The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Perception of National Security:
A Multi-theoretical investigation of how and why Iran’s
Supreme Leader Securitizes the Others as Enemies
Fall Master Thesis
Supervisor:
Prof. Per Jansson
Submitted by:
Morteza Eslahchi
ID: 19840123-8350
August. 25, 2014
08 Acknowledgment: This thesis is dedicated to my beloved wife whose love and
backing has always been the main driver of progress and
improvement in my life and to my dear parents because of their
long-life love and support. I should also thank professor Per
Jansson because of his time, patience, advices and guidance.
This thesis was an intellectual journey through which I faced
the bitterness and joy of academia and the result was the
improvement of my analytical skills.
Abstract: This thesis is an endeavor to analyze the Islamic Republic of
Iran’s (IRI) perception of national security using a multitheoretical approach, with a particular focus on the ideas of
Copenhagen School of security studies. In this research, the
factors that form the IRI’s perception of national security will
be explained and it will be argued how this perception leads
Iran’s leaders to perceive the others as enemies. Furthermore,
based on the enemy conception, the process of securitization by
Iran’s supreme leader and its domestic usage will be explored.
Key Words: Islamic Republic of Iran, Realism, Constructivism, Copenhagen
school of security studies, national security, Regional security
complexes, securitization, trauma, Shiism, nationalism, the
Middle East, Israel, the U.S.
Word count excluding table of contents, footnotes, bibliography and appendix:
23602
1 Table of Contents
Acknowledgment: .............................................................................................................................................. 1 Abstract: ................................................................................................................................................................ 1 Key Words: ............................................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter one: Introduction ................................................................................... 4 1.1. Background and the importance of the study .............................................................................. 4 1.2. Purpose of the study and research questions .............................................................................. 6 Chapter Two: Methodology ................................................................................. 8 2.1. Inductive Reasoning ................................................................................................................................ 8 2.2. Discourse Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 9 2.2.1 Speech Acts ............................................................................................................................................. 11 2.3. Document analysis ................................................................................................................................. 13 2.4. In-­‐depth Interviews ............................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter Three: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review ...................... 15 3.1. Introduction: analyzing national security ................................................................................... 15 3.2. Realism ........................................................................................................................................................ 17 3.2.1. Basic theoretical foundation .......................................................................................................... 17 3.2.2. Balance of Power ................................................................................................................................ 18 3.2.3. Religion as Instrument ...................................................................................................................... 20 3.3. Constructivism ......................................................................................................................................... 21 3.3.1. Basic Theoretical Foundation ....................................................................................................... 21 3.3.2. Anarchy is what states make of it ................................................................................................. 23 3.3.3. Islamic Republic Of Iran; a mission oriented actor .............................................................. 24 3.4. Copenhagen School of Security Studies ........................................................................................ 25 3.4.1. Regional Security Complexes ......................................................................................................... 27 3.4.2. Securitization ........................................................................................................................................ 30 3.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 32 Chapter Four: Understanding the IRI’s Nature ................................................ 35 4.1. Iran’s political structure: the importance of the Supreme Leader .................................... 35 4.2. The Constant Conflict Over Power .................................................................................................. 40 4.3. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 43 Chapter Five: Analyzing the Factors Forming Iranian Perception of National
Security .............................................................................................................. 44 5.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 44 5.2. Historical Trauma .................................................................................................................................. 45 5.3. Shiism: Revolutionary Islam .............................................................................................................. 47 5.4. Persian Nationalism .............................................................................................................................. 50 5.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 52 Chapter Six: Regional security complexes; the Middle East dilemma .............. 53 6.1. Surrounded by foes: Iran and its neighbors ............................................................................... 53 2 6.2. The Russian Roulette: Iran versus Israel ..................................................................................... 55 6.3. Enemy at the gates: the U.S presence in the region ................................................................. 58 6.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 61 Chapter Seven: Securitizing the others as enemies ............................................ 62 7.1. The Enemy Conception ........................................................................................................................ 62 7.2. The Need To Have Enemies ............................................................................................................... 67 7.3. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 70 Conclusion: Making National Security In a Complex Web of Uncertainty ....... 72 Theoretical Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 72 Main Findings ................................................................................................................................................... 73 Suggestions for further studies ................................................................................................................. 74 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 75 Appendix I ......................................................................................................... 82 Appendix II ........................................................................................................ 86 Appendix III ...................................................................................................... 90 3 Chapter one: Introduction
1.1. Background and the importance of the study
In the history of International Relations, maintaining security has been thought of as
the primary aim of every state. 1 Nevertheless, states do not have a shared
understanding and perception about national security and the way in which they
interpret the concept of security differs from state to state. 2 Accordingly, it is
probably right to profess that national security may not mean the same thing to
different states.34 That is why a country’s security policy, which seems rational and
logical to its policymakers, can seem totally irrational in the view of others and that is
because rationality itself may have different meanings in different cultures.5
A significant instance of this issue, however, is Iran’s security policy after the Islamic
revolution. Iran’s unexpected Islamic revolution shocked the world because during
the Cold War era whilst all the attention was focused on the capitalism-socialism
rivalry, an Islamic regime with an uncompromising attitude towards both the West
and the East was not something that anyone had desired. In the age of bipolarity,
when most of the countries tried to modulate their national security by bandwagoning
with one of the blocks, Iranian cleric regime appeared to rely on the principle of
“neither east, nor west”, a famous quote by Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, the
founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI).
Since 1979’s Islamic revolution, Iran has been categorized as a rogue state whose
foreign and security policy is a threat to international community. Its support of
terrorist groups (Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad), its harsh rhetoric against the U.S.
and especially Israel and eventually its alleged pursuit of Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD) are common measures by which politicians, journalists and
scholars analyze the country’s behavior. Moreover, the overthrow of the Shah and the
1 Baldwin, David A. "The Concept of Security." Review of International Studies 23, no. 1 (1997). 2 Fitz-­‐Gerald, Ann M. "A UK National Security Strategy: Institutions and Cultural Challenges." Defence Studies 8, no. 1 2 Fitz-­‐Gerald, Ann M. "A UK National Security Strategy: Institutions and Cultural Challenges." Defence Studies 8, no. 1 (March 2008). 3 Stolberg, Alan G. How Nation-­‐States Craft National Security Strategy Documents. Strategic Studies Institute, 2012. 4 Wolfers, Arnold. "National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol." Political Science Quarterly 67, no. 4 (1952). 5 Johnson, Jeannie L, Kerry M Kartchner, and Jeffrey A Larsen. Strategic Cultures and Weapons of Mass Destruction. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009. 4 emergence of the Islamic republic of Iran had an enormous effect on the geopolitics
of the Middle East. Iran’s amity with Israel turned to an enmity6, whilst Iran appeared
to be a strong rival for Saudi Arabia and Egypt, seeking for Islamic hegemony in the
region.7 Eventually Iranian’s ambition for distributing their revolution in the region
was used as an excuse by Iraq to attack Iran.8
In the last decade, however, Iranian nuclear program has become a hotspot of
political and security concerns, due to it being in one of the most turbulence regions
of the world with already existing bloody conflicts, driven by traditional agenda of
territorial disputes, ideological competitions, power and status rivalries, and ethnic
and cultural divisions9. Thus, another Middle Eastern country empowered by nuclear
weapons is not favorable. Due to the ideological aspects of the Iranian state, many
scholars believe that a troublemaker country as such, with an aggressive security and
foreign policy and empowered by nuclear weapons would be uncontrollable if not
disastrous. Although Iran and five permanent members of the UN Security Council
plus Germany (P5+1) did achieve a significant nuclear deal in November 2013, this
deal was too fragile to pour oil on troubled waters, chiefly when the previous deal
between Iran and E3 in 2003 failed. In this regard, if one believes that possessing
nuclear weapons is a part of Iranian security calculation then these kinds of deals and
negotiations can be considered as deception used by Iranians in order to buy time for
concluding their facilities.10
Considering the importance of Iran in the Middle East, the country has always been
interesting for scholars; therefore there is a growing body of literature trying to
analyze and describe its security and foreign policy. In the last decade enormous
numbers of scholarly articles and books were published in order to understand and
describe why Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and what will happen if Iran achieves
to do so.
6 Entesar, Nader. "Iran's Nuclear Decision-­‐Making Calculus." Middle East Policy XVI, no. 2 (2009). 7 Knepper, Jennifer. "Nuclear Weapons and Iranian Strategic Culture." Comparative Strategy 27, no. 5 (2008). 8 Tarzi, Amin. "The Role of WMD in Iranian Security Calculations: Dangers to Europe." Middle East Review of International Affairs 8, no. 3 (2004). 9 Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. Regions and Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003: 193. 10 Landsberg, Carel M., and Hussein Solomon. "How Do Iranian Diplomats Negotiate?" American Foreign Policy Interests 32, no. 1 (2010): 19. 5 1.2. Purpose of the study and research questions
At least for a decade, debates over Iran have been making headlines, thus making
contributions to such a contested issue seem hard if not impossible. Nevertheless,
when reading the available literature on the topic, Mevlana Rumi’s elephant
metaphor comes to one’s mind. This is when each scholar touches a part of an
elephant in a dark room and based on that tries to explain what an elephant actually
looks like. Of course ideology is an inseparable part of Iran’s current regime but it is
not correct to dismiss other aspects such as geopolitics. On the other hand it is
obvious that Iran, like many other states, is seeking survival, however, how it is
possible to forget its Islamic ideas and values which during the last three decades has
caused a lot of ups and downs in its security and foreign policy. Many scholars
believe that understanding Iran’s security and foreign policy is not an easy task. For
instance, Robert Jervis, a prominent scholar of International relations, in an interview
with Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs, which was published on YouTube,
stated that ‘we don’t understand Iran very well’. 11 The reason behind Jervis
expression could be because two Irans actually exist, with two contradictory
interpretations of security and two different security narratives—‘Iran from outside’
and ‘Iran from within’12 or for the reason that ‘Information about Iranian security
policies is often more in the nature of propaganda than objective reporting’.13
Therefore, the author of this thesis believes that for observing the whole elephant
(Iran) it is necessary to consider all the related aspects involved in making national
security of Iran. In so doing, both subjective and objective elements will be
investigated. The subjective elements are historical trauma, Shiism and Persian
nationalism and from the objective angle, Iran’s geopolitical situation from regional
perspective will be inspected. Moreover as it is obvious from the title this thesis is
aimed to analyze the process of securitization, therefore the enemy conception finds a
vital role in this research.
The ultimate aim of this thesis, however, will be finding an answer to the question:
11 Rose, Gideon. Robert Gervis on Nuclear Diplomacy. Foreign Affairs. 03 13, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g500L_a3ZfA#t=78 (accessed 03 15, 2014). 12 Sajjadpour, Seyed Kazem. "The evolution of Irans's national security doctrine." In Europe and Iran: Perspectives on Non-­‐proliferation, by Shannon N. Kile. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005: 22. 13 Jones, Peter. "Iran's Threat Perceptions And Arms Control Policies." The Nonproliferation Review, Fall 1998: 39. 6 •
Why and how does Iran’s Supreme Leader securitize the others as enemies?
A clear answer to this question is important for understanding Iran’s perception of
national security because as it will be discussed later, the enemy conception occupies
a significant place in Iran’s calculation of national security. However, before
analyzing this issue it is essential to understand why is the conception of enemy
important in the context of Iranian perception of national security? Therefore the
thesis will try to explain:
•
The factors (geopolitical, cultural, historical, etc.) forming Iranian perception
of national security
And finally, since this research will, to a great extent, rely on analyzing the speeches
of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current supreme leader of Iran, therefore, it is really
useful to offer a short overview of Iran’s political structure to clarify:
•
What is the role of Iran’s Supreme Leader in making the country’s national
security?
The answers of these three questions altogether are an endeavor to fill the
aforementioned gap between Iran from outside and Iran from within. The writer
cannot claim that this research is a unique work that is able to solve the Iran’s puzzle
of national security, however, the prominent aim will be shedding light to the dark
inside of Iran, which is the perception of the country’s leaders about national
security.
7 Chapter Two: Methodology
2.1. Inductive Reasoning
As it was showed, the thesis is based on a complicated intertwined design, thus, a
careful usage of methods is required and therefore a collection of approaches and
methods will be engaged. In order to respond to the thesis questions, the research will
choose to proceed inductively. Inductive reasoning makes broad generalizations from
specific observations. Being inductive means to start ‘from an empirical investigation
of the phenomenon of interest. In a further step, the empirical information is
interpreted conceptually’.
14
Moreover, based on different ontologies and
epistemologies, scholars use different methods from positivist to humanistic.
However, this thesis will use post-positivist and interpretivist approaches. Postpositivism accepts a degree of uncertainty thus in this approach positivist
assumptions are relaxed.15 Interpretivist approach, in turn, believes that objective and
subjective meanings are deeply intertwined. According to this approach; ‘since
human beings are meaningful actors, scholars must aim at discovering the meanings
that motivate their actions rather than relying on universal laws external to the
actors’16. As post-positivist and interpretivist approaches will be used in this thesis
the most compatible method seems to be qualitative. As this thesis tries to discover
Iranian “perception” of national security and the importance of enemy conception in
their perception, then qualitative method is suitable because its aim is to understand
people’s interpretation and it assumes that reality changes with changes in people’s
perceptions. 17 Qualitative research includes mostly archival research, textual
criticism, in-depth interviews, and discourse and context analysis. Being a native
Persian speaker gives the author of this thesis an advantage to access documents,
statements and speeches of Iran’s leaders without the proxy of translation, therefore
the author is able to explore primary sources. Accordingly, discourse and context
14 Heritier, Adrienne. "Causal Explanation." In Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences, by Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating. Cambridge University Press, 2008: 64. 15 Della Porta, Donatella, and Michael Keating. "How Many Approaches in the Social Sciences? An Epistemological Introduction." In Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences, by Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 16 Ibid: 24. 17 Key, James P. Research Design in Occupational Education. 1997. http://www.go.okstate.edu (accessed December 4, 2013). 8 analysis, archival research and interview with experts will be used in this thesis.
Needless to say that a huge numbers of scholarly books and articles written by
experts in the field will be used as a measure in order to avoid the thesis being written
subjectively.
2.2. Discourse Analysis
One of the main aspects of this research is dedicated to exploring the methods applied
by Iranian state’s supreme leader in order to do securitization. As it will be discussed
in the next chapter, securitization is about the “how” matter, which means its main
aim, is not to find the reasons that lead states to do securitization but to analyze the
process in which states apply securitization. Needless to say that the “why” matter
will be discussed too in this thesis because it is impossible to skip the reasons behind
the process of securitization.
Moreover, securitization, as the founders of Copenhagen school of security studies
express it, is hugely based on speech act, which is a specific branch of discourse
analysis. Accordingly, using discourse analysis in this research is a necessity
embedded in the theory that the research takes advantage of. On the other hand, as the
thesis aims to understand the mindset of Iran’s decision makers, using discourse
analysis seems inevitable because the manner, in which people talk and use language,
to a large extent, exposes how they think. Therefore; ‘discourse can be defined here
as a system of interrelated statements, including concepts, classifications, and
analogies that make the world meaningful or in a way construct the world. Foreign
policy-related discourses give meaning to the outside world and the positions,
interests, and interactions of the self and the other in the international system’.18
Moreover, an accurate discourse analysis accompanied by explaining the historical
and cultural grounds which shape the mindset of a state’s leaders can help us to
understand the given state rationality and reality as well as its way of perceiving the
world and interacting with others. Understanding the cultural and historical
background plays a significant role here because every discourse occurs in a culturalhistorical context.19
18 Moshirzadeh, Homeira. "Discursive Foundations of Iran's Nuclear Policy." Security Dialogue 38, no. 4 (2007): 522. 19 Wodak, Ruth, and Michal Krzyzanowski. Qualitative Discourse Analysis In The Social Scinces. London: Palgrave McMillan, 2008. 9 In so doing, the speeches of Iran’s supreme leader will be analyzed here. Although
there are numerous actors in Iran’s political sphere and compared to the supreme
leader some of them seem even more relevant regarding the security issues such as
the president, the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of intelligence and
security. However, as it will be discussed in chapter four, due to the supreme leader’s
constitutional and actual power he seems to be the most-fit figure to be discourse
analyzed for reaching the task of understanding Iranians’ perception of national
security.
Given the fact that he has been in charge for many years (eight years as president and
twenty five years as the supreme leader) there are enormous numbers of speeches
available of him and obviously it is impossible to analyze all of them. Therefore, this
research will only focus on the period that he has been the supreme leader.
Nevertheless, there are still speeches of twenty-five years to be analyzed and because
he holds usually approximately sixty speeches every year, it is still unrealistic
wishing to read and analyze all the speeches of this period. Therefore, to solve this
problem four kinds of speeches have been targeted. First, speeches held for the staff
of the ministry of intelligence and security. Secondly, the speeches held for the staff
of the ministry of foreign affairs. Thirdly, speeches held for military commanders and
fourthly, speeches held on the first day of every year. The reason for choosing the
first three is obvious, however, the forth one was chosen because on the first day
every year the supreme leader announces the country’s yearly strategies and aims.
However, apart from these four some others speeches are analyzed in this research
due to their importance and the specific effects that they had on Iran’s political
situation.
Unfortunately Iranian officials do not usually publish their memoirs especially when
they serve the country in issues like security and foreign affairs. Nonetheless, two
newly published memoirs of Iran’s officials, namely; the current president- Hassan
Rouhani and the current minister of foreign affairs- Mohammadjavad Zarif will be
used as well. These two figures are important because of their positions in Iran’s
foreign and security apparatus. Before being elected as president in June 2013, for
many years, Rouhani served the country as the secretary of the Supreme National
10 Security Council and the head of the Center for Strategic Research. He also led Iran’s
delegation during the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program with E3 in 2003-2004.
Zarif, in turn, before being announced as the minister of foreign affairs in 2013 was
the Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations from 2002 to 2007. He
has held positions such as Deputy Foreign Minister in Legal and International affairs
and senior adviser to the Foreign Minister. During the 2003-2004 talks he was a high
ranked member of Iran’s delegation as well.
2.2.1 Speech Acts
Previously it was discussed that exploring speech acts, as a specific way of discourse
analysis will be used in this research. Speech act as John Austin expresses it is the
process of doing something by saying something or making somebody to do
something by saying something.20 Nevertheless it is not as simple as it seems and as
Austin states ‘there must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain
conventional effect, that procedure to include the uttering of certain words by certain
persons in certain circumstances’.21 John Searle, another prominent scholar in speech
act theory explains the necessary conditions of the speech act more explicitly. In his
view for giving an order; ‘the preparatory conditions include that the speaker should
be in a position of authority over the hearer, the sincerity condition is that the speaker
wants the ordered act done, and the essential condition has to do with the fact that the
speaker intends the utterance as an attempt to get the hearer to do the fact’.22
Austin, as the pioneer of speech act theory, distinguishes between two different
kinds of illocutionary act (constative and performative) in order to answer the
question; what people do when they use language. In constative something is stated
about reality but in performative an act is performed by the utterance itself.23 In the
view of Searle, however, Austin’s categorization does not seem satisfying, therefore,
he makes his own categorization that includes five different illocutionary acts, which
are:
20 Austin, John L. How to DomThings With Words. 2nd Edition. Edited by J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisa. 1962. 21 Ibid: 14. 22 Searle, John R. Speech Acts: AN Essay In The PhilosoPhy oF Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969: 69. 23 Renkema, Jan. Introduction to Discourse Studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publishing Company, 2004: 13. 11 •
‘Assertives: telling how things are
•
Directives: trying to get people to do things
•
Commissives: committing ourselves to do things
•
Expressives: expressing feeling and attitudes
•
Declarations: trying to make change in the world through utterances’24
Moreover, Searle points out that using illocutionary verbs does not necessarily result
illocutionary act and understanding when a speaker is doing illocutionary act by
using illocutionary verbs depends heavily on the context, background and also the
specific situation of the speaking. Therefore, conducting discourse analysis means
going beyond the barriers of the formal aspects of language (semantic and syntactic)
by investigating the language within social, cultural and political contexts and even
the institutional relationship between the speaker and the hearer.25 All of these issues
aside, however, when analyzing a speech it is important to work based on some
criteria. The criteria that will be used here for analyzing the speeches are mainly
mood, modality, forms of address and cohesion:26
•
Mood: there are three moods, which are declaration, interrogative and
imperative.
•
Modality: ‘modality concerns the expression of speaker’s attitude towards the
propositions that they render in their utterance’27. In fact, modality includes
expressions of probability, necessity and permissibility which means in a
modalized sentence with use of different words such as must, should, might,
may, could, speaker expresses her/his stance regarding the necessity or
possibility of the proposition.
•
Forms of address: the way that people address each other is strictly significant
for understanding the interpersonal relationship and social status between
them. With forms of address one is able to simply convey ones politeness,
amity, enmity, social distance, formality, respect, difference, etc. toward
others.
24 Searle, John R. Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979: VIII. 25 Barker, Chris, and Dariusz Galasinski. Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis. London: SAGE Publications, 2001: 63. 26 Ibid: 75-­‐80. 27 Ibid: 77. 12 •
Cohesion: this is about various components that make a text to stick together.
In the case of speeches it is not only about the cohesion in one speech but all
the speeches that the speaker holds on a same topic. For example, when
talking for a same audience in different periods of time, if the speaker changes
the form of address that means that either the speaker changes her/his attitude
towards the audience or s/he is not sure about her/his attitude regarding the
audience. This is true about mood, and modality as well and when there is a
change, it is vital to find out what reasons make these differences in order to
reach a correct analysis.
2.3. Document analysis
Document analysis is one of the most common methods in a qualitative research. It
can be defined as a ‘systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents.
Like other analytical methods in qualitative research, document analysis requires that
data be examined and interpreted in order to elicit meaning, gain understanding, and
develop empirical knowledge’.28 Although the main method of the thesis is discourse
analysis it is useful for a qualitative research project to benefit from multiple sources
of evidence in order to make the analysis more coherence and accurate and to
circumvent the pitfall of intellectual failure. The problem here is that the Islamic
Republic of Iran does not usually publicly publish important documents because in
their view everything related to foreign policy and security is highly confidential.
Nevertheless, there are some upstream documents like the country’s constitution and
“twenty-years outlook document” that can be used as the touchstones to see to what
extent the country’s actual security and foreign policy is coincident to them.
2.4. In-depth Interviews
Understanding Iran’s political system and its leaders’ mindset is complicated. Hence,
having the views of people who have either first-hand experience in the political
system of the country or academic knowledge is highly useful to capture a correct
comprehension about Iran’s complexities. These interviews can be seen as
28 Bowen, Glenn. "Document Analysis as a Qualitative Research Method." Qualitative Research Journal 9,no. 2 (2009): 27. 13 supplementary data that enhance the findings of the other methods.29 In doing so,
three persons with different background and expertise will be interviewed. Regarding
the importance of the supreme leader in this research there will be one interview with
Dr. Mohsen Kadivar, who is currently a visiting professor at Duke University.
Kadivar is an Iranian researcher and political activist who has been in prison due to
his research and publications about the current supreme leader, political Islam and
Iran’s political system.
Another interview will be with Hossein Alizadeh, the former deputy head of mission
in Iran’s embassy in Finland who, after more than twenty years in service, resigned
his post in 2010 in order to support the opposition; the Green Movement. Alizadeh is
currently a researcher at Peace Research Institute of Tampere University. It is
necessary to mention that Kadivar and Alizadeh both live in exile now because of
their problems with the political system of the country. Finally, there will be another
interview with Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli Tel Aviv based scholar who was born in
Iran in an Iranian-Jewish family and moved to Israel when he was a teenager. He
currently teaches contemporary Iranian politics at Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in
Herzliya University.
The interviews were conducted in a semi-structured format in order to take the most
advantage of interviewees’ knowledge. Hence, there were some main questions and
whenever necessary the interviewer asked subsequently questions. The full texts of
interviews are attached to the thesis in the appendix but whenever necessary some
quotes have been used in the text. It is also necessary to mention that the interviews
with Kadivar and Alizadeh were conducted in Persian and have been translated to
English by the writer of the thesis.
29 Fairclough, Norman. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. 14 Chapter Three: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review
3.1. Introduction: analyzing national security
Arnold Wolfers’ classic piece; “National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol” has
long been considered as the point of departure of security studies. In his article he
utters that ‘security, in an objective sense, measures the absence of threats to acquired
values, in a subjective sense, the absence of fear that such values will be attacked’.30
Although Wolfers’ explanation of security seems comprehensive, nevertheless,
Baldwin31 believes that there is some ambiguity in the phrase “absence of threat” thus
he prefers to reformulate Wolfers’ phrase as “a low probability of damage to acquired
values”. Nonetheless, there is a significant point in Wolfers formulation. He ‘has
noted that security can be approached both objectively (there is a real threat) and
subjectively (there is a perceived threat) and that nothing ensures that these two
approaches will line up.’32 This issue, however, causes different questions for the
analysis of security concept such as: security for whom? Security for which values?
How much security? From what threats? By what means? At what cost? In what
period of time?.33 Moreover, there are too many definitions of security studies. For
instance, Stephen Walt defines security studies as ‘the study of the threat, use, and
control of military force ... [that is] the conditions that make the use of force more
likely, the ways that the use of force affects individuals, states and societies, and the
specific policies that states adopt in order to prepare for, prevent, or engage in war’.34
Nevertheless, there seems to be no complete agreement about this definition because
some scholars argue that threats are hard to be totally perceived because of
subjective/objective problem. In this regard Barry Buzan argues ‘actual threats, as
well as being impossible to measure, may not be perceived. The threats that dominate
perception may not have much substantive reality’.35 It is, therefore, a complicated
task to make a solid difference between real threats and perceived threats and even
30 Wolfers, Arnold. "National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol." Political Science Quarterly 67, no. 4 (1952): 485. 31 Baldwin, David A. "The Concept of Security." Review of International Studies 23, no. 1 (1997). 32 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 30. 33 Stolberg, Alan G. How Nation-­‐States Craft National Security Strategy Documents. Strategic Studies Institute, 2012: 9.
34 Walt, Stephen M. "The Renaissance of Security Studies." International Studies Quarterly 35, no. 2 (June 1991): 212. 35 Buzan, Barry. People, States and fear: an agenda for international security studies in the post-­‐Cold War era. Havester Wheatsheaf, 1991: 114-­‐115. 15 sometimes the best analysts fail to achieve this task. For instance, Israelis believe that
Iran’s nuclear program is an existential threat to them and the moment Iran acquires
nuclear weapons is the doomsday of Israel because they perceive that Iran is pursuing
nuclear weapons to attack Israel. However, Robert Jervis believes that in the case that
Iran seeks nuclear weapons it is for defensive aims and even not to defend against
Israel but America.36 Which one of these two narratives is the closest to the verity?
Apart from the discussion about different interpretations of security, to put it simply,
it can be contended that national security is actualizing national interest and national
interest is that which is deemed by a particular state to be a desirable goal.37 Hence,
probably the first and most important task of any student of security studies can be
observed as defining national interests that shape the bedrock of national security
process, because if the interests are ill defined and erratic then any kind of description
and analysis would fail.38
Thus, national security strategy can be defined as ‘a nation’s plan for the coordinated
use of all the instruments of state power—nonmilitary as well as military—to pursue
objectives that defend and advance the national interest.’39 This definition perfectly
demonstrates the traditional materialist understanding of security. However, security
studies is a spectrum, which ranges from very constructivist to very objectivist. Further discussion regarding these different approaches towards security studies will
be presented in separate sections based on different schools of security studies. This
discussion is necessary because these theories will flow through this research in a
comparative manner.
36 Rose, Gideon. Robert Gervis on Nuclear Diplomacy. Foreign Affairs. 03 13, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g500L_a3ZfA#t=78 (accessed 03 15, 2014). 37 Stolberg, Alan G. How Nation-­‐States Craft National Security Strategy Documents. Strategic Studies Institute, 2012. 38 Drew, Dennis M, and Donald M Snow. Making Twenty-­‐First-­‐Century Strategy: an introduction to modern national security processes. Alabama: Air University Press, 2006. 39 Doyle, Richard B. "The U.S. National Security Strategy: policy, process, problems." Public Sminstration Review 67, no. 4 (July/August 2007): 624. 16 3.2. Realism
3.2.1. Basic theoretical foundation
It has always been evident to many, if not all, that no other theory of international
relations emphasizes security more than realism.40 As Kenneth Waltz explains: ‘in
anarchy, security is the highest end. Only if survival is assured can states safely seek
such other goals as tranquility, profit and power. Because power is means and not
end, states prefer to join the weaker of two coalitions. They cannot let power; a
possibly useful means, become the end they pursue. The goal the system encourages
them to seek is security.’41 Waltz states that his theory is based on two presumptions.
First, he presumes that states are the key actors in international politics and they
operate in an anarchic system, which means that no higher authority dominates them.
Secondly, he presumes that the primary goal of every state is survival, which means
that they seek to guard their sovereignty.42
Yet, in order to gain a full and accurate grasp of Waltz’s meaning behind these words
it is incumbent to understand some of the implications that he uses, above all, terms
such as ANARCHY and SYSTEM require to be expounded. As Waltz43 alleges
systems comprise structure and their interacting units. He believes that political
structures have three essential elements; ordering principle (anarchic or hierarchical),
the character of the units (functionally alike or differentiated) and the distribution of
capabilities. 44 In his view ordering principle and the character of the units are
permanent because the lack of an overarching authority makes the structure’s
ordering principle as anarchy and the principle of self-help makes all the units act
functionally alike. Accordingly, the only structural variable is the distribution of
capabilities.45
40 Baldwin, David A. "The Concept of Security." Review of International Studies 23, no. 1 (1997). 41 Waltz, Kenneth. Theory of International Politics. Berkeley: McGraw-­‐Hill, 1979: 126. 42 Mearsheimer, John J. "Reckless States and Realism." International Relations 23, no. 2 (2009): 242. 43 Waltz, Kenneth.Theory of International Politics. Berkeley: McGraw-­‐Hill, 1979: 77. 44 Ibid: 88-­‐99. 45 Elman, Colin. "Realism." In Security Studies: an introduction, by Paul D. Williams. New York: Routledge, 2008: 18. 17 By anarchy Waltz means that all states are under determined restrictions because
‘among states, the state of nature is a state of war’.46 As a result, states have to protect
themselves in a world in which there is no one who can do this task on behalf of
them. This simply means that all states wants to survive by using self-help.
According to self-help, states need to increase their power to reach their primary goal,
which is survival. When a state increases its power in order to make itself secure it
causes other states to feel less secure and increase their power to balance the first one.
This process, however, leads states to an unending rivalry, which is called securitydilemma. From this point of view, it does not matter what kind of regime rules a state
because all states should follow the same logic. This is because states are functionally
undifferentiated and perform alike attitude due to anarchy demanding actors to
pursue particular rules, which force them to behave similarly.47 Therefore it can be
said that during the Cold War, Soviets were security seekers like the Americans.48
3.2.2. Balance of Power
It goes without saying that the most significant contribution of realism to
international relations is the proposition of balance of power. Balance of power is
based on the notion that under the condition of anarchy, states seek to survive as
independent entities. In so doing, they maximize their capabilities against ‘the
possibility that one state might amass the wherewithal to compel all the others to do
its will and even possibly eliminate them.’49 According to this view, contrary to the
liberals’ idea of democratic peace, democracy is not a guarantor of peace. Rather,
peace is generally preserved when equilibrium of power exists amongst great
powers. 50 Realists argue that balance of power occurs either through internal
balancing or external balancing. By internal balancing they mean: efforts to
increasing economic condition, strengthening military capabilities and developing
clever strategies and by external balancing they mean enlarging alliances or
46 Waltz, Kenneth.Theory of International Politics. Berkeley: McGraw-­‐Hill, 1979: 112. 47 Mohammad Nia, Mahdi. "Understanding Iran's Foreign Plicy: An application of Holistic Constructivism." Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations 9, no. 1 (2010). 48 Jervis, Robert. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976. 49 Wohlforth, William C. "Realism and Security Studies." In The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies, by Myriam Dunn Cavelty and Victor Mauer. London: Routledge, 2010: 15. 50 Paul, T. V. "Introduction: the enduring axioms of balance of power theory and their contemporary relevance." In Balance of Power: theory and practice in the 21st century, by T. V. Paul, Jamaes J. Wirtz and Michel Fortmann. California: Standford University Press, 2004: 5. 18 weakening the enemy status.51 This materialist explanation of states’ behavior has a
tendency to see all the states as rational actors (besides their domestic political
structure) thus; its main focus is on analyzing distribution of power.
Regarding Iranian perception of national security, realists consider Iran’s security
policy as seeking for survival. In their view, being in a region with three nuclear
states (Pakistan as Iran’s neighbor, Israel as its enemy and India) gives Iran sufficient
security uncertainty to seek nuclear weapons. 52 Hence, according to balance of
power, it is a necessity for Iran to obtain nuclear bomb. Waltz stated that this effort is
not for offensive purposes rather defensive. ‘Although it is impossible to be certain of
Iranian intentions, it is far more likely that if Iran desires nuclear weapons, it is for
the purpose of providing for its own security, not to improve its offensive capabilities
(or destroy itself). Iran may be intransigent at the negotiating table and defiant in the
face of sanctions, but it still acts to secure its own preservation’. 53 Generally
speaking, proponents of this view believe that Iran has made deterrence,
preparedness, and self-reliance the foundation of its long-term security goals.54 Given
the international isolation of Iran, the country does not have much opportunity for
external balancing by making alliances thus its leaders should rely on internal
balancing based on deterrence. Moreover, the bitter experience of war with Iraq
taught Iranians that their deterrence policy must be self-generated and self-reliant.
During the long-standing war, Iran was struggling with a fatal and determinant
equipment deficit while Iraqis were enjoying received weapons from the west, which
to some extent, have been bought by granted money from their Arabs allies.
In addition, another issue that is mentioned by realists is the military presence of the
U.S. in the region. After the first gulf war in early 90th America has had a constant
presence in the Persian Gulf, which is a threat against Iranians. Some argue that the
U.S-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, have affected Iran’s thinking about the
role of deterrence in the country’s defense doctrine55 and regarding the U.S. military
absolute superiority compared to Iran, the only option of deterrence against the U.S.
51 Waltz, Kenneth.Theory of International Politics. Berkeley: McGraw-­‐Hill, 1979: 118. 52 Entesar, Nader. "Iran's Nuclear Decision-­‐Making Calculus." Middle East Policy XVI, no. 2 (2009). 53 Waltz, Kenneth N. "Why Iran Should Get the Bomb." Foreign Affairs, 2012. 54 Knepper, Jennifer. "Nuclear Weapons and Iranian Strategic Culture." Comparative Strategy 27, no. 5 (2008): 456. 55 Roshandel , Jalil. "the Nuclear Controversy in the Context of Iran's evolving Defence Strategy." In Europe and Iran: perspectives on Non-­‐Proliferation, by Shannon N. Kile. SIPRI, 2005: 47. 19 would be nuclear weapons because ‘a conventional force based on domestic
resources, technology and industrial capacity, could not overcome the above security
challenge. A credible nuclear deterrence with a reliable missile technology could, and
is relatively inexpensive and probably within reach. A nuclear deterrence, would
therefore afford Iran not supremacy of power, but a balance of power that it could not
otherwise have’.56
3.2.3. Religion as Instrument
Due to Iran’s astringent Islamic rhetoric there are tendencies to declare that the
country’s security and foreign policy has been established from the support of Islamic
forces over non-Islamic ones and its support of Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic
Jihad and Hamas, which has been considered as the explicit instance of this assertion.
This claim could be true if Iran had conducted all the Islamic movement in a same
way but there are counterexamples that challenge this claim, hence realists believe
that the selective support of Islamists demonstrate that Iran uses religion as an
instrument in order to enhance its interests. For instance, after analyzing four cases of
Iranian stance towards the Caspian Sea countries, Brenda Shaffer concludes that ‘Iran
often uses Islam instrumentally to pursue material state interests. It promotes Islamic
radicals and anti-regime movements when its state-level relations with a country are
poor, such as with Uzbekistan or Azerbaijan. Tehran refrains from activities aimed at
undermining very secular Muslim regimes, such as Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan,
where Iran enjoys favorable state-to-state relations. Iran promoted and supported the
Islamic element in Tajikistan until this activity clashed with its material interests,
which were served by the improvement of cooperation with Moscow’.57
Moreover, two cases that Shaffer analyzes that are very important are ChechnyaRussia and Armenia-Azerbaijan conflicts. Since the downfall of the Soviet Union, the
Muslim population of Chechnya started a longstanding bloody conflict with Moscow
over the independence of Chechnya. Although many fighters tended to identify
themselves as the soldiers of Islam and even the local government adopted Shari’a
(Islamic law) in Chechnya, however, from the very beginning Iranians sided with
56 Mokhtari, Fariborz. "No One Will Scratch My Back: Iranian Security Perceptions in Historical Context." The Middle East Journal 59, no. 2 (2005): 211. 57 Shaffer, Brenda. "The Islamic Republic of Iran: Is It Really?" In The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy, by Brenda Shaffer. Cambridge: the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 2006: 235. 20 Russia. For example, ‘Iran was active in various forums of Muslim states in ensuring
that no harsh condemnations of Russia were issued and in constraining any potential
mass Muslim mobilization against Russia in response to its massive transgressions in
Chechnya’.58 The other case, however, is the conflict between Christian-populated
Armenia and Shia-Muslim-populated Azerbaijan. If one accepts that Shia Islam is the
main core of Iran’s security and foreign policy then Azerbaijan automatically should
be considered as a strong ally to Iran because it, with around 95% of Muslims which
85% of them are Shia Muslims, has the second highest Shia population percentage
after Iran. However, during the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia
and Azerbaijan, Iran supported Armenia.59
Iran’s support of Hezbollah and Palestinians aside, from realism perspective Iran’s
ideology is a mask for realpolitik. Although Iran supports some Islamist groups its
motives and its priorities are increasingly dictated by national interest concerns.60
3.3. Constructivism
3.3.1. Basic Theoretical Foundation
After some decades of the domination of realism in international relations and
security studies in the mid 80s it faced a strong rival in the field, so called
constructivism. As it was discussed above, for realists security is about survival and
securing state’s interests, however, constructivists do not share the same idea because
in their view ‘identities are the basis of interests. Actors do not have a "portfolio" of
interests that they carry around independent of social context; instead, they define
their interests in the process of defining situations’. 61 Realists believe that
international system forces states to act in a particular way but in constructivism
point of view, the system can possibly impress states’ general layout of polices but
not their specific reactions. Considering the international system as the determiners of
states’ behavior requires accepting the idea that all states respond in a same way to
58 Ibid: 228. 59 Rieffer-­‐Flanagan, Barbara Ann. "Islamic Realpolitik: two-­‐level Iranian foreign policy." International Journal on World Peace XXVI, no. 4 (December 2009): 20-­‐21. 60 Byman, Daniel, Shahram Chubin, Anoushirvan Ehteshami, and Jerrold Green. Iran's Security Policy in the Post-­‐
Revolutionary Era. RAND, 2001. 61 Wendt, Alexander. "Anarchy is hat States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics." International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 398. 21 the same objective external situation. Consequently, this means that ‘changes in a
state’s domestic regime, its bureaucratic structure and the personalities and opinions
of its leaders do not lead to changes of policies. Changes in the external situation,
however, do alter behavior, even when variables on the other levels remain
constant’. 62 Contrary to this belief, constructivists strongly argue that material
structures are given meaning only by social and normative context in which they are
interpreted.63
Thus, any kind of transformation in the identity, values, beliefs and political structure
of a state will affect the way they act and react in international arena and the way they
define their national security,64 because the material world shapes and is shaped by
human action and interaction depending on dynamic normative and epistemic
interpretations of the material world.65 To summarize, it can be claimed that for
constructivism, according to this school, the fundamental structures of international
politics are social rather than strictly material and that these structures shape actors’
identities and interests, rather than just their behavior.66 Moreover, constructivism
tends to shift the question from “what states can do because of their position in a
structure” to “what they want to do because of how they see themselves in relations
to others”.67 As a result of this shift, constructivism includes beliefs and assumptions
that frame choices about foreign and security policy behavior.68 When talking about
ideas, beliefs and values an individual is considered as a member of a society whose
mindset is socially constructed by models of nation-state identity. In a broad sense
this shared identity is called strategic culture, which ‘refers to both a set of evaluative
standards (such as norms and values) and a set of cognitive standards (such as rules
62 Jervis, Robert. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976: 18 63 Jupille, Joseph, James A Caporaso, and Jeffrey T Checkel. "Integrating Institutions, Rationalism, Constructivism and the Study of the European Union." Co-­‐operative Political Studies 36, no. 2 (February/March 2003): 14. 64 Bozdaglioglu, Yucel. "Constructivism and Identity Formation: An Interactive Approach." Review of International Law and Politics 3, no. 11 (2007). 65 Adler, Emanuel. "Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics." European Journal of International Relations 3, no. 3 (1997): 322. 66 Wendt, Alexander. "Constructing International Politics." International Security 20, no. 1 (summer 1995): 71-­‐72. 67 Kubalkova, Vendulka. "Foreign Policy, International Politics and Constructivism." In Foreign Policy in a Constructed World, by Vendulka Kubalkova, 15-­‐37. M. E. Sharpe, 2001: 33. 68 Rosen, Stephen Peter. Societies and Military Power: India and its Armies. New York: Cornell University Press, 1996: 12. 22 and models) that define what social actors exist in a system, how they operate, and
how they relate to one another’.69
3.3.2. Anarchy is what states make of it
Undoubtedly Alexander Wendt is one of the most prominent scholars within
constructivism in international relations. Like other scholars of this school, Wendt
emphasizes the role of shared ideas and norms in shaping state behavior.70 In his
book; “Social Theory of International Politics” he criticizes both realism and
liberalism arguing that they are extremely focused on power politics and interest
while downplaying the role of ideas.71 Nevertheless, he does not try to underestimate
power and interest, rather he wants to show how ideas affect and give meaning to
power and interest. As he states: ‘the claim is not that ideas are more important than
power and interest, or that they are autonomous from power and interest. Power and
interest are just as important and determining as before. The claim is rather that
power and interest have the effects they do in virtue of the ideas that make them
up’.72
Moreover, he owes some of his reputation to his critiques of Kenneth Waltz. As it
was discussed in the section on realism, Waltz believes that the structure of system is
anarchical, however, Wendt argues that anarchy is a result of the distribution of ideas
not the distribution of capacities. Accordingly, contrary to Waltz argument, Wendt
says that ‘self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or causally from
anarchy and that if today we find ourselves in a self-help world, this is due to process,
not structure. There is no “logic" of anarchy apart from the practices that create and
instantiate one structure of identities and interests rather than another; structure has
no existence or causal powers apart from process. Self-help and power politics are
institutions, not essential features of anarchy. Anarchy is what states make of it’.73
Considering the structure of international arena in this way will result in another
interpretation of security dilemma. If self-help system is because of the process, then,
69 Katzenstein, Peter J. "Introduction: Alternative Perspectives of National Security." In The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, by Peter J. Katzenestein. New York: Colombia University Press, 1996: 6. 70 Ikenberry, John. "Political and Legal." Foreign Affairs 78, no. 6 (November/December 1999): 142. 71 Wendt, Alexander. Social Theory of International Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 72 Ibid: 135. 73 Wendt, Alexander. "Anarchy is hat States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics." International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 394-­‐395. 23 security dilemma is socially constructed comprised of ‘intersubjective understandings
in which states are so distrustful that they make worst-case assumptions about each
other’s intentions and as a result define their interests in self-help terms’.74 Given this
interpretation of security dilemma, security cannot be considered as an objective
condition because the referent objects of security and threats are not stable or
unchanging therefore; ‘security (especially, “national security”) is understood as a
particular set of historical discourses and practices that rest upon institutionally
shared understandings’.75
3.3.3. Islamic Republic Of Iran; a mission oriented actor
Constructivist scholars support the idea, which asserts that during the past three
decades, Iran’s foreign and security policy has been based on its ideology rather than
its objective interests. A short overview of Iranian leaders’ speeches will present
sufficient materials that characterize Iran’s regime as mission-oriented. For instance,
Ayatollah Khomeini as the founder of the Islamic regime explained repeatedly this
issue in his speeches that: ‘we have to support all oppressed people around the world
because Islam is supporter of all oppressed people’.76 This attitude even found its
way to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Chapter Ten of the
constitution, composed of four articles (article 152 to 155), is about Foreign Policy.
Interestingly none of these articles are about foreign policy decision-making process
or its objectives and they only describe vaguely some general aspects of foreign
policy approach, however, “the defense of the rights of all the Muslims” has been
asserted in article 152.77 Consequently, it seems justifiable to constructivists to utter
that Islamic Republic of Iran comes into systemic interaction with an already
constructed identity78 or by highlighting anti-Zionist rhetoric of Iranian leaders one
can claim that ‘killing Jews by obliterating the State of Israel is a ‘‘rational’’ goal of
the regime, noting that followers of the Mahdavite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi
74 Wendt, Alexander. "Constructing International Politics." International Security 20, no. 1 (summer 1995): 73. 75 Krause, Keith, and Michael C. Williams. "Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods." Mershon International Studies Reviews 40, no. 2 (1996): 242. 76 Khomeini, Ruhollah. Sahife' Noor: Letters and Lectures of Ayatollah Khomeini. Vol. 3. 22 vols. Tehran, 1982: 3. 77 The Constitution of The Islamic Republic of Iran:
http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-­‐info/government/constitution.html 78 Mohammad Nia, Mahdi. "Understanding Iran's Foreign Plicy: An application of Holistic Constructivism." Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations 9, no. 1 (2010). 24 Mesbah Yazdi (including Ahmadinejad) believe that Iran’s possession of nuclear
weapons constitutes a preparation for the Mahdi’s return’.79
By using the same logic but with different approach some scholars argue that Iran
will not go after acquiring WMD. For instance, Hossein Mousavian argues that due
to Khamenei’s fatwa80 against acquisition, production and use of nuclear weapons, it
is impossible that Iran tries to acquire WMD because ‘once a fatwa is issued by a
marja-i taqlid or Grand Ayatollah, it is considered a religious obligation by his
followers and disregarding it constitutes a sin’.81 However, with the use of one other
principle of the Shia Islam it is easy to invalidate Mousavian argument. Although
fatwa is a shared principle for both Shia and Sunni Muslims, however, “taqiyyah” is a
unique principle belongs to Shia, which means to shield or guard oneself by lying.82
In this regard, Michael Eisenstadt and Mehdi Khalaji believe that this fatwa is a
response to specific circumstances and can be possibly replaced by another fatwa
according to other circumstances; therefore Khamenei’s fatwa against WMD is
nothing more than a taqiyyah.83
3.4. Copenhagen School of Security Studies
Although Copenhagen school is a newly emerged approach in security studies it has
captured scholars’ attention to itself and has been growing fast. There has been two
main books published by founders of this school explaining their ideas, which are;
“Security: A New Framework For Analysis” and “Regions and Power: The Structure
of International Security”. However, Buzan’s “People, State and Fear” is considered
79 Seliktar, Ofira. "Assessing Iran's Nuclear Rationality: The Eyes of the Beholder Problem." The Journal of The Middle East and Africa 2, no. 2 (2011): 200. 80 “A fatwa is an Islamic legal pronouncement, issued by an expert in religious law, pertaining to a specific issue, usually at the
request of an individual or judge to resolve an issue where Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), is unclear. Typically, such uncertainty
arises as Muslim society works to address new issues – issues that develop as technology and society advance.”
The above definition has been taken from the webpage of The Islamic Supreme Council of America:
http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/understanding-­‐islam/legal-­‐rulings/44-­‐what-­‐is-­‐a-­‐fatwa.html 81 Mousavian, Seyed Hossein. "Globalising Iran's Fatwa Against Nuclear Weapons." Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 55, no. 2 (2013): 148. 82 Landsberg, Carel M., and Hussein Solomon. "How Do Iranian Diplomats Negotiate?" American Foreign Policy Interests 32, no. 1 (2010). 83 Eisenstadt, Michael, and Mehdi Khalaji. Nuclear Fatwa: Religion and politics in Iran's proliferation Strategy. Washngton, D.C: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2011. 25 as the cornerstone of this school. This school is based on two pillars, which are
Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) and Securitization. While the first book
is mostly dedicated to Securitization, in the second book, RSCT is discussed in
detail.84
This school differs from the traditional approach of security studies in the sense that
they widen the scope of security by including other sectors alongside military sector.
Thus their works are an effort to analyze threats to referent objects and the way that
politicians securitize these threats. In their view it does not matter that threat is
military or non-military, real or imagined. They analyze the dynamics of sectors,
which are military, political, societal and environmental. They believe that regional
security complexes dominate military, political and societal sectors, whilst the global
security complexes dominate the economic sector.85
Specifying referent object is a significant issue and a simple specification like the
state or the individual is not adequate enough because there are many states and
individuals with interdependent security86, thus, Buzan argues that the ‘search for a
referent object of security’ must go ‘hand-in-hand with that for its necessary
conditions’. 87 If security is about survival in an interdependent situation, then,
whatever that presents (or be considered as presenting) an existential threat to a
designated referent object should be confronted.88 In the analyzing of referent object
they argue that in the military sector, the referent object is usually the state while in
the political sector the referent object is the constituting principle (sovereignty) or the
ideology of the state.89 Articulating referent object in the economic sector, however,
is not an easy task because finding the existential threats are not easy but ‘unless the
survival of the population is the question, the huge range of the national economy
doing better or doing worse cannot be seen as existentially threatening’90 and finally
84 Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. Regions and Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 85 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 166. 86 Baldwin, David A. "The Concept of Security." Review of International Studies 23, no. 1 (1997): 13. 87 Buzan, Barry. People, States and fear: an agenda for international security studies in the post-­‐Cold War era. Havester Wheatsheaf, 1991: 26. 88 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 21. 89 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 22. 90 Ibid. 26 the referent object of the societal sector can be considered as large-scale collective
identities such as nations and religions.91
3.4.1. Regional Security Complexes
Level of analysis is an old issue existing from the very beginning of international
relations and security studies. Probably it is right to say that one of the best scholarly
pieces dedicated to analyzing level of analysis is the classic work of Kenneth Waltz,
“Man, the State and War”. In this book, Waltz distinguishes between three different
levels or as he prefers to call them three images which are; human behavior, the
internal structure of states and international anarchy.92 In the section on realism in
this research it has been discussed that in Waltz’s viewpoint human behavior and
structure of states (first and second images) do not matter in international politics and
it is the third image (the anarchical nature of the system) which forces states to follow
specific paths and determines their actions. In their writings, members of
Copenhagen school accept a wider categorization of levels consist of international
system, international subsystems, units, subunits and individuals. However, in their
view, levels provide a framework within which one can theorize and they are not
theories themselves.93 Although their approach is a go away from Waltz’s view, they
do not discredit completely Waltzian explanation of the system but they argue that
the character of the unit is excluded from the structure but this is not true about the
system because system is composed of units + interaction + structure.94 Accordingly,
Buzan argues that ‘the basic character of the units (sovereignty) and of the system
(anarchy) are closely linked. Unit-level explanations for state behavior are selfevidently important to security analysis. They are part of the system level inasmuch
as the general character of the states in the system makes a difference to the quality of
the security relations.95
91 ibid: 23. 92 Waltz, Kenneth N. Man, the State and War: a theoretical analysis. 2001 Edition. New York: Colombia University Press, 1983. 93 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 6. 94 Buzan, Barry. People, States and fear: an agenda for international security studies in the post-­‐Cold War era. Havester Wheatsheaf, 1991. 95 Ibid: 153. 27 Given this explanation of the system (units + interactions + structure) if one accepts
that units matter through their interactions then it is to say that security is a relational
issue dependent on different interactions, which are made by various units. 96
Following this explanation they argue that as military and political threats extend
usually in short distances rather than long distances meaning proximity is a
significant factor in security studies.97 Based on this argument their level of analysis
would be subsystems or regions. They define subsystems as ‘groups of units within
the international system that can be distinguished from the entire system by the
particular nature or intensity of their interactions with or interdependence on each
other’.98 In respect to subsystems, however, there is an enormous difference with
system level. The structure of system (anarchy) is permanent while the structures of
subsystems are durable. Therefore the structure of a security complex can be possibly
changed by a significant shift in essential components of the security complex, which
are:
•
The arrangement of the units and the differentiation among them,
•
The patterns of amity and enmity,
•
The distribution of power among the principal units.99
The reason for highlighting regional security complexes is that after the end of the
cold war, international politics faced a liberation of regional security concerns, which
had been suppressed by the global-level rivalry between superpowers.100 That is why
after the end of the cold war powers other than the superpowers found opportunities
to come out from the shadows of the two superpowers and they found opportunities
to act more freely and more actively. According to Copenhagen School there are
three different types of powers namely superpowers, great powers and regional
powers. Being superpowers requires acting across the whole of the international
system. They should be able to securitize and desecuritize in all the regions of the
system and they are needed to possess first-class military-political capabilities. After
96 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 10. 97 Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. Regions and Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003: 4. 98 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 6. 99 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 13. 100 Ibid: 61-­‐62. 28 the Cold War the sole superpower is the USA. A great power should, however,
possess sufficient capabilities in all sectors because others put them in their
calculations. The major difference between superpowers and great powers is that
great powers are not active in the whole spectrum of the system. Currently, the EU,
Russia, China and Japan hold this status. Regional powers are not so active and
important in a broad-spectrum way at the system level but in their own regions.101 It
is obvious that regional powers actions are reduced to regions but even in the case of
super- and great powers that have grand strategies to dominate the system, however,
their actions and tactics differ in different regions because of specific characteristics
and conditions of each region because ‘the regional level is where the extremes of
national and global security interplay, and where most of the action occurs. The
general picture is about the conjunction of two levels: the interplay of the global
powers at the system level, and clusters of close security interdependence at the
regional level. Each RSC is made up of the fears and aspirations of the separate units
(which in turn partly derive from domestic features and fractures). Both the security
of the separate units and the process of global power intervention can be grasped only
through understanding the regional security dynamics’.102
Either during the Shah era or during the Islamic Republic of Iran, the country has
been considered as a regional power. In the words of Hossein Mousavian, the former
Iranian Ambassador to Germany, Iran ‘is a powerful country in the region and has the
final say in the world of Islam at present, and is a cultural and political superpower . .
. such a country cannot be ostracized’.103 Iranians have always believed that due to
their rich history, unique geographical location and abundant of natural and human
resources they deserve an important position in the Middle East.104
According to Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on
Foreign Relations, ‘more than any other nation, Iran has always perceived itself as a
natural hegemon of its neighborhood… By dint of its history and the power of its
civilization, Iranians believe that their nation should establish its regional
101 Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. Regions and Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003: 34-­‐37. 102 Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. Regions and Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003: 43. 103 Strain, Frederick R. "Discerning Iran's Nuclear Strategy: An Examination of Motivations, Strategic Culture and Rationality." Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, 1996: 22. 104 Taheri, Amir. "The World and Iran's second Revolution." American Foreign Policy Interests 28 (2006): 103. 29 preeminence’.105 Iranians own perception of their power aside, however, it is a fact
that throughout the history Iran has affected remarkably the wider regional or even
global policies of the international community.106 As chapter six is dedicated to the
Middle East’s regional security complex, therefore the discussion about this issue
will be continued there.
3.4.2. Securitization
As it was mentioned above, “the pattern of amity and enmity” is one of the three
components of a security complex among with “the arrangement of the units and the
differentiation among them” and “the distribution of power among the principal
units”. Although having the pattern of amity and enmity included in a security
complex entails some constructivist manner by trying to understand the process by
which issues become securitized. As an explicitly social constructivist approach,
Copenhagen School moves beyond the classical security complex theories.107 In this
regard securitization makes effort to examine how security problems emerge, evolve
and dissolve. In so doing, this theory ratiocinate that ‘language is not only concerned
with what is “out there”, as realists and neorealist assume, but is also constitutive of
that very social reality’.108 By accepting that ‘security is the move that take politics
beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind
of politics or as above politics’109, then, it is right to profess that politicians do that by
securitizing issues through speech acts, therefore, security can be seen as a ‘selfreferential practice, because it is in this practice that the issue becomes a security
issue, not necessarily because a real existential threat exists but because the issue is
presented as such a threat.110
Moreover, Copenhagen School frames securitization within the regional security
complex through a constructivist theme by a redefinition of both objectivist and
105 Takeyh, Ray. Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in Islamic Republic. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2006: 61. 106 Jones, Peter. "Iran's Threat Perceptions And Arms Control Policies." The Nonproliferation Review, Fall 1998: 39. 107 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 19. 108 Balzacq, Thierry. "The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and context." European Journal of International Relations 11, no. 2 (2005): 56. 109 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 23. 110 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 24. 30 subjectivist concepts of security. That is to say that they start from geopolitics
(regions) but they argue that security is not simply given by geopolitical realities
rather politicians shape security issues by ‘securitization processes and their
aggregation – that is, the ways in which national security discourses, intersubjectively
shared and with a repertoire of common historical lessons, make sense of geopolitical
realities. The constructivist horse has been put before the geopolitical cart: regions
are what ‘they’ (mainly regional actors) make of them. Hence, it would be mistaken
to assume a given geopolitical reality’.111 Nevertheless, Copenhagen School eschews
the viewpoint in which security is considered as given fully objectively in the sense
that it is totally determined by actors because in their view security is not something
that is settled by individuals but security is intersubjective and socially constructed.112
Hence, in the process of securitization, the key issue is that for whom security
becomes a consideration in relation to whom therefore ‘a discourse that takes the
form of presenting something as an existential threat to a referent object does not by
itself create securitization (this is a securitization move), but the issue is securitized
only if and when the audience accepts it as such’.113 In this regard, when an actor can
do securitization it happens as a part of a configuration of circumstances, including
the context, the psycho-cultural disposition of the audience, and the power that both
speaker and listener bring to the interaction.114
Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran there has always been a mutual securitization
between the country and the West, Israel and some Arab countries. For instance
Iranian officials (through their speeches, interviews, statements) have always accused
the West of covert regime change intentions and actions. According to them, Western
countries, especially the U.S, want to see the collapse of the Islamic regime and for
achieving this end they use all the necessary means. That is why Iran securitizes
sectors such as military, political, societal and economic. On the other hand, Western
officials accuse Iran of having non-peaceful intentions in the case of its nuclear
program. For example, President George W. Bush in a press conference in 2007
expressed the idea that a nuclear weapon-armed Iran would be a dangerous threat to
111 Guzzini, Stefano. "Securitization as a causal mechanism." Security Dialogue 42, no. 4-­‐5 (2011): 331. 112 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 31. 113 Ibid: 25. 114 Balzacq, Thierry. "The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and context." European Journal of International Relations 11, no. 2 (2005): 172. 31 world peace. He said: ‘we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to
destroy Israel. So I have told people that if you are interested in avoiding World War
III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the
knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon’.115116 It seems, however, that it was
a successful securitization because public surveys showed that most of Americans
had believed that Iran’s nuclear program was a threat to the U.S. According to a
public survey conducted by Gallup in December 2007, more than 6 in 10 Americans
said that Iran posed a serious threat to the U.S and one- third believed it Iran’s
nuclear program posed a very serious threat. The vast majority of Americans also
believed the true purpose of Iran's nuclear program was to produce nuclear weapons
rather than nuclear power. 117 Although there have been lots of studies about the way
that the West securitizes Iran (which is not the topic of this research), there seems
that scholars paid less attention to analyze the way Iranians securitize the others and
this is one of the main tasks of this research.
3.5. Conclusion
To conclude this chapter, it worth mentioning that studying security in the post-Cold
War era is far more problematic than the bipolar world of the Cold War because
during the Cold War the world was divided between two hostile superpowers that
were trying to balance each other mostly within traditional means, but the
contemporary world is not that neatly divided and there are too many separate actors
which try to establish and save themselves in the anarchic world. The end of the Cold
War and collapse of one of the superpowers, however, caused too much security
concern especially in regional levels, thus, security studies has been witnessing a
major shift from global-level security concerns toward regional and local-level118
ones and as a result, this shift opened the field to other approaches. There is no doubt
that Kenneth Waltz version of realism was the dominant approach of security studies
during the Cold War, however, the downfall of the Berlin Wall and the end of
115 Knepper, Jennifer. "Nuclear Weapons and Iranian Strategic Culture." Comparative Strategy 27, no. 5 (2008). 116 President George W. Bush, “White House Press Briefing,” Washington, DC, 17 October 2007; available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071017.html. 117 Carrol, Joseph. ‘Public: Iran’s Nuclear Program Poses Threat to U.S.’, Gallup, December 20, 2007, viewed in April 2, 2014
http://www.gallup.com/poll/103402/Public-Irans-Nuclear-Program-Poses-Threat-US.aspx 118 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. 32 bipolarity can be rightly considered as a breach in the Waltzian fortress of realism.
Realism and constructivism are two prominent theories of security studies;
nevertheless, both theories face momentous critiques. Realism school of security
studies has been the most prominent school during the Cold War era, nonetheless,
after the demise of bipolarity it confronted strong critiques. For instance, some argue
that realism cannot grip the effects of domestic institutions on international
conflicts.119 On the other hand, Constructivism has become an increasingly prominent
theoretical approach to security studies since its emergence in the 1980s. Some argue
that constructivism; compared to realism, offer a deeper insight into how security
works120 but it, in turn, underestimates the importance of the systemic effects of
international anarchy on the behavior of states.
Regarding the high weight of these two theories it is inconceivable to do a research
on security issues without applying them, thus, these theories will be present in this
thesis in a comparative manner as backdrop, however, the main theory of this study
will be ideas of Copenhagen School of security studies. The reason for choosing this
theory is that this school, in some sense, can be considered as synthesis between
realism and constructivism or in the words of Buzan and Waever ‘it uses a blend of
materialist and constructivist approaches’. This theory consists of two pillars, which
are Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) and Securitization. While the first
has realistic manner, the second is more constructivist. RSCT exerts ideas of bounded
territoriality and distribution of power that are adjacent to those in neorealism,
however unlike neorealism, it emphasis on regional level rather than the global level
structure. Regionalism is significant here because in a region, security processes and
dynamics of states ‘are so interlinked that their security problems cannot reasonably
be analyzed or resolved apart from one another’.121 Given the complexity of security
situation in the Middle East it seems that regional level of analysis is more
appropriate than system level. On the constructivist side, the theory relies on
securitization, which concentrate on the political processes that form security themes.
Accordingly, patterns of amity and enmity are significant as essentially independent
119 Wohlforth, William C. "Realism and Security Studies." In The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies, by Myriam Dunn Cavelty and Victor Mauer. London: Routledge, 2010. 120 McDonald , Matt. "Constructivism." In Security Studies: An Introduction, by Paul D. Williams. London: Routledge, 2008. 121 Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. Regions and Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003: 44. 33 variables. Moreover, securitization studies desires to obtain ‘an increasingly precise
understanding of who securitizes, on what issues (threats), for whom (referent
objects), why, with what results, and, not least, under what conditions’.122
122 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 32. 34 Chapter Four: Understanding the IRI’s Nature
4.1. Iran’s political structure: the importance of the Supreme Leader
The previous chapter has provided a level of insight into the units of analysis in
international relations. Realists like Waltz believe it does not matter what kind of a
regime rules a state and what the nature of its political structure is, but on the other
hand there are other points of view, which hold the idea that the manner in which
states act in the international arena, to a great extent, depends on their domestic
situation. Now, there will not be any further argument regarding this issue in order to
find out which idea is more appropriate, since it has already been discussed and due
to the nature of the approach that this research will be based on, it is necessary to take
a look at the IRI’s political structure.
Before the 1979 revolution, Iran’s political system was a constitutional monarchy,
meaning the king was not supposed to have any kind of political power but in reality
the last king, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was the sole decision-maker in the country;
controlling the army, the political parties, the parliament, the government, etc. His
personal tyranny is considered as one of the main reasons behind the revolution. The
title of the revolutionary regime of Iran (Islamic Republic) claims that it is a republic,
however, after analyzing the constitution of the IRI it can be said that the de facto
power of the last king of Iran has been established as de jure in the new regime but
this time a Shia cleric so called the Supreme Leader or in Islamic term Vali-e-Faqih
holds the absolute power. The question that whether the Islamic Republic of Iran is
really a republic or not goes beyond the scope of this research, however, there are
views argue that the IRI is a theocratic republic exist. Mohsen Milani, the Executive
Director of the Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies and Professor of Politics at
the University of South Florida writes, ‘is “Islamic republic” a misnomer? The
framers of the Islamic constitution certainly did not think so.’123 So there is doubt that
Islamic republic is misnomer but there can not be any doubt that this is a selfcontradiction by nature since Islamic theocracy is about the sovereignty of Allah and
republic is about the sovereignty of the people and it seems that in the IRI,
sovereignty of the people has been bypassed in favor of sovereignty of Allah.
123 Milani, Mohsen. "Power Shifts in Revolutionary Iran." Iranian Studies 6, no. 3/4 (1993): 359.360. 35 Hossein Alizadeh in the interview conducted for this thesis explained that the IRI is
self-contradictory because it is impossible to have the wish of people and the wish of
Allah at the same time and this can be the reason behind the conflict between the
elective organs, the president for example, and the supreme leader which often occur.
Velayat-e-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) is based on the doctrine of the
leader of revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on the Shia Muslims’
belief about the absent Imam. The twelve Imam Shia believes that after the prophet
of Islam, Mohammad, there are twelve Imams who are the leaders of Muslim whose
political authority is unquestionable. In their view, the last Imam (Mahdi) has become
absent to be safe from the threats and he will return someday.124 There has always
been a clash between two different views regarding the political leadership of the
Shia. Some Shia clerics believe that until the return of Mahdi any kind of political
status is illegitimate, therefore Shias should not directly get involved in politics or try
to rule through a government. Nevertheless, during the modern era the supporters of
this view have been in minority. On the other hand, based on a revolutionary
interpretation of the history of Shia-Islam many believe that Shiism can be an
emancipatory movement. The founder of the Islamic republic of Iran (Ayatollah
Khomeini) belongs to the later group, however, his ideas are very extreme in the
sense that in his view, Shiism cannot only be a political doctrine but also Shia clerics
should be the rulers of the society.125
After the revolution supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini argued that when people
voted for the Islamic republic they also voted for Islam’s rules and regulations,
therefore, everything would be limited within the boundaries of Islam, thus, the Faqih
must become the ultimate source of political and religious power.126 After a long
controversy between Khomeini and other revolutionary figures that did not share the
same idea as Khomeini, eventually Ayatollah Khomeini’s viewpoint found its way
through the country’s constitution and Velayat-e-Faqih became the main pillar of the
revolutionary regime. The principal characteristic of Velayat-e-Faqih is that the
124 Sachednia, Abdulaziz Abdulhussein. The Just Ruler in Shiite Islam: the Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. 125 Dabashi, Hamid. Shiism: A Religion of Protest. Harvard University Press, 2012. 126 Milani, Mohsen. "Power Shifts in Revolutionary Iran." Iranian Studies 6, no. 3/4 (1993). 36 Supreme leader (Vali-e-Faqih) has the absolute power but there is no higher authority
he has to answer to. According to article 57 of the constitution, ‘the powers of
government in the Islamic Republic are vested in the legislature, the judiciary, and
the executive powers, functioning under the supervision of the absolute Vali-eFaqih and the leadership of the Umma127128, in accordance with the forthcoming
articles of this Constitution. These powers are independent of each other.’129 In a
republic it is the president who is considered the first person of the country, however,
article 113 of the constitution of the Islamic republic explicitly says, ‘After the office
of Leadership (meaning the supreme leader), the President is the highest official in
the country', which means that the president is the second person in the country not
the first one. Moreover, according to article 60 of the constitution, the president is
responsible for the function of the executive “except in the matters that are
directly placed under the jurisdiction of the Leadership by the Constitution130”.
It helps to understand better the political structure of the country by taking a look at
these exceptions that are under the jurisdiction of the supreme Leader. Article 110 of
the constitution specifies the power of the Supreme Leader as:
•
1.Delineation of the general policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran after
consultation with the Nation’s Exigency Council.
•
2.Supervision over the proper execution of the general policies of the system.
•
3.Issuing decrees for national referenda.
•
4.Assuming supreme command of the armed forces.
•
5.Declaration of war and peace, and the mobilization of the armed forces.
•
6.Appointment, dismissal, and acceptance of resignation of:
-The fuqaha (clerics) on the Guardian Council.
-The supreme judicial authority of the country.
-The head of the radio and television network of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
127 Umma is an Islamic term, which means Muslims Community. 128 The emphasis is mine. 129 The Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran: http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-­‐info/government/constitution.html 130 The emphasis is mine. 37 -The chief of the joint staff.
-The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
-The supreme commanders of the armed forces.
•
7.Resolving differences between the three wings of the armed forces and
regulation of their relations.
•
8.Resolving the problems, which cannot be solved by conventional
methods, through the Nation's Exigency Council.
•
9.Signing the decree formalizing the election of the President of the Republic
by the people. The suitability of candidates for the Presidency of the
Republic, with respect to the qualifications specified in the Constitution, must
be confirmed before elections take place by the Guardian Council, and in the
case of the first term [of the Presidency], by the Leadership;
•
10.Dismissal of the President of the Republic, with due regard for the interests
of the country, after the Supreme Court holds him guilty of the violation of
his constitutional duties, or after a vote of the Islamic Consultative Assembly
testifying to his incompetence on the basis of Article 89 of the Constitution.
•
11.Pardoning or reducing the sentences of convicts, within the framework of
Islamic criteria, on a recommendation [to that effect] from the Head of
judicial power. The Leader may delegate part of his duties and powers to
another person.
These 11 clauses explicitly mean that the supreme leader rules the country. He
decides the most crucial policies such as foreign policy, national security, grand
economical strategies, cultural and social directions etc. For instance, regarding the
issue of the nuclear program, Javad Zarif, the current minister of foreign affairs, in
his biography in format of a long interview with a journalist, when he was asked
about the differences between Ahmadinejad and the previous reformist president
Khatami regarding the nuclear program, said: ‘decision making regarding the nuclear
issue was not within the authority of Khatami’s government nor Ahmadinejad. It is
the supreme leader who is in charge and governments of both Khatami and
38 Ahmadinejad just executed the decision of the leader’. 131 The presence of the
supreme leader in security issues and foreign policy is not only limited to the making
of the grand strategies or his constitutional powers. For example, according to the
constitution, choosing the ministers of foreign affairs and intelligence and security,
like other ministers, is in the hands of the president but in reality it is the supreme
leader who chooses them132 or ‘while the President is responsible for the day-today decision
making.
Informally
however,
the
Supreme
Leader
exercises considerable control over the daily implementation of policy’.133 Hossein
Alizadeh says that during his time as an Iranian diplomat, foreign diplomats
repeatedly asked him who was really in charge in regard of foreign policy and
national security. He answers this question in the interview with the writer of this
thesis: ‘When I review my years as an Iranian diplomat I can mention lots of
instances where an issue had been decided without the ministry of foreign affairs
even knowing about it. One example that I can mention now is Khomeini’s fatwa
against Salman Rushdie. The ministry of foreign affairs was totally unaware of that
and everybody was shocked when they heard the fatwa. The thing is that although the
ministry of foreign affairs is not involved in many issues, however, it still holds all
the responsibilities for the consequences. When Khomeini issued a death fatwa
against a British citizen it damaged the relations between the two countries harshly
and it was considered the ministry’s fault not Khomeini’s.’
Based on his two decades of experience as an Iranian diplomat he concludes that
unlike many other states, the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs is not involved in the
process of decision-making. After his explanation, Alizadeh was asked a further
question: “Is it because of the lack of trust?” however, he did not believe that it is
because of the lack of trust. In his view ‘the IRI is a post-revolutionary regime and
one of the consequences of every revolution is the deconstruction of the former
structures and replacing them with new structures and the problem is that the
revolutionary structures are immature and it takes time for them to learn how to
131 Raji, Mohammad. Mr. Ambassador: Interview with MohammadJavad Zarif. Edited by Nei Publisher. Tehran, 2013: 426. 132 Javedanfar, Meir. Islamic Republic of Iran. Vol. II, in PSI Handbook of Global Security and Intelligence: National Approaches, by Stewart Farson, Peter Gill, Mark Phythian and Shilomo Shpiro. PRAEGER, 2008. 133 Byman, Daniel, Shahram Chubin, Anoushirvan Ehteshami, and Jerrold Green. Iran's Security Policy in the Post-­‐
Revolutionary Era. RAND, 2001. 39 adjust themselves to international standards of foreign policy. After three decades,
however, the IRI still has not learned that every institution and organization has its
own functions therefore I do not think it is because they do not trust the foreign
ministry.’ In his long interview-biography, Zarif, Iran’s current minister of foreign
affairs also explains how after the revolution the staff of the ministry was replaced by
young revolutionaries most of whom did not even have an academic education in a
related field and knew no foreign languages.134
As formerly discussed, in the post-revolutionary Iran the supreme leader is very
powerful. Akbar Ganji a leading researcher on Iran’s politics who is a well-known
opposition to the current supreme leader also believes that Ayatollah Khamenei as the
current supreme leader is Iran’s head of state. In a long article published in Foreign
Affairs, analyzing Khamenei’s life he writes: ‘the dominant figure in Iranian politics
is not the president but rather the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The
Iranian constitution endows the supreme leader with tremendous authority over all
major state institutions, and Khamenei, who has held the post since 1989, has found
many other ways to further increase his influence. Formally or not, the executive,
legislative, and judicial branches of the government all operate under his absolute
sovereignty; Khamenei is Iran's head of state, commander in chief, and top ideologue.
His views are what will ultimately shape Iranian policy’.135
4.2. The Constant Conflict Over Power
The constitution has granted an unlimited power to the supreme leader but the history
of the IRI shows that the two supreme leaders have never had an easy way to
implement their constitutional powers and that is because there are different factions
inside the political system that try to consolidate their position. Although after more
than two decades of being in charge, the current supreme leader, Khamenei, seems to
have the absolute power and the final word, during his time as the supreme leader he
has fought with other figures in order to save his position as the first person inside the
regime. Compared to his precursor (Ayatollah Khomeini), Khamenei has had a more
difficult time and that is because of their different personal characters. The Islamic
134 Raji, Mohammad. Mr. Ambassador: Interview with MohammadJavad Zarif. Edited by Nei Publisher. Tehran, 2013. 135 Ganji, Akbar. "Who is Ali Khamene?" Foreign Affairs 92, no. 5 (2013). 40 revolution is tied with the name of its founder, Khomeini. He was not only a political
leader but also one of the highest rank clerics of his time. The situation is totally
different about Khamenei. Many believe that his differences with Khomeini strongly
affected the way he acted as the supreme leader because he has always been
compared to Khomeini, therefore, he needed to stand at the same level as Khomeini.
When announced as the supreme leader, Khamenei did not have the required clerical
rank for being the supreme leader. At the time he was only a mid-level cleric inside
the Shia hierarchy.
Mohsen Kadivar has done an excellent research about the path Khamenei went
through after he was chosen as the supreme leader to become a high-rank cleric by
manipulation. In his book “The Trivialization of Shia Marjaiyyat” he argues that
Khamenei bought his title of the Grand Ayatollah by threatening or bribery of other
grand ayatollahs in order to recognize him as a Grand Ayatollah. He writes,
‘Ayatollah Khomeini became the supreme leader with the help of his religious
authority but Khamenei found his religious authority with the help of his position as
the supreme leader’. 136 That is why he is generally dismissed by other grand
ayatollahs as a lightweight cleric137 and this issue has always bothered him.
In the interview with the writer of this research when asked about the differences
between the founder of the revolution and Khamenei regarding foreign policy,
Kadivar answered: ‘considering the foreign policy, I believe that Khamenei followed
in the footsteps of Khomeini. But the difference is that Khomeini conducted his
extreme foreign policy when people were affected by revolutionary emotions and
most of them were supporting him. However, Khamenei is repeating Khomeini’s
rhetoric in a situation in which people are not affected by revolutionary emotions
anymore because they have become realists and the most important point is that the
Islamic Republic and Khamenei himself do not have the support of at least half of the
people.’
Like many other scholars Kadivar also mentioned that Khamenei did not have the
same political and religious authority as Ayatollah Khomeini and because of that he
136 Kadivar, Mohsen. The Trivialization of Shiia Marjaiyyat: Impeaching Iran's Supreme Leader on his Marjaiyyat. Kadivar.com, 2014: 23. 137 Amuzegar, Jahangir. "The Islamic Republic of Iran: Facts and Fiction." Middle East Policy XIX, no. 01 (2012). 41 framed a close circle of his allegiants who were mainly commanders of the
revolutionary guards and radical conservatives. The most important ally to
Khamenei, however, is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). ‘The IRGC
was formed in the immediate post-Revolutionary period from the militias that helped
Ayatollah Khomeini seize and consolidate power. Born in part from distrust of the
Shah’s military, the IRGC has historically emphasized ideological fervor over
military professionalism. President Ahmadinejad and many of those he has brought
into the government are former IRGC officials’.138
The lack of personal authority in Ayatollah Khamenei has created a constant situation
of conflict between him and his opponents inside the regime from the very beginning
of his leadership until now. Nevertheless, Khamenei’s strategy during this time was
not only to strengthen his allies but also debilitate his opponents. For example, during
the first parliamentary election after being appointed as supreme leader, with the help
of clerics on the Guardian Council whose responsibility is to confirm the credibility
of parliament candidates, candidates who did not share Ayatollah Khamenei’s views
were disqualified and could not run in the election. However, most of these people
came back to power later as reformists and marked eight painful years for Khamenei
under the presidency of the reformist president Mohammad Khatami.
Another example is the former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. It is interesting to point
out that actually Ayatollah Khamenei owes his leadership to Rafsanjani. It was
because of his strong political maneuver that Khamenei became the supreme leader.
At that time these two were close friends regardless of their intellectual differences,
and during Rafsanjani’s two terms presidency, Khamenei did not block his efforts
mainly because he did not have enough power at the time and he did not want his old
friend who was then the strongest person inside the regime to become his enemy. But
soon after Rafsanjani’s presidency was over he became marginalized and now he is
considered as the most significant opponent of Khamenei’s policies inside the
regime.139 Comparing two different comments of Khamenei about Rafsanjani in two
different time periods shows well his attitude toward Rafsanjani. In a speech in early
138 Stanley, Willis. "Iranian Strategic Culture and Its Persian Origins." In Strategic Culture And Weapons of Mass Destruction, by Jeannie L Johnson, Kerry M Kartchner and Jeffrey A Larsen. PALGRAVE macmillan, 2009: 149. 139 Sadjadpour, Karim. Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran's Most Powerful Leader. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009. 42 days of his leadership when Rafsanjani was elected as president, Khamenei said:
‘thank god a strong government is in charge and this is god’s blessing that an erudite,
a Faqih, a senior revolutionary, a well-known and popular figure who is trustworthy
is on the top of the government.’140 Years later during the people’s uprising against
manipulation of the presidential election in 2009, known as the Green Movement,
Rafsanjani sided with demonstrators, Khamenei in favor of Ahmadinejad and
criticizing Rafsanjani said: ‘I and Mr. Rafsanjani have different points of view
regarding various issues. He and Mr. president (Ahmadinejad) also have had
disagreement since the previous election in 2005 until now regarding issues like
foreign policy, implementing of the justice, culture etc. and of course Mr. president’s
(Ahmadinejad) views are closer to me.’141 In this speech he also called Rafsanjani as
one of the “blind elites” who cannot see the realities.
4.3. Conclusion
This chapter did not mean to propose a deep study of Iranian political structure,
which demands a separate study itself. Nonetheless it was a necessity to familiarize
the reader with the way things work inside the regime.
After the revolution Iran turned into an Islamic Republic. The constitution makes the
supreme leader the most powerful person of the country. However the supreme leader
has absolute power in a situation that no higher authority exists above him. That
causes him to talk and act carelessly. Moreover, when one explores beyond the
surface of the regime’s rhetoric one sees that because of the presence of different
factions the path is not completely smooth and the supreme leader sometimes has
difficulties to implement his power. In the last chapter it will be explained how this
conflict over power between different political sides affects Iran foreign and security
policies and how the supreme leader manipulates security issues for taking down his
oppositions. However, before we further discuss this issue it is necessary to explain
and analyze the factors that form the IRI’s perception of national security, which is
the task of the next chapter.
140 Khamenei, Ali. “Speech for Iran’s Officials”. 1990.
http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2282 141 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at Friday pray”. 2009. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=7190 43 Chapter Five: Analyzing the Factors Forming Iranian Perception of
National Security
5.1. Introduction
Understanding the intentions of “others” in international relations is not an easy task.
It is not only because their mindset is relatively impenetrable but also it is difficult to
find a way to understand why they act in the way they act, not the other but also
because professional analysts can misinterpret even the correct data. The lack of data
or misunderstanding based on misinterpretation brings up the issue of perception and
misperception in international relations. According to Carl Von Clausewitz the
situation where two sides in a conflict cannot understand or misunderstand each other
is “the fog of war”.142 In his outstanding book “On War”, Clausewitz explains that
this ambiguity comes from four different levels, which are grand strategies, military
strategies, operational and tactical. Ambiguity in grand strategies is because of
inability of one side to understand intentions, motivations and political agenda of the
other side. We can take Iran’s conservative leaders’ saying, “Israel should be wiped
off the map” as an example. Did they really mean it? Who knows? How is it possible
to understand how the other side thinks or to understand if they really believe in what
they say or is it just part of the rhetoric? One cannot claim that one totally
understands people, however, understanding the factors that form people’s mindset is
a huge guidance to understand their actions and speech acts.
Robert Jervis in his book; “Perception and Misperception in International Politics”,
argues that ‘there is no easy way to determine the accuracy of perceptions. It is hard
to know what a person’s perceptions were and even harder to know whether they
were correct’.143 People’s perceptions can be of course influenced by their personal
characters which is the subject of political psychology studies, however this chapter
will try to capture an understanding about Iranian leaders’ perception of national
security by analyzing the patterns of perceptions and misperceptions that occur
within a shared culture and that are not strongly influenced by personality
142 Clausewitz, Carl Von. On Wr. Edited by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton University Press, 1989. 143 Jervis, Robert. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976: 7. 44 characteristics.144 In so doing, this chapter explores three important factors that are
involved in making Iran’s leaders’ perceptions of national security, which are
Historical Trauma, Revolutionary Islam (Shiism) and Persian Nationalism. As it was
discussed in the theory chapter, Realists do not agree that such subjective factors can
affect or make a country’s national security doctrine, however, from a constructivist
point of view, that is accepted by the Copenhagen school of security studies, these are
important because these factors make people’s perceptions and people act according
their perceptions of objects.
5.2. Historical Trauma
Historical trauma is not only limited to the IRI leaders but there is a pandemic fear
between most of Iranians caused by historical events from previous centuries to
recent era. Iranians have not yet forgotten Mongolians’ attack or Arabs’ invasion
either. Considering the 20th century the wounds of eight-year war with Iraq have not
completely healed yet and people remember how they were left alone and received no
international support when there was a serious shortage of goods and supplies caused
by sanctions while Iraq had the full support of the West. Many still blame the U.S’s
role in the coup against the democratic elected government of Dr. Mohammad
Mossadeq’s in 1953. There are people who believe that Islamic Revolution was the
result of this coup. For instance, Mohsen Kadivar in his interview with the writer of
this thesis argues: ‘the main reason of the revolution is 1953 coup conducted by CIA
when they overthrew Mossadeq’s democratic elected government. This coup caused
strong anti American emotions between people.’ In his view some of the radical
actions of the IRI are actually reactions to U.S’s inappropriate policy in the Middle
East and to a large extent because they ask themselves if Americans overthrew a
democratic government once what insures they do not again.
Historical events can be a source of identity and pride for a nation but they can also
be ‘psychological tint that colors the entire universe of perception’.145 Vamik Volkan
calls this Chosen Trauma. In his view chosen trauma is ‘the mental representation of
an event that causes a large group to feel helpless and victimized by another group,
144 Ibid: 8. 145 Mokhtari, Fariborz. "No One Will Scratch My Back: Iranian Security Perceptions in Historical Context." The Middle East Journal 59, no. 2 (2005): 210. 45 and thus assume shared humiliating injury’.146 If one reviews speeches or writings of
Iran’s leaders one can find lots of examples that they directly express their fear of
recurring the bitter past experiences. Hassan Rouhani, the current president of Iran, in
his book when he explains Iran’s attitude towards west during the negotiation over
Iran’s nuclear program in 2003-2004, he clearly mentions to historical trauma as an
significant point which affects their perception about the West. He writes: ‘another
significant point worth mentioning is that our understanding and experiences of the
past historical events are naturally parts of our perception by which we make
decisions and strategies’.147
The speeches of Iran’s supreme leader are considerably full of expressions about
trauma. In his speeches he relevantly or irrelevantly mentions the past experiences
and above all he talks about the coup in 1953 and the eight-year war with Iraq. These
parts of his speeches are, according to Searle’s categorization of speech acts
expressive. Since these examples are indeed enormous it can be said that regarding
the trauma, his speeches are coherent and his attitude towards people who he holds
responsible for those events (U.S and England) has never changed.
For instance, in a speech, held in November 2013, he talked about the 1953 coup. He
said: ‘all nations who trusted the U.S, lost, even those who were U.S’s friends. In our
country, Dr. Mossadeq trusted the U.S in order to get away from England’s pressure.
Instead of helping him, the Americans sent their agents here to launch the coup.’148
The memory of eight-year war has even more presence in his speeches. Here is one
example of his expressions on the Iran-Iraq war in a speech, which was uttered for
the commanders of the revolutionary guards: ‘all the powers of the world cooperated
against Iran. It seemed as if Iraq was alone against us but actually all the experts,
spies, satellites and weapons of Americans, Europeans and Soviet and also the money
of Arabs were assisting Iraq.’149
146 Volkan, Vamik D. The Need to Have Enemies and Allies. Jason Aronson Inc., 1994: XXV. 147 Rouhani, Hassan. National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy. Tehran: Center of Strategic Studies, 2012: 683. 148 Khamenei, Ali. “Speech for students”. 2013. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=24378 149 Khamenei, Ali. “Speech for military commanders”. 1995. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2767 46 His repetitive reference to these two events can be seen as a sign of vulnerability and
victimization. If we accept that due to the past experiences he is afraid of the foreign
countries then historical trauma can be seen as one of the factors that form his
perception of national security. When you believe that others are about to attack you
thus you should prepare yourself. This situation can be explained with an old Iranian
proverb, which says: “once bitten by a snake, one will be frightened at the sight of a
coiled rope.” Later it will be explored that how based on this image of foreign
countries he securitizes the others as enemies.
5.3. Shiism: Revolutionary Islam
The majority of Iran’s population is Shia Muslim. Shiism has been Iran’s official
religion since the establishment of Safavid dynasty in 1501. Shiism is not only a
religion for Iranians; but also one of their distinct national characters that
distinguishes them from Arabs who are Sunni by majority.150 Shiism is also the most
significant feature of the IRI’s strategic culture. As a theocracy, the identity of Iran’s
current regime is highly dependent on Shiism and the main reason behind the
existence of a Shia cleric as the supreme leader is to protect Shiism. Many scholars
believe Shia Islam shapes the worldview of Iran’s decision-makers and justifies its
structure and foreign policy and national security doctrine.151152 153 Hossein Alizadeh
shares the same view. After two decades of service at Iran’s ministry of foreign
affairs, he thinks Iran’s decision-making is affected by their Shiism worldview. In the
interview conducted for this thesis he makes an example: ‘When Mr. Jalili writes his
dissertation about prophet of Islam’s diplomacy we can see that they have a specific
understanding of international relations. They divide the world to Islamic world and
the world of blasphemy and in their view even Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not a part
of the Islamic world. As long as they have this mentality nothing changes.’ Mohsen
Kadivar, however, seems to have an idea similar to realists. In his view Iran is a
rational actor. In the interview conducted for this thesis he said: ‘although the IRI
was created as a theocratic regime but in practice the leaders of the IRI acted in a
150 Tarzi, Amin. "The Role of WMD in Iranian Security Calculations: Dangers to Europe." Middle East Review of International Affairs 8, no. 3 (2004). 151 Knepper, Jennifer. "Nuclear Weapons and Iranian Strategic Culture." Comparative Strategy 27, no. 5 (2008). 152 Cain, Anthony. "Iran's Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction." Maxwell Paper (Air War Colege) 26 (August 2002). 153 Mirbagheri, Farid. "Shiism and Iran's Foreign Policy." The Muslim World 94, no. 4 (2004). 47 pragmatist manner and appeared as a rational actor. However, from the very
beginning ideology was one of important factors of the IRI in foreign policy but it
has never been the only one and has always perched alongside the other factors. If we
take a look to the history of the IRI we see that they follow national interests as the
first factor and ideology is the second factor as long as it is not in contradiction with
national interest.’ He mentioned to Iran’s attitude toward Muslims of Chechnya and
China as examples that prove his idea.
Although Kadivar names some examples that can expose realistic manner of the IRI,
comparing Iran’s post-revolution foreign policy to its pre-revolution shows how
domestic transformation from a monarchy to an Islamic republic has profoundly
constructed a new identity for the country and affected its structure of foreign policy
and national security.154 Therefore, contrary to realist understanding of international
relations if one accepts the proposition about the significant role of Shiism in the
Iranian foreign policy and national security decision-making it is right to say that
‘systemic factors have a secondary effect on construction of the state’s foreign
policy. It means that Iran’s identity and interests are more exogenous to
the international system than endogenous one’. 155 There was a discussion in the
theory chapter that Iran is actually using its ideology as a tool in order to follow its
interests. There are many cases that can support this idea and Kadivar mentioned
some of them, however, the point is that the ideology has caused the country a
transition from pro-west to anti-west. Therefore, the ideology cannot be considered as
only a tool156157 because it already had a strong impact on the country’s foreign
policy and national security. There is an important document published by the office
of supreme leader called the “twenty-years outlook” that maps the situation Iran
should reach by the year 2025. In this document it has been asserted that by the year
2025 Iran should be a ‘developed country with the first economical and technological
place in the region, with Islamic and revolutionary identity which is a source of
154 Byman, Daniel, Shahram Chubin, Anoushirvan Ehteshami, and Jerrold Green. Iran's Security Policy in the Post-­‐
Revolutionary Era. RAND, 2001. 155 Mohammad Nia, Mahdi. "Understanding Iran's Foreign Plicy: An application of Holistic Constructivism." Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations 9, no. 1 (2010): 154. 156 Hunter, Shireen T. "Iran and the Spread of Revolutionary Islam." Third World Quarterly 10, no. 2 (1998). 157 Salamey, Iman, and Zanoubia Othman. "Shia Revival and Welayat Al-­‐Faqih in the Making of Iranian Foreign Policy." Politics, Religion and Ideology 12, no. 2 (2011). 48 inspiration for Islamic world.’158159 This shows that after more than three decades
Iran’s leaders still think about spreading their ideology.
The speeches of Iran’s leader are full of words about Shia education. Without any
exception in all of speeches that have been read for this thesis, he has mentioned
Shiism in one way or another. However, two methods of mentioning were more
distinguished than others; assertive and directive. On one hand he asserts that the
main reason of U.S enmity to Iran is its revolutionary idea of Islam and on the other
hand he directs people to stick to the ideology if they want to save the regime and the
country. There is lots of similar paragraphs in his speeches like: ‘the enemy with its
entire means is aiming our thoughts, ideological infrastructure and rules in order to
destroy the Islamic Republic.’160 Moreover, in his view the only way of opposing the
enemy is more involvement with ideology. For example, in a meeting with staff of
ministry of foreign affairs he says: ‘this is wrong if we think for developing our
foreign policy we should leave our values and principles. It is good to be
internationally accepted but not at the price of abandoning the Islamic Republic
values. These values are our identity, we cannot lose them’.161 In his view, the west is
afraid of Iran’s Islamic principles to be deployed in other Islamic countries. For
examples, after the Arab Spring he claimed that these nations arose because they
finally received Iranian revolution’s message. In a speech during the peak of the Arab
Spring in early 2011 he said: ‘the events in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Bahrain are
important. A fundamental change is going on in the region. Now we can see our
values and slogans finally reached these countries.’162
In his view Shiism is the most significant characteristic of the IRI and later it will be
explained that how important is Iran’s revolutionary understanding of Shiism in the
process of securitization.
158 “twenty-­‐years outlook of Islamic Republic of Iran”. http://rc.majlis.ir/fa/law/show/132295 159 The emphasis is mine. 160 Khamenei, Ali. “Speech for military commanders”. 1993. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2651 161 Khamenei, Ali. Foreign Policy Strategies: the supreme leader speeches for the staff of ministry of foreign affairs. Tehran: The Institute of Islamic Revolution, 2011: 30. 162 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at the new year ceremony”. 2011. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=11804 49 5.4. Persian Nationalism
The glory of the past is an inseparable part of Iranians collective memory. The
country’s rich ancient civilization is a source of national honor for all Iranians.163
During the modern time Iranians and especially the elites of the country have
believed that Iran, because of its human and natural resources, its geopolitical status
and also its culture and history deserves to be the dominant power in the region. For
many, this sense of superiority has been considered as one of the determining factors
in Iran’s political adventurism in the international sphere.164 Although during the first
decade of revolution the conservatives tried to dismiss Iran’s connection to its preIslamic history when they realized that Iranians, even the religious ones, are not
about to leave their sense of nationalism, they instead started to take advantage of
nationalism. Therefore during the recent years Iran’s leaders are using nationalism
more clearly and explicitly. This is also a political option for Iran’s leaders. They
have realized that the young generation is not really a fan of their radical ideology so
in order not to lose them; they have tried applying a nationalist approach to justify
their political decisions. For instance, considering the nuclear program, which has
caused lots of economical difficulties for people, Iran’s leaders tried to demonstrate it
as a matter of national pride to unite the people behind themselves.165 One earlier
example of this application of nationalist approach was during the last years of war
with Iraq. In that time they realized that people had not reacted to ideological
propaganda as they had before and recruitment of volunteer soldiers faced
difficulties, therefore, they decided to increase the dose of national stimulus in their
propaganda.
In their current political rhetoric nuclear program is a sign by which country can
show its national independence. The discourse of independence is considerably
important for the regime because before the revolution Ayatollah Khomeini used
Shah’s dependency to the west as an excuse against him and it even found its way to
the main slogan of the revolution “independence, freedom, Islamic Republic”, thus,
163 Abrahamian, Ervand. A History of Modern Iran. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 164 Byman, Daniel, Shahram Chubin, Anoushirvan Ehteshami, and Jerrold Green. Iran's Security Policy in the Post-­‐
Revolutionary Era. RAND, 2001. 165 Bahgat, Gawdat. "Nuclear proliferation: the Islamic Republic of Iran." Iranian Studies 39, no. 3 (2006). 50 the revolutionary regime needs to show that the revolution has reached its aim.
However, the regime’s oppositions believe that Iran is still dependent and the west
has been replaced by China and Russia. The point is that whether one considers Iran
as independent or not, however, Iranians have always had a tendency to see
themselves as independent. Even Shah who was strongly dependent to the West
believed that Iran was independent.166 Therefore, this shows that the concept of
independence is occupying an important place in Iran’s political culture regardless of
its political structure.167
In his speeches, Khamenei, talks about the “greatness of Iranian nation”, however
almost always when he refers to it he mentions that this greatness is a result of
Islamic revolution because the revolution made Iran independent and free. In one of
his earliest speechs as supreme leader he drew attention to this issue. This speech was
held just a few months after the peace agreement between Iran and Iraq. He said: ‘the
world eyes are watching us today. Millions of hearts are beating for this nation and its
goals. You are a template for the world. You are the guide of freedom and resistance
against ruthless powers. If nations dare to express that they do not want to be under
oppression that is because you have opened the way.’ 168 As it is clear in this
paragraph he believes Iran’s greatness is because of its resistance against the world
power and this resistance comes from revolutionary inspiration. In another speech,
which was held for the army commanders, an explicit utterance about independence
is traceable. He said: ‘today, we, the Iranian nation, deserve to have a truly efficient
army and the reason is that we are the only nation in the world that relies on itself.
We are not dependent on anybody. We rely on our natural powers and abilities.
Without that our sovereignty and national existence would be threatened.’169
As it was mentioned earlier, Iran’s religious leaders are not adherents of the country
pre-Islamic history and during the first decade after the 1979 revolution they wanted
to downplay its importance role. Even during the chaos of first months of the
revolution some of radical clerics wanted to destroy the pre-Islamic historical
166 Pollack, Kenneth M. The Persian Puzzle: the conflict between Iran and America. New York: Random House, 2004. 167 Moshirzadeh, Homeira. "Discursive Foundations of Iran's Nuclear Policy." Security Dialogue 38, no. 4 (2007). 168 Khamenei, Ali. “Speech for Iran’s official at New Year Ceremony”. 1990. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2282 169 Khamenei, Ali. “Speech for military commanders”. 1991. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2410 51 remains. In one event a cleric even organized a caravan of tractors in order to destroy
Persepolis, however, some moderate revolutionary asked Khomeini to stop them and
he did it. In some speeches, Khamenei expressed that Iran’s ancient history is sign of
arrogant kings and therefore it should not be so emphasized. For example, the Iranian
New Year ceremony, which is the country’s most important national holiday was
once explained by Khamenei like this: ‘the new year was a celebration used by preIslamic tyrant. The New Year is of course a good thing but when it is called ancient
New Year, then, it is not favorable because ancient time was the era of corrupt
monarchies of Iran’s idiotism.’170 It is interesting to know that this speech itself was
held on New Year’s Day.
5.5. Conclusion
This chapter was aimed to explore the important factors that pattern Iranian
perception of national security. By analyzing these factor the chapter wanted to shed
a light into Iran’s leaders mindset. Historical trauma, Shiism and Persian nationalism
(as independence in the discourse of Iran’s leaders) are important. Trauma leads them
into living in a constant state of fear and vulnerability. Shiism can be seen as the
most important of the three because the IRI’s nature is completely based on Shiism.
Moreover, Khomeini offered a revolutionary interpretation of Shiism that tries to
oppose against the world powers. In the view of Iran’s leaders, the enemy too sees
Iran’s ideology as the main source of inspiration of the regime; therefore, they try to
weaken the ideology by cultural invasion. Finally, Persian nationalism and the belief
that Iran is one of the greatest countries in the world affects the country’s foreign
policy and national security and forms a sort of political adventurism. In the last
chapter it will be explained how these factors are effective during the process of
securitization. To mention it briefly, it has to be said that these factors are indirectly
effective since they affect patterns of the country’s leaders thinking. And they are
used directly as an excuse to justify the securitization of all sectors.
170 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 1998. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2879 52 Chapter Six: Regional security complexes; the Middle East dilemma
Copenhagen school emphasizes the regional security complexes more than classical
systemic security concerns. As it has been discussed in the theory chapter, according
to Copenhagen school proximity has a determinant effect on security complexes
because only superpowers (mainly the U.S.A currently) can afford engaging the
whole system. During 20th century, especially after the Second World War the
Middle East had witnessed lots of bloody conflicts between different states some of
which were created after World War I when the Ottoman Empire fell. Moreover, one
of the main characteristics of this region is that most of its states are undemocratic or
phony democracies with ambiguous understanding of independence.171 This situation,
however, makes it hard for the Middle Eastern leaders to plan their national security
doctrine because any direction they choose is going to contradict with that of a
neighbor country. The issue is, it takes time for these countries to get used to solveing
their problems peacefully and that is why interstates conflicts happen regularly. One
distinctive example in this regard is the issue of Palestine where after more than six
decades there seems no solution for this devastating clash.
6.1. Surrounded by foes: Iran and its neighbors
The Middle East is a region in which ethnicity and religion are dominant factors in
making friends and enemies.172173 Given this fact Iran has been perceived as enemy
for most of the Middle Eastern states because Iranians are Shia-Muslims while the
others are mostly Sunni-Muslims and Iranians are Persians while the others are
mostly Arabs. Regardless of these two fundamental factors, Iran has some territorial
conflicts with Iraq and the UAE as well. This situation, therefore, makes Iran feel
alone and surrounded by hostile neighbors and as the case of the eight-year war with
Iraq proved, a conflict with one Arab country for Iran means a conflict with all of
171 Goldschmidt, Arthur Jr, and Lawrence Davidson. A Concise History of the Middle East. 9nd Edition. Westview Press, 2010. 172 Khater, Akram Fuad. Sources In The History of The Modern Middle East. 2nd Edition. Wadsworth, 2011. 173 Rubin , Barry. The Tragedy of The Middle East. Cambridge University Press, 2002. 53 them because in such a situation everybody will stand by their fellow Arab country
and nobody will support Iran.174
Moreover, the Islamic Revolution complicated the situation even more. After the
revolution Iran tried to spread its ideology to other Islamic countries. This was a
danger for those states most of which were pro-U.S. and had close militaryeconomical relations with it. In the view of Iran’s revolutionary leaders those states
were betrayers to the Islamic cause. Due to this fact Iran claim leadership of the
Islamic world, which was previously claimed by Saudi Arabia. All these elements
together led into a situation that both sides felt unsafe and feared one another. In the
words of Mei Dagan, the former director of Mossad, ‘Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the
Gulf states all fear Iran, but want someone else to do the job for them’.175 It seems
that Iran’s supreme leader and the former director of Mossad share the same view
about this issue because in various speeches Khamenei claimed that Arab states are
dependent on the West. He usually downplays the technological achievements of the
Arab countries and emphasizes that all their achievements are funded and bought
with the capital they gain from their oil supplies and they have no independent
achievements. Here is one example of his attitudes towards the Arab world: ‘look at
the Persian Gulf States. They have all the modern tools but it means nothing because
they are not able to defend themselves, that is why they need others to embrace them
and save them.’176
Aside from the issue of independence, he also criticizes Arab states based on their
domestic political system. Interestingly, while the political system of the country he
rules is under question for not being democratic, he claims that the leaders of Arab
states are not democratically elected; ‘In our neighbor countries people do not have
any role in choosing their leaders. Even in those countries that seem democratic but
in reality foreign powers are the ones who rule the country not the people. Contrary
to them we have an exceptional reality in our country, which is special in this region.
174 Chubin, Shahram, and Charles Tripp. "Iran-­‐Saudi Arabia Relations and Regional Order." Adelphi (International Institute for Security Studies) 36, no. 304 (1996). 175 Mousavian, Hossein. Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012: 7. 176 Khamenei, Ali. “Speech for military commanders”. 1991. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2410 54 People choose governments and parliament members with their own wish, will and
recognition.’177
The quoted words suggest that there is a potential conflict between Iran and Arab
states, which seems to become challenging after the recent events in the region.
During the civil war in Syria Iran sends its revolutionary guards to Syria in order to
help Assad’s regime for suppressing the opposition.178 Or even recently when the
Iraqi government was unable to fight against the Islamic rebels, the ISIS, Iran sent
some of its fighter aircrafts and best of its trained troops to Iraq.179 For Arab people
and states it is humiliating that non-Arabs operates in two Arabic countries. A study
conducted in September 2013, shows that Iran’s favorability among Arabs has
declined sharply. This study polled 20000 citizens of 17 Arab-Muslim countries and
the favorability rate was 25% while in 2006 the favorability of Iran among Arabs was
75%.180 Nevertheless, the governments of Syria and Iraq are still in charge but if they
fall and Arab-Sunni extremists (ISIS for example) capture the power that could mean
some real trouble for Iran. In the Interviews conducted for this thesis Meir Javedanfar
mentioned this issue as well, in his view sending troops to Iraq and Syria will deepen
Iran’s problems with Arabs and will cost a lot both financially and politically for
Iran.
6.2. The Russian Roulette: Iran versus Israel
The history of Iran and Israel relations is a good example to show how, contrary to
realist’s systemic idea, a domestic change in a unit can cause a massive effect on
regional situation. Before the revolution the Shah’s regime had strong security,
political and economic relations with Israel. 181 As it was discussed previously
Ayatollah Khomeini used this relation as an excuse to provoke people against the
Shah and when Islamists seized power, they started an ongoing enmity with Israel.
Khomeini announced Israel as sworn enemy and since its creation until now; the IRI
177 Khamenei, Ali. “Speech for youth”. 2000. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=3003 178 Saul, Jonathan and Hafezi Parisa. Iran boosts military support in Syria to bolster Assad. Reuters. 2014. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/21/us-­‐syria-­‐crisis-­‐iran-­‐idUSBREA1K09U20140221 179 Chulov, Martin. Iran sends troops into Iraq to aid fight against Isis militants. Reuters. 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/14/iran-­‐iraq-­‐isis-­‐fight-­‐militants-­‐nouri-­‐maliki 180 Fossett, Katelyn. Poll Finds Mounting Hostility Among Arabs towards Iran. Inter Press Service. 2013. http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/poll-­‐finds-­‐mounting-­‐hostility-­‐among-­‐arabs-­‐towards-­‐iran/ 181 Entesar, Nader. "Israel and Iran's National Security." Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 27 (2004). 55 has not recognized Israel as a nation-state. Iran supports and arms Hezbollah and
Hamas and on the other hand Israel tries to persuade U.S and Europeans for more
sanctions and harsher solutions against Iran. Iran has always claimed that Israel is
responsible for assassination of its nuclear scientists; however, Israel has always
either denied or made no comments on this accusation. Nevertheless, considering this
situation and given the fact that Israel has nuclear weapon arsenal, this country is a
major security concern for Iran’s leaders.182 On the other hand Israel is concerned
about Iran’s alleged nuclear program because in their view the only reason Iran is
seeking the nuclear program is to end the process with a nuclear bomb. Nevertheless,
if Iran processes nuclear weapon the situation will be even worse. In the book “Iran:
the nuclear challenge” published by Council on Foreign Relations, Robert M. Danin
draws a possible scenario: ‘Iran with the bomb would also have a difficult set of
calculations to make with respect to Israel. Even if its intentions in developing the
bomb were not primarily offensive but instead were largely aimed at regime
preservation, Iran’s new strategic situation could lead its leadership to act before
being acted upon. Tehran might calculate, rightly or wrongly, that in a crisis Israel
would like strike Iran’s newly developed nuclear arsenal, and might therefore use its
own weapon first. Meanwhile feeling vulnerable with a small nuclear arsenal, Iran
would likely seek to expand its stockpile and thereby increase its ability to survive an
outside effort to destroy it’.183
Nonetheless, the question is whether these two countries can start a normal
relationship? Mohsen Kadivar in the interview conducted for this thesis argued that
as long as the IRI rules Iran, this country would never find a normal relationship with
Israel. He said: ‘opposing Israel is embedded in the IRI’s nature but for example
Iran’s problem with the U.S is not of the same nature. Therefore, it is possible for
Iran and the U.S to have good relations one day and we are witnessing now that they
have started to solve some of their problems through negotiations but a similar
process can never happen regarding Iran’s relation with Israel and since the IRI
doesn’t substantively change its nature they may never go toward the normalization
of their relationships with Israel.’ Contrary to Kadivar, however, Javedanfar
182 Entesar, Nader. "Iran's Nuclear Decision-­‐Making Calculus." Middle East Policy XVI, no. 2 (2009). 183 Danin, Robert M. "Iran with the bomb." In IRan: The Nuclear Challenge, edited by Robert D Blackwill. Council on Foreign Relations, 2012: 55. 56 observing Iran’s different political potentials has a more optimistic view. In his view
the problem is conservatives and Khamenei himself. In the interview conducted for
this thesis he said, ‘different sides of the regime have different views about Israel. For
example, Khatami did not hold a hostile attitude towards Israel or even Rafsanjani
who used to hold a hostile attitude towards Israel in the past, has lately stated that
Israel is not the enemy. But on the other hand Ahmadinejad was such an extremist.
However, the problem is that, Khamenei as the supreme leader still has an extremist
point of view about Israel and as long as he holds this view there is no perspective of
change.’
Although Kadivar mentioned the recent negotiations between Iran and the U.S, many
believe Iran and the U.S cannot achieve a breakthrough before solving Iran’s
problems with Israel. For instance, Mahmood Sariolghalam, who is one of president
Rouhani’s senior advisors in the field of foreign affairs believes: ‘Iran fails to
understand and refuses to accept the fundamental issue that a basic improvement in
U.S.-Iranian relations cannot be achieved without Tehran's acknowledgment of the
strategic alliance between the United States and Israel; since the 1991 Persian Gulf
War, Iran's attempts to separate the issue of Israel from a potential improvement in
U.S.-Iranian relations have consistently failed’.184
In his speeches, Iran’s leader always utter that Israel is illegitimate and Iran is
opposing it because of the Palestine cause. It was mentioned that Iran has not
recognized Israel as a state; therefore, not a single time in the speeches, analyzed for
this thesis, has Ayatollah Khamenei used the term Israel, which is the official name
of the country. In the method chapter it has been explained that “the form of
addressing” in speeches is important because it shows people’s attitude towards one
another. This short quote of Khamenei is maybe one of the best examples that can
expose this important; ‘the Zionist regime is more filthy than the U.S because
America is a state based on a nation but the Zionist occupying regime is not based on
a nation because the real nation of that land is displaced.’ 185 In his view, the
occupation of Palestine by Israel is the source of justification for fighting against
184 Sariolghalam, Mahmood. "Understanding Iran: Getting past stereotypes and mythology." The Washington Quarterly 26, no. 4 (2003): 71. 185 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 1996. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2791 57 Israel. In another speech he explains his view about this issue in more details. He
says: ‘the truth is they displaced a nation form its home and it is the right of this
people to recapture their homes. This fight is a legitimate fight. The U.S calls it
terrorism but they do not consider Zionists atrocity against Palestinians as terrorism.
You see how far is the pretender of human rights from truth, how they show the truth
upside down, how far they are from humanity. This policy is inhuman.’186 In his book
“National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy”, Iran’s current president, Hassan
Rouhani, draws the outlines of Iran’s policy towards Israel. He argues that Iran is like
any other states and seeks its own interests but Palestine is an exception. He writes:
‘the first rule in international relations is seeking survival. Survival is the
fundamental base of states’ foreign policy and we seek survival as well. Thus, there is
no substantial difference between our foreign policy and others. However, those
countries that are not Islamic do not accept any difficulties because of Palestine but
we do. We know it is possible that because of our policies we face political and
economical problems, which are able to decelerate our development rate but we
accept that. Our difference with others is that their values follow their interests and in
the case of contradiction they leave their values but we sometimes leave our interests
in favor of our values’.187 This view is similar to Kadivar’s viewpoint about Iran’s
foreign policy. In the interview conducted for this thesis he said that Iran is a rational
actor who seeks its interests. Kadivar, however, argued that in the case of
contradiction Iran usually leaves its values and follow its interests but the main point
is that he said that Palestine is the only exception, therefore it seems like Kadivar
shares Rouhani’s view in this case.
6.3. Enemy at the gates: the U.S presence in the region
The U.S is not of course a Middle Eastern country. Nevertheless, it has been
discussed in the theory chapter that according to Copenhagen school the U.S is a
superpower and one of the characteristic of being superpower is acting in the whole
system and having presence in all regions of the world. Since its advent as a
186 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at Friday pray”. 1992. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2608 187 Rouhani, Hassan. National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy. Tehran: Center of Strategic Studies, 2012: 81. 58 superpower, the U.S has always had a huge stake in the Middle East and all the
happenings of this region were matters of concern for it.
Regarding Iran, similar to Israel, the U.S was a close ally to the Shah, however, after
the revolution it was no longer an ally and was referred to as the “Great Satan”.188 It
was explained in the previous section that the IRI’s commitment to Shiism was the
main drive of Iran’s enmity with Israel but the difference between Iran’s attitude
towards the U.S and Israel seems to be the assumption that the trauma and historical
involvement of the U.S in Iran’s domestic affairs was the main reason for the
revolutionary regime’s anger.189 Although in the very first days of the revolution the
U.S announced that it recognized the new regime of Iran but it was not enough for
revolutionaries to forget the past. Nevertheless, when it became public that the U.S
allowed the former Shah to enter its territory for medical care, the young
revolutionaries attacked the U.S embassy and occupied it and held its staff hostage
and since then the two countries have not had any official relations.190 The nature of
their situation became even worse when the U.S managed an unsuccessful
clandestine military operation so called “Operation Eagle Claw” for releasing its
hostages.191 Moreover, the hostage crisis resulted into the U.S led sanctions on Iran.
The sanctions continued during the eight-year war when America included weapon
prohibition into the sanctions. Violation of human rights, supporting terrorist groups
and Iran’s alleged nuclear program are the reasons behind the current sanctions.192
These sanctions alongside the U.S support of the IRI’s opposition have made it clear
in Iran’s leaders mind that the U.S wants to overthrow the regime. Given the fact that
the U.S has military bases in almost all of Iran’s neighbors, makes Iranians feel
surrounded by enemy. After 9/11 when U.S attacked both Iraq and Afghanistan a
joke was popular in Iran which shows explicitly this fear: ‘there are just two countries
in the world that have only the United States as their neighbor: the other one
is Canada’.193 Although the U.S has long had military bases in the Middle East,
188 Khomeini as the founder of the IRI used this tem for addressing the U.S. 189 Abrahamian, Ervand. The Coup. New York: The New Press, 2013. 190 Houghton, David Patrick. U.S Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge Univercity Press, 2001. 191 Fong, Chua Lu. "Operation Eagle Claw, 1980: A Case Study In Crisis Management and Millitary Planning." Journal of The Singapore Armed Forces 28, no. 2 (2002). 192 Katzman, Kenneth. Iran Sanctions. Congressional Research Service, www.crs.gov, 2014. 193 Everts, Steven. "Iran: the next big crisis." Prospect 93 (December 2003): 47. 59 however, occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and deploying thousands of troops to these
countries had a massive effect in Iran’s national security calculus because in their
view the enemy was at the gates. Many believe that the U.S military presence in the
region after 9/11 was one of the main reasons of Iran following its nuclear program
seriously especially when Bush addressed Iran as one of “Axis of Evil”.194195196
Like the founder of the IRI, the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, sees the
U.S as the biggest enemy who hopes and peruses for regime change in Iran. He
‘holds strongly that Tehran must not compromise in the face of U.S. pressure or
intimidation, for it would project weakness and encourage even greater pressure’.197
The current dialogues between the U.S and Iran’s moderate government of Rouhani
over Iran’s nuclear program is a good example of this issue. It seems that Rouhani’s
administration has the permission of Khamenei for the negotiations and operates
under the direct surveillance of his office; however, conservatives strongly criticize
any kind of talks with the U.S and Khamenei himself said: ‘I do not oppose the
negotiations, but I am not optimistic about them.’198 Hossein Alizadeh believes that
Khamenei’s strategy is to not openly express his disagreement with the governments
but he pushes his will behind the close doors through the institutions and
organizations that he directly controls and sometimes contrary to his public attitude
he tries to block the administration. In the interview conducted for this thesis
Alizadeh argues: ‘the thing is that he always tries to express the same discourse as the
administration and we have seen that during the presidency of Hashemi, Khatami,
Ahmadinejad and now Rouhani. The moderation is the main slogan of Rouhani and
interestingly since last year Khamenei used this slogan as well. However, he always
acted in a same way during the past 25 years but he wanted to show publicly that he
is not against the administration in order to express that he stands aside the different
sides but he always took sides with radicals because he is the most radical himself.’
194 Tarzi, Amin. "The Role of WMD in Iranian Security Calculations: Dangers to Europe." Middle East Review of International Affairs 8, no. 3 (2004). 195 Bahgat, Gawdat. "Nuclear proliferation: the Islamic Republic of Iran." Iranian Studies 39, no. 3 (2006). 196 Drew, Dennis M, and Donald M Snow. Making Twenty-­‐First-­‐Century Strategy: an introduction to modern national security processes. Alabama: Air University Press, 2006. 197 Sadjadpour, Karim. Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran's Most Powerful Leader. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009: 19. 198 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 2013. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=22233 60 An older speech of Khamenei is a better example of his view about negotiations with
the U.S. During the presidency of the reformist Khatami, enjoying the relative
freedom of speech and press everybody was talking about solving the problems
through direct negotiation and Khamenei uttered his view as well: ‘the discussion that
they say we are ready to talk with Iran is the preparatory stage of further enmity with
us. This is a deception. America’s enmity with us does not disappear because they
seek their interests in our country.’199 In another speech some years later he repeated
his position again: ‘we have said from the beginning and say it again that we do not
negotiate with the U.S about none of our problems. We do not negotiate with
America because it is obvious that for them negotiation is a tool to impose their will.
Negotiation loses its true meaning when you negotiate with the U.S.’200
6.4. Conclusion
Looking at Iran from a regional aspect shows too many reasons for Iran to not feeling
safe. Due to ideological, ethnical and geopolitical concerns Iran has deep problems
with most of its neighbors and because of the importance of ideological and ethnical
issues in this region of the world, having a permanent friendly relationship with its
neighbors seems to be a hard task. Iran’s problems with Israel have become a
deadlock because of Iran’s persistence on the Palestine cause. And there are major
differences between Iran and the U.S policies about the future of the Middle East and
given the fact that the U.S has military bases all over around Iran, this country has a
legitimate concern about its existence. This situation makes Iran’s leaders feel alone
and surrendered and in their view all the others are enemies. Logically, when leaders
of a country consider everybody as enemy then their national security decisionmaking will have specific characteristics. In the next chapter, therefore, the concept
of enemy and the way that Iran’s leaders securitize the others as enemy will be
analyzed.
199 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 2000. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=3001 200 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 2006. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=3332 61 Chapter Seven: Securitizing the others as enemies
In the last three chapters endogenous and exogenous factors involved in shaping of
Iran’s leaders’ perception of national security were discussed. It was argued that due
to these considerable factors, the enemy conception has occupied a significant place
in their perception because subjective and objective components have led them to
think of others as enemies who are about to harm them. In this chapter the enemy
conception and the way Iran’s leader securitizes the others, as enemies will be
analyzed.
7.1. The Enemy Conception
For Copenhagen school of security studies, like constructivists, patterns of amity and
enmity are important for understanding the actions and reactions of units inside the
regional system because a mechanical reflection of the distribution of power does not
seem appropriate enough to offer a comprehensive explanation of what happens and
why it happens. 201 In this regard, in international relations when the nature of
relations is defined by the logic of threats and vulnerabilities (whether real or
imagined), then, enmity will be the framework of relations.202 Moreover, Vamik
Volkan, who is a scholar in political psychology, argues that identity, ethnicity and
ideology are creation of people’s mind through social construction; therefore they
will define a nation’s relationship with the other to be either amity or enmity, thus the
concept of enemy, to a great extent, is created by people’s mind.203 Given this idea,
as it was discussed previously, the IRI leaders feel threatened and isolated; therefore,
they have a tendency of seeing everybody as an enemy. Nevertheless, Robert Jervis
believes that consistency is an important feature of people’s perceptions. He argues:
‘we tend to believe that countries we like do things we like, support goals we favor,
and oppose countries that we oppose. We tend to think that countries that are our
201 Buzan, Barry, and Ole Waever. Regions and Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 202 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. 203 Volkan, Vamik D. "The Need To Have Enemies And Allies: A Developemental Approach." Political Psychology 6, no. 2 (1985). 62 enemies make proposals that would harm us, work against the interests of our friends,
and aid our opponents’204
Khamenei’s reaction to Obama’s video message, congratulating Persian New Year is
a clear example of exposing this consistency in Iran’s supreme leader’s belief about
the harmful proposals of the enemy. Some months after his presidency, in a video
message in March 2009, Barack Obama spoke to Iran’s people and leaders. In his
message, he offered a “new beginning” of engagement and declared that his
administration was committed to diplomacy without any threats.
205
His
unprecedented message could be the beginning of a new chapter in the unpleasant
book of Iran-U.S relationships; however, Iran’s supreme leader’s reply to Obama’s
initiative killed all the hopes. In his annual speech on the New Year day, he
expressed how strong his perception about the U.S enmity towards Iran was. In
response to Obama, he said: ‘they say that they extended a hand toward Iran. Well,
what kind of hand is it? This is a cast iron hand covered by velvet glove. They
congratulated the New Year to Iranians but in that congratulation message they
accused Iranians of terrorism and seeking nuclear weapons.’206 Khamenei’s rapid
reply to Obama, however, can be interpreted as a habitual pattern of response that
usually occurs in long-standing hostilities.207 In this pattern of enmity one tends to
search for negative matters and neglects the positive ones. For instance, here,
Khamenei simply turned a blind eye on the parts of Obama messages when he talked
about his administration commitment to diplomacy and his wish for solving mutual
problems, and instead he emphasized the part that Obama talked about terrorism and
nuclear program. This, in turn, shows the weight of decision-maker’s belief about the
world and their images of others, because ‘these cognitions are part of the proximate
cause of the relevant behavior’.208 However, the recent breakthrough between the U.S
and Rouhani’s administration proves that Khamenei was wrong about Obama’s
204 Jervis, Robert. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976: 117-­‐118. 205 Borger, Julian. Obama's Nowruz message to Iran: What is he trying to achieve?. The Guardian. 2009. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/20/obama-­‐video-­‐iran-­‐julian-­‐borger 206 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 2009. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=6082 207 Heo, Seunghoon Emilia. Reconciling Enemy States In Europe And Asia. LONDON: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, 2012. 208 Jervis, Robert. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976: 28. 63 motivation and Obama’s government was really committed to diplomacy. It shows
that Khamenei’s belief about Obama’s motivation was a misperception rather than
perception. This misperception and his resistance on his non-negotiation attitude
towards the U.S however resulted more years of unnecessary sanctions against Iran.
Moreover it can be said that one can see this issue from other angle and argue that
Khamenei denied Obama’s initiative in favor of domestic concerns. This will be
discussed later.
Regardless of this special case, Khamenei’s general view about diplomacy can
expose his perception of the world and enemy conception. In several occasions he
said, “Diplomacy is a war”. For instance, just some months after his leadership in his
first speech for the staff of the ministry of foreign affairs he said: ‘diplomacy is a war
and you know it well and have felt it like military wars. All the diplomats of the
world are fighting. The value and effectiveness of this war is not less that military
wars rather more sometimes.’209 Ten years later, in another speech again held for the
staff of ministry of foreign affairs he expressed this view without any change and this
shows that during all these years, in his eyes, the others were enemies and diplomacy,
which is the ordinary ways of communication and interaction in international affairs,
is still war. This time he said: ‘diplomacy is a war in another field. There is no
concern in diplomacy because no other state would forget its interests in favor of
your state and your beloved nation rather they will try to reach their own interests and
even capture yours. This is war, namely, you fight for your interests and do not mind
if you endanger others’ interests, do not bother yourself for the others.’210 This same
attitude in a ten years period shows cohesion in his speech act.
When discussing technical issues of Iran’s nuclear program in his book, president
Rouhani, explains the way that Iran’s conservatives look to the West. He writes: ‘the
mentality of some officials was that it was impossible to solve our problems with
IAEA; therefore, it was wasteful to negotiate with it. They also believed that
negotiation with the EU could not reach any result because the EU wanted us to halt
uranium enrichment. Regarding the U.S they had more pessimistic view because in
209 Khamenei, Ali. “speech for the staff of ministry of foreign affairs”. 1989. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2167 210 Khamenei, Ali. Foreign Policy Strategies: the supreme leader speeches for the staff of ministry of foreign affairs. Tehran: The Institute of Islamic Revolution, 2011: 37-­‐38. 64 their view the U.S was following more sanctions or even military invasion and the
nuclear program was just an excuse’.211 Elsewhere in his book Rouhani theorizes
Iran’s officials perception and writes: ‘in Iran, we encounter some kind of prejudice
in analysis. In social sciences there is a term so called Self Fulfilling Prophecy,
meaning prejudices that cause their own realization. Namely, if you believed a
process fails your behavior would be in a way that would result the fail of the process
and then you would say: you see? I was right’.212
Khamenei believes that the world powers are the subsequent of colonial powers. In
his speeches he utters that they always try to harm the third world specially the
Islamic world, therefore, the IRI as the true leader of the Islamic world should always
oppose the world powers. Here is one example of his attitude: ‘some believe that we
should not antagonize the world powers and provoke them against us, but they
neglect the fact that those powers are exploiters by nature and the global arrogance
(the U.S.) tries to terminate every nation who does not want to placate them.’213
In the theory chapter it was discussed that ‘securitization studies aims to gain an
increasingly precise understanding of who securitizes, on what issues (threats), for
whom (referent objects), why, with what results, and, not least, under what
conditions’.214 Until now all these matter were implicitly explained. The securitizing
actor is mainly the supreme leader and whenever other officials do the securitization
they refer to the supreme leader’s speeches as the cornerstone. The referent object,
however, is the Islamic Republic itself. For them the regime is much more important
than the country and they repeatedly express that without the IRI the country means
nothing. Moreover, The IRI has a tendency to securitize all the sectors (political,
economical, social). In their view the enemy uses all means to harm Iran. This part of
one of Khamenei speeches shows how he securitizes all the sectors: ‘national security
is very important. It includes both external and internal security. As stated previously
211 Rouhani, Hassan. National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy. Tehran: Center of Strategic Studies, 2012: 153-­‐154. 212 Rouhani, Hassan. National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy. Tehran: Center of Strategic Studies, 2012: 565. 213 Khamenei, Ali. “speech for the staff of ministry of intelligence and security”. 1989. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2103 214 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 32. 65 without security there is no economic activity. Without security there is no social
justice. Without security there is no scientific development. Without security the
country falls apart, therefore national security is the base.’215 In his speeches Iran’s
supreme leader constantly emphasizes that Iran is in the way of development and the
enemy cannot stand Iran as a developed country, thus, they try to stop it. Sometimes
his speeches have characteristics of conspiracy and he asserts that the entire world is
against Iran. Here is one example: ‘the leaders of global arrogance, who are
dependent on gold and force and their trinkets in our region, with all of their
propaganda, financial and political power try to terrify our nation. Everybody who
follows political propaganda of the malevolent enemies of our nation understands the
fact that all of their scientific, economical, political, security and military threats are
in order to frustrate an alive, lively and mighty nation, namely the great Iranian
nation who is standing with courage in the middle of the field.’216
The social and cultural issues are matters of securitization as well. The IRI, from the
very early days of the revolution tried to force people to accept a specific way of life
style, the one that is accepted by their understanding of Islam. For example,
according to the country’s law women should cover their hair and wear long dresses.
Of course, people have always resisted that and tried to challenge the official life
style of the regime, which is not easy and sometimes dangerous. In reaction to people
resistance, Khamenei brought up the notion of “cultural invasion”, because in his
view this is because of the enemy stimulations that people challenge the official
culture and the IRI’s social order. In this regard, in a speech that was held for military
commanders he said: ‘some years ago I realized that a cultural movement like a
creeper was going on inside the country. What for? That is for aiming the main
point. What is the main point? Obviously the main point is people’s faith. They
cannot change people’s faith by force therefore, they started a cultural invasion
against us.’217
215 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 2000. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=3001 216 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 2012. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=19301 217 Khamenei, Ali. “speech for military commanders”. 1998. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2904 66 Generally speaking, in his view all the problems of the country come from the
enemies and he never accepts and confesses that the regime is responsible for the
country’s problems. Regarding the form of address of his speeches, however, he uses
the word “enemy” in general. His pronunciation of the word, enemy, is in a specificstrange way therefore, this is an issue that Iranians make fun of it. Nevertheless when
he talks specifically about the U.S he uses “the world arrogance” and instead of Israel
he uses “Zionists”. By using these terms instead of the official names of those
countries he tends to show his enmity with them.
7.2. The Need To Have Enemies
In the situation of total war usually all states securitize all sectors, but in weak and
unstable states the process of securitization goes on in all the sectors permanently and
there is no difference between normal political life and national security concerns
because much of regular politics is pushed under security realm.218 Respectively,
securitization and politicization follow two opposite directions. If politicization
means ‘to make an issue appear to be open, a matter of choice, something that is
decided upon and that therefore entails responsibility’219, then securitization means
‘to present an issue as urgent and existential, as so important that it should not be
exposed to the normal haggling of politics but should be dealt with decisively by top
leaders prior to other issues’.220 If one follows Iran’s news and country’s officials’
discourse one sees that they always repeat “in the crucial current situation” and after
that they usually wants people and mostly other political figures, especially
reformists, to stop discussion about issues and trust the supreme leader because the
time being is a crucial situation. Above all the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei
uses this tactic and methodologically speaking his way of speech act is directive; he
wants everybody to follow him because the situation is crucial.
The constant conflict over power in Iran’s political life was explained in chapter four.
Having said that, Iran’s leaders have two different kinds of problem. Ones are
external opponents who are mainly outside the country and somehow have support of
218 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 28. 219 Ibid: 29. 220 Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde. Security: A New Framework For Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998: 29. 67 the U.S (mainly financial support). These are two different groups; Mojahedin-eKhalgh, MEK, which is kind of an Islamic Marxist group that during Saddam era had
military base inside Iraq and was fighting against the IRI.221 Although the U.S lists
this group as a terrorist organization, yet, they had support of America for some
periods of time. The other ones of external opponents are the supporters of the former
monarchy who desire the son of the former Shah to be Iran’s king after the fall of the
IRI. These two groups do not create an urgent threat but in the case that the IRI loses
its control over the country they can make some troubles. Anyhow, in the eyes of
Iran’s conservatives and the supreme leader himself, the internal opposition, namely
reformists, is more dangerous. Reformists are former revolutionaries whose ideas of
how to rule the country have been changed over time. They seek more political and
social freedom inside the country and a better set of relations with outside world.
Iran’s leader considers them dangerous because they are massively popular between
people and reformist leaders are beloved by many people especially young
population who are the majority of the country. The past experiences show that if
conservatives do not manipulate the elections, the reformists will be the winners. The
conservatives have not forgotten the era of the reformist president Khatami and
almost one decade later after his presidency they still maledict Khatami’s
administration because of its actions, which were against the IRI ideology and values
in the eyes of conservatives.
Khamenei’s strategy against its opposition (internal-external) has always been to
relate them to the enemy (the U.S and Israel). In his view, the internal opponents are
the hidden hands of the enemy who operate from within. It was discussed before that
when Khamenei was selected as the supreme leader he had not enough political and
religious authority; therefore his leadership’s legitimacy was always questioned by
other political and religious figures. In response, Khamenei tried to say that the ones
who had questioned his leadership were the enemy agents. From the early days of his
leadership some of high rank Shia clerics started criticizing him because they
believed he was not at the level to occupy the leadership position. Here is an example
of Khamenei’s response to two of high ranked clerics who had more involvement and
role in the revolution than him and were former friends of Khamenei. He said that
221 Varasteh, Manshour. Understanding Iran's National Security Doctrine. Matador, 2013. 68 they were ‘traitors, naïve, manipulated by Zionists, disruptive of national security,
ignorant, stupid and jealous.’222 It is worth mentioning that these two were under
house arrest until their death.
During the reformist era, Khamenei’s attitude against reformists was extremely harsh.
Almost in all of his speeches he criticized their actions and always expressed that
their actions were what the enemy wanted, therefore they were the enemy agents (it
should be mentioned that he never publicly opposed president Khatami because as it
was explained before his strategy is to not disagreeing the presidents openly). In one
famous example, in a speech he criticized the reformist newspapers and the day after
that more than twenty reformist newspapers were shut down by revolutionary court.
In that speech he said: ‘unfortunately we see today that the enemy instead of
broadcasting its own radios is acting inside the country. These media are the bases of
the enemy. I am not against freedom of the press and variety of media. I would be
happier if we had two hundreds newspaper instead of twenty but these newspapers
are disturbing the public by making people pessimist about the regime. Fifteen,
twenty newspapers are being led by similar center with similar titles. They
exaggerate small issues to kill the hope of the youth.’223
During his leadership he has never accepted variety and different views and
whenever a different view tried to find a place in public with his speeches, Khamenei
securitized that as the agent of enemy. Instead of accepting different views he wants
people and political figures to be united: ‘my dears, if we were united and as one, if
people were intimate with officials, then the enemy could do nothing against us but
unfortunately we have the agents of enemy inside the country.’224 Moreover, in his
view, not being united is because of the enemy activities as well. He wants people
and officials to not saying anything if they see problems because the enemy wants
this; ‘do not talk about differences, talk about similarities. If judiciary arrests
somebody do not make it as an excuse for controversy. If intelligence service does
222 Kadivar, Mohsen. The Trivialization of Shiia Marjaiyyat: Impeaching Iran's Supreme Leader on his Marjaiyyat. Kadivar.com, 2014: 22. 223 Khamenei, Ali. “speech for youth”. 2000. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=3003 224 ibid 69 something wrong do not make a big issue of it because this is what enemy wants.
Enemy does not want to see us united.’225
This situation will lead us to think that the enemy conception, to some extent has a
domestic usage for Iran’s supreme leader. Although, trauma, ideology and
geopolitical issues made him to think that others are enemies, however, he uses this
very well in order to suppress the opposition and makes the way of his leadership
smooth. Alizadeh and Javedanfar in the interview for this research both confirmed
this idea. Alizadeh argued: ‘the enemy has a practical function for him. Generally
speaking, all the ideological regimes need to have enemies to find them guilty.
Khamenei claims that all the problems of the country are because of the enemy and
he never accepts that the problems can be their own fault. He even announced a fatwa
that criticizing the regime is Haram.’ Javedanfar also believes that Khamenei is
exploiting the issue of Israel. In his view Israel is a matter that Khamenei plays with
it relating the domestic situation. He offered some example: ‘now Rouhani is trying
to normalize Iran’s relation with the U.S but when Khamenei does not want Rouhani
anymore he will attack Israel in order to embarrass Rouhani. That is what he did to
the former reformist president Khatami as well. During Khatami era when he was
tying to restore Iran’s image in the world Khamenei ordered the arrest of 13 Jews to
show Khatami who was in charge. In sum, the conservatives are using Israel to
undermine reformists and they are using it in the Arab world to say that they are the
true supporter of Palestine. It seems the only area for them to hold their legitimacy in
the eyes of their supporters.’
7.3. Conclusion
This chapter was about arguing that Iran’s supreme leader is the main actor of the
process of securitization. This is due to his constitutional position that grants him the
power to be decisive in security issues. Moreover, because of both subjective and
objective issues; he believes that the others are enemies and he sees all of their
actions as harmful proposals, therefore for him all the sectors (political, economical,
social) are the matters of securitization. Moreover, because of domestic difficulties
with other factions he masterly uses the enemy in order to follow his path. As his
225 Khamenei, Ali. “speech at new year ceremony”. 1999. http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-­‐content?id=2936 70 leadership has legitimacy deficit and he faces strong internal opponents he needs to
use the enemy and crucial situation caused by enemy as and excuse to force his
opponents keep quiet.
71 Conclusion: Making National Security In a Complex Web of
Uncertainty
Theoretical Conclusion
This thesis has given an account of and the reasons for the widespread use of multitheoretical perspective for explaining Iranian perception of national security and
securitization of the others as enemies. Moreover, it has argued that ideas of
Copenhagen school of security studies are the best instruments to analyze this task
because of the theoretical shortages found in both realism and constructivism.
Realism does not seem appropriate enough for explaining Iranian security situation.
Although, the current situation and security differences between Iran and its rivals
and enemies can be explained by realism but it is unable to say why this situation
happened in the first place. Realism does not include internal political change and the
nature of units and also the role of identities and values in its analysis, thus, it is
unable to offer an answer for the question what was the reason that Shah’s friendship
with the U.S and Israel turned to enmity after the revolution. If it was not because of
a political change in Iran’s ruling regime and new values and ideas of the new
revolutionary regime then what was that? Constructivism, compare to realism, seems
more satisfactory, however, it lacks the intentions to analyze geopolitical matters that
are needed for finding a comprehensive understanding of national security
perceptions. As Copenhagen school tries to include both realism and constructivism
implications in its two pillars structure, it was therefore chosen as the principal theory
of this research. According to this school; contrary to systemic level that its structure
is permanent, the regional level has durable structure and it makes regional security
complexes to finding a new situation by a significant shift in arrangements of units,
the patterns of amity and enmity or the distribution of power. This research tried to
prove that the shift in the political system of Iran caused by the Islamic Revolution
created new patterns of amity and enmity in the region and because of that the
Middle East faced a new security situation after Iran’s revolution.
72 Main Findings
This study set out to determine the Iranian perception of national security. In doing
so, both subjective and objective matters were required to be analyzed. Objective
issues were analyzed in a regional perspective but if one accepts the aforementioned
argument about inadequacy of realism, then, it is to say that for understanding
people’s perception of national security, understanding their culture, historical
background and ideas is a must, because the explanation of objective condition is not
simply enough. It was shown that historical trauma, Shiism and Persian nationalism
play a major role in the way that Iran’s supreme leader thinks of the others. In
addition, because speeches of Iran’s supreme leader were the major primary sources
of this research, a short review of Iran’s political system was necessary in order to
show the importance of the supreme leader and the role he plays in the country’s
political life.
The evidence from this study suggests that the IRI’s leaders feel unsafe, isolated and
uncertain about their future. Iranian’s nationality and religion are the leading causes
of their disputes with Arab-Sunni states of the region. Moreover, the IRI ambition of
becoming the leader of Islamic world and a regional hegemon is another reason for
its rivalry with some Arab states (Saudi Arabia, Egypt) that makes their difficulties
with Arabs even more complicated. Regarding Israel, however, the regime’s
revolutionary interpretation of Shiism and its commitment to Palestine does not allow
for it to start a normal relationship with Israel. Given the fact that Israel has already
possessed nuclear weapons and Iran is accused of following the same path, is another
issue of security concern, not only for these two states but also for the entire region.
Arabs fear a nuclear Iran as much as Israel does. Regarding the U.S., it seems that
trauma is the main reason of enmity with it. 1953 coup against Mossadeq democratic
elected government, support of Saddam during Iran-Iraq war and sanctions are the
main sources of historical trauma that made Iran’s leader to believe that the U.S
ultimate aim is to withdraw the Islamic Republic. The military presence of the U.S in
the region and its bases in almost all of Iran’s neighbor’s territories is enough for
Iranian to fear a regime change by military invasion of the U.S.
73 The results of this study, therefore, indicate that these factors together make Iran’s
leader to see everybody as a potential enemy. When in the minds of a country’s
leaders all others are enemies then their perception of national security will be
different with specific characteristic. In this situation they tend to securitize all the
sectors and as it was shown that is what Iran’s supreme leader exactly does with his
speech acts. In his speeches he utters that enemy can use and is using all sectors
(political, economical, social and cultural) to harm the country and its Islamic
republic, thus, they are matters of national security.
All of these results aside, it can be said that the most significant finding of this study
was the fact that for Iran’s leader the enemy has a functional use in order to solve
internal problems. It has been discussed that the current supreme leader’s political
and religious legitimacy is under question, therefore, he needs an excuse to
suppresses his opponents and saying that the country is in crucial situation because of
the enemy seems the best option that he has in his hands. With the use of enemy
conception he tries to convince people and the regime opponents that the only way to
survive is following his path and be united under his leadership. As a final thought it
is worth considering that because of the cohesion found in Khamenei’s speeches
regarding his perception of national security and enemy conception during twentyfive years of his leadership, it seems that any substantive change in Iran’s security
and foreign policy requires a substantive shift in Iran’s leadership.
Suggestions for further studies
It was discussed in this research that how the lack of personal legitimacy of the
current supreme leader affected his leadership. However, this discussion demands
more researches from the perspective of political psychology and has the potential of
being a separate study. This issue has been deliberately left aside in this thesis to
avoid more complications. Moreover, the role of audience in securitization was
explained in the theory chapter. In the view of Copenhagen school of security studies,
the process of securitization is successful when the targeted audience accepts it. In
the case of Iran, finding the fact that if Iranians accept the securitization conducted by
the supreme leader needs a broad public poll which was not possible in this research
due to the time shortage and word limitation.
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Interview: Hossein Alizadeh Method of Interview: Skype Q: according to the Iran’s constitution the supreme leader is responsible for
making the grand strategies of the country including the foreign policy and
national security doctrine. Regarding the fact that for many years you were part
of the country’s foreign policy apparatus, I want to know how is the actual
process of decision making in foreign policy and national security in Iran.
Alizadeh: it is good to mention that during my years as an Iranian diplomat I’ve been
asked this question several times by foreign diplomats because they had no idea as
well who had final word in Iran. Due to the fact that Iran’s system is centralized thus
the process of decision-making can be different from other countries. All over the
world the ministry of foreign affairs is one of the most important organizations
involved in the foreign policy and national security decision-making, however, when
I review my years as an Iranian diplomat I can mention lots of instances where an
issue had been decided without the ministry of foreign affairs even knowing about it.
One example that I can mention now is Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
The ministry of foreign affairs was totally unaware of that and everybody was
shocked when they heard the fatwa. The thing is that although the ministry of foreign
affairs is not involved in many issues, however, it still holds all the responsibilities
for the consequences. When Khomeini issued a death fatwa against a British citizen it
damaged the relations between the two countries harshly and it was considered the
ministry’s fault not Khomeini’s
So I can say when exploring the organizations involved in decision-making process,
the ministry of foreign affairs cannot be seen as one of constant decision makers.
This ministry is maximally responsible for operating the decision taken elsewhere.
Q: what is the reason behind that? Is it the lack of trust or something else?
Alizadeh: the IRI is a post-revolutionary regime and one of the consequences of
every revolution is the deconstruction of the former structures and replacing them
82 with new structures and the problem is that the revolutionary structures are immature
and it takes time for them to learn how to adjust themselves to international standards
of foreign policy. After three decades, however, the IRI still has not learned that
every institution and organization has its own functions therefore I do not think it is
because they do not trust the foreign ministry
On the other hand the way that they look at international relations is important as
well. When Mr. Jalili writes his dissertation about prophet of Islam’s diplomacy we
can see that they have a specific understanding of international relations. They divide
the world to Islamic world and the world of blasphemy and in their view even Saudi
Arabia and Egypt are not in Islamic world. As long as they have this mentality
nothing changes.
Mr. Velayati, the former minister of foreign affairs, says in his memoirs that
Khomeini said something about other countries and when we told him that these kind
of comments harmed our relations with those countries Khomeini replied that he had
nothing to do with governments and he was speaking with people. But the problem is
that Khomeini was not only a religious figure, he was the first person of the country
according to constitution and his comment mattered. That is the same about
Khamenei.
Q: there are different sides in Iran’s political structure and they have always
had a power conflict with each other. To what extent the rivalry between these
sides affects Iran’s foreign policy and national security?
Alizadeh: it is a famous saying inside the regime that “the supreme leader has the
final word” it means when he decides all the discussions should be over and it is true
that he has the power to decide about an issue over night and announce it and after
that everybody should accept it. However we see that sometimes he is affected by the
discourse of the administration and sometimes he even uses the same discourse as the
president. For example we see that during the era of the reformist president, Khatami,
Khamenei somehow copied the president discourse about democracy. But he neither
before nor after the Khatami era even mentioned democracy.
83 Q: this is a good example. That is true that to some extent the leader copied
Khatami’s discourse of democracy but we see that at the same time the
organizations which acts under the full control of leader, like revolutionary
guards, did everything they could in order to cripple the reformist government
of Khatami.
Alizadeh: yes that is true and I do not say that during that time Khamenei really
believed in democracy. The thing is that he always tries to express the same discourse
as the administration and we have seen that during the presidency of Hashemi,
Khatami, Ahmadinejad and now Rouhani. The moderation is the main slogan of
Rouhani and interestingly since last year Khamenei used this slogan as well.
However, he always acted in a same way during the past 25 years but he wanted to
show publicly that he is not against the administration in order to express that he
stands aside the different sides but he always took sides with radicals because he is
the most radical himself.
Q: you mentioned Khamenei’s discourse. When we read his speeches during his
leadership we see that he always talk about enemy. What is the reason behind
this?
Alizadeh: the enemy has a practical function for him. Generally speaking, all the
ideological regimes need to have enemies to find them guilty. Khamenei claims that
all the problems of the country are because of the enemy and he never accepts that
the problems can be their own fault. He even announced a fatwa that criticizing the
regime is Haram.
Let me give you an example to explain more the practical function of enemy for him.
When Obama took power in the U.S he started sending a series of secret letters
directly to the leader’s office in order to achieve a breakthrough. He even asked his
embassies to invite Iranian diplomats all over the world for the first time after the
revolution to attend in the U.S national day celebration and I personally received the
invitation letter. We see that during this time the Green Movement started in the
reaction of the manipulation of the presidency election in 2009. In one of his
speeches about the Green movement he said that the demonstrators and oppositions
had been motivated by “mean England” and they even captured some of Britain’s
84 embassy staff. He never named the U.S in this speech, which was unprecedented
because he usually blamed the U.S in all the occasions. However, soon after Obama
condemned the violation of demonstrations rights, Khamenei included the U.S again
in his speeches as source of political unrests inside the country. So it shows that he
uses the concept of enemy regarding the domestic situation.
85 Appendix II
Interview: Meir Javedanfar Method of Interview: Skype Q: Before the revolution Israel was one of the closest allies to the Shah regime.
What was the reason that after the Islamic revolution the relationship shifted to
enmity?
Javedanfar: I think the most important factor was the Islamic Revolution in 1979
and the fact that the supreme leader Khomeini wanted to install his system of
Velayat-e-Faghih and Velayat-e-Faghih the way he saw it was representing god in
earth to only Shias and in order to do that he saw the United States and Israel as
enemy. Even in the 60s he was very anti Israel. From 1960 until his exile in 1964 he
repeatedly attacked the Shah’s relationship with Israel. So, this enmity came from his
worldview. He saw the Islamic Umma as Mostazaafin who are victims of
Mostakbarin and the point is that he wanted to lead Islamic Umma and regarding the
fact that he belonged to a minority branch of Islam (Persian Shia) he needed to be
more militant than Arabs towards Israel.
Q: history offers some proofs that he used enmity with Israel as an excuse to
provoke people to uprise against shah or as you said he wanted to strengthen his
position as the leader of the Islamic world by opposing Israel. This
interpretation tends to say that Iran’s leaders used the issue of Israel as a tool
for following their political goal. To what extent enmity with Israel is a part of
their ideology?
Javedanfar: I think for Khomeini and even now for Khamenei and the conservative
side it is part of the ideology and that is why they did not change their attitude but
they used this ideological believe very well for their political aims. The point is for
Khomeini it was part of, not the most important part, of his revolutionary rhetoric and
for the revolution to be successful and to be exported abroad they needed to have a
model which was compatible with Islamic Umma and because Iranians were Shia and
86 the majority of Islamic world were Sunni, being anti Israel was the only part of
Islamic revolution that was compatible with the ideal of Islamic Umma. But we
cannot extend this to all the people of Iran who made the revolution possible. They
made the revolution because of many other reasons such as democracy, social justice,
independence, etc. I think not having relation with Israel was not one of the main
goals of all the revolutionaries. I think Khomeini needed something to present him as
the true leader of Islamic cause and it was being anti Israel. It has to be said that
different sides of the regime have different views about Israel. For example, Khatami
did not agree a hostile attitude toward Israel or even Rafsanjani with a hostile attitude
toward Israel in the past, lately said that Israel is not the enemy. But on the other
hand Ahmadinejad was such an extremist. But the problem is Khamenei as the
supreme leader still has an extremist point of view about Israel and as long as he
holds this view there cannot be any change.
Q: there is a difference between different sides inside the regime. On one side we
have conservatives and on the other side we have moderates and reformists.
Regarding the constant conflict between these sides is it right to say that
Khamenei and his conservatives allies use Israel in order to strengthen their
position in Iran?
Javedanfar: Israel is not only a matter of foreign policy or national security for Iran.
It is a matter of domestic policy as well. Especially, we can see it during the
presidency of Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad as one of the closest allies to Khamenei in
2005 said Israel should be wiped off the map and he denied Holocaust as a signal to
reformist to saying them that their era was over. Khamenei and his allies are losing
the social support of people and they are going politically bankrupt, thus, they need
something to deliver to their supporters and that is being anti Israel and the U.S. but
the problem is the majority of the Iranians do not buy this because in their Israel is
not the enemy.
Q: domestic aspects aside, what are the benefits of hostility with Israel for the
Islamic republic?
Javedanfar: I think Iranian conservatives are miscalculating the situation. Israel is
not their biggest enemy. Their biggest enemy is Sunni-Arab states and as the situation
87 goes on in Syria and Iraq, Iran’s problem with Sunnis will go deep. Iran’s leaders
want to present themselves as the leader of Islamic world but the Sunnis don’t
consider Shias as Muslims at all. In their view Iranians are only Persians not Muslims
and everybody knows the historical conflict between Arabs and Persians. Maybe
Israel is the only way that Iran’s leader can get some supports between Sunni-Arabs
but here is another problem which is as more as they stick to their anti Israel attitude,
Iranian people go away from them. Conservatives are stuck in a vicious cycle and the
more they try to strengthen their position the more they lose.
The problem is the regime in Iran is going beyond just undermining Israel. It is
making anti Semitic statements when Khamenei questions holocaust. The question
here is how far he goes and what is he doing. The Islamic republic needs to pick an
enemy either Israel or Sunnis because they cannot fight everybody. Now we are
entering a new era because Iran is sending troops to Arab countries, they have troops
in Syria and Iraq, which is totally new for Iran, and it will deepen Iran’s problem with
Arabs and costs both financially and politically a lot for Iran. Due to this situation
Khamenei needs reform his anti Israel policy but I do not see him doing it.
Q: Khamenei securitizes repeatedly Israel and claims that Israel is behind most
of the problems of the country (political, economical, etc.). Is this claim real or
they just use it as an excuse to cover their own shortages?
Javedanfar: he is exploiting this issue. Israel is not the biggest enemy of Iran.
During the early years of the revolution Israel tried to show its goodwill. For
example, during the war with Iran, Israel helped Iran by giving weapon to the country
but Iranians never wanted to have a normal relations with Israel. From 1979 until
2009 for thirty years Iran said Israel should be wiped off the map but only since 2009
Netanyahu said that all the options are on the table. If for thirty years somebody tells
to your face that you should be dead, one day you will turn around and say I will
defend myself. Jewish people and Iranians have friendship that goes to biblical time.
Not many nations that are mentioned in bible as favorably as Iranian people are but
the regime in Iran is loosing its legitimacy and the more illegitimate they become the
more anti Israel they will be. I think Khamenei is more responsible for Iran not
having a good relation with Israel more than Israelis. It is a fight that started by
Islamic Republic and has been continued by them. For example, now Rouhani is
88 trying to normalize Iran’s relation with the U.S but when Khamenei does not want
Rouhani anymore he will attack Israel in order to embarrass Rouhani that is what he
did the former reformist president Khatami as well. During Khatami era when he was
tying to restore Iran’s image in the world Khamenei ordered the arrest of 13 Jews to
show Khatami who is in charge. In sum, the conservatives are using Israel to
undermine reformist and they are using it in the Arab world to say that they are the
true supporter of Palestine. It seems the only area for them to hold their legitimacy in
the eyes of their supporters.
89 Appendix III
Interview: Mohsen Kadivar Method of Interview: Skype Q: there are two general views about IRI. One view believes that IRI acts
according to its ideology regarding foreign policy and national security and the
other view sees IRI as a rational actor who is seeking its national interests. In
your view to what extent each of these affects IRI’s foreign policy and national
security doctrine?
Kadivar: although IRI was created as a theocratic regime but in practice the leaders
of the IRI acted in a pragmatist manner and appeared as a rational actor. However
from the very beginning ideology was one of important factors of the IRI in foreign
policy but it has never been the only one and has always perched alongside the other
factors. For instance, if ideology was the only guide of IRI in foreign policy it should
have supported Muslims of Chechnya in their conflict with Russia but it sided with
Russians. This is true about the violation of Muslims rights in China as well. Iranian
leaders have always turned a blind eye to Chinese Muslims because their sever need
to China and Russia. If we take a look to the history of the IRI we see that they
follow national interests as the first factor and ideology is the second factor as long as
it is not in contradiction with national interest. However, the issue of Israel is more
complicated and should have been analyzed separately.
Q: the IRI is, however, a theocracy and its identity is tied with religion and most
of its supporters support it because its ideological aspects. Regarding this issue if
in a case a contradiction between the ideology and interest happens what would
be the IRI choose in order to not loosing its religious supporters?
Kadivar: the IRI, in nature, is not too different with other political regimes and in
many cases they have shown that they act as a rational actor and ideology is one of
factors involved in their decision making, however if a contradiction between
ideology and interest happens there is a formula in Islam which is “put first things
90 first”226. According to this formula they look at every case to see what is the most
important. If in a case the most important is ideology they act according to the
ideology and if it is interests they act based on interests. Thus, there is no distinct line
that says that up to that line they act according to ideology and after that they follow
interests.
Q: so it is to say that the IRI act based on this famous saying of Khomeini: “ the
survival of the regime is the most important”?
Kadivar: exactly. The IRI is seeking survival like every other states but the main
difference is that it is non-democratic and when talking about survival, this survival is
not tied up with the will of the majority of people therefore some times there is a
conflict between national interests and the regime interests.
Q: regarding Israel, as you said it is a complicated conflict. Iran and Israel were
allies with friendly relationships before the revolution. These two countries are
not even neighbors of have geopolitical disputes. The other thing is that many of
Israelis have Iranian origins and thousands of years Jews have been living
peacefully in Iran. All of these issues can say that Iran and Israel have the
potential to be close allies. However, many believe that the main source of the
current enmity between the two countries is Khomeini’s attitude rooted in his
Islamic beliefs toward Israel. Do you agree with them?
Kadivar: if we go back to 60s we can see that opposing Israel was not only limited to
Khomeini and there were others who were critical to Khomeini but shared the same
idea with him regarding Israel. Opposing Israel has not started with Khomeini and the
IRI. Since 1948 after the creation of Israel and especially after the six days war in
1967, Public conscience of the Muslims all over the world was injured. There were
many in Iran like Ayatollah Musavi Zanjani who was one of the leaders of the
National Front and an opposition to Khomeini as well or Ayatollah Taleghani or
Ayatollah Shariatmadari. All of these had different views with Khomeini in other
aspects of political and social life.
226 “Put first things first” seems to be the closest translation of the formula. However, it can be translated as the most important of important as well. 91 Q: all of these people that you named were clerics and obviously the source of
their resistance against Israel was their Islamic belief. The enmity between Iran
and Israel started with an ideological reason from Iranian side and then turned
to a classic enmity between two states however it seems that the nature of the
enmity is still ideological. I want to reformulate my previous question and ask
whether it is possible that the IRI someday leaves its ideology and starts a good
relationship with Israel in order to enhance its interests?
Kadivar: first I should mention that opposing Israel is in limited to Muslims. Before
the Islamic revolution we had communists who were opposing Israel. Or in the
western academia we had Edward Saied or even now Noam Chomsky who as a leftist
criticizes Israel. Answering to your question, however, I should say that opposing
Israel is embedded in the IRI’s nature but for example Iran’s problem with the U.S is
not the same. Therefore, it is possible that one day Iran and the U.S have good
relationships and we are witnessing now that they started to solve a part of their
problems with dialogues but it never happens regarding Israel and since the IRI
doesn’t change substantively its nature they never go toward the normalization of
their relationships with Israel.
Q: if we compare Khamenei to Khomeini we can see that there is a huge
difference between these to regarding their political and religious status. The
question is how this difference affected Khamenei’s leadership?
Kadivar: considering the foreign policy, I believe that Khamenei followed the
footprints of Khomeini. But the difference is that Khomeini conducted his extreme
foreign policy when people were affected by revolutionary emotions and most of
them were supporting him. However, Khamenei is repeating Khomeini’s rhetoric in a
situation in which people are not affected by revolutionary emotions anymore
because they are realists now the most important point is that the Islamic Republic
and Khamenei himself do not have the support of at least half of the people. Another
difference is Khomeini during his ten years as the supreme leader became more
experienced and in his late years he showed to understand the nature of foreign policy
but Khamenei after 25 years is still repeating Khomeini’s early rhetoric.
92 Regarding the domestic policy it is important to take a look at both Khomeini and
Khamenei’s personal characters. Khomeini had a strong character and because of that
he was able to act, as a balancer between different actors but due to Khamenei’s
political and religious lack he officially supported one side in order to make them his
allies.
Q: in all of his speeches, Khamenei emphasizes on enemy and claim that the
enemy is behind all of the country’s problems. How do you interpret this? Can
we say that it is a political tactic in order to suppress his oppositions?
Kadivar: if we compare Khamenei to Khomeini we see that there is no difference
between them regarding using the enemy for suppressing the opposition. Khomeini
did this as well in several occasions. But as I described before Khomeini had the
support of people and his oppositions were somehow confronting the people as well.
But because Khamenei does not possess the support of people his tactic to use the
enemy as an excuse for suppressing his oppositions does not work because people
know it is not true. On the other hand it should be mentioned that if we go through
the history of Iran after the revolution we see that the enemy is not something
constructed by them Iran’s leader. The U.S and Israel did everything they could to
overthrow the revolutionary regime. And the most important thing is that in my view
the main reason of the revolution is 1953 coup conducted by CIA when they
overthrow Mossadeq’s democratic elected government. This coup caused strong anti
American emotions between people. Or during the war they supported Saddam. If we
look at the situation fairly we cannot say that all the current problems has been
caused by the IRI and to some extent they actions are actually reactions to the U.S
policy in the middle east.
93