force which are purely personal instruments of the master.”6 Within sultanism, the master makes decisions and chooses courses of action 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...