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Iran's Security Policy Since 9.11: A Special Focus on the Stabilizaton of the Middle East and Nuclear Negotiations
Abstract
The objective of this study is to analyze how Iran’s security policy toward Middle east and its nuclear negotiations have been formulated since 9. 11. In particular, the study focuses on the relationship between Iran’s nuclear policy particularly under the Ahmadinejad administration and Iran’s strategy toward the stabilization of the Middle East. The paper attempts ultimately to hypothesize that Iran’s policy for nuclear negotiations with the IAEA and other stakeholders has been conceived within the context of Iran’s security strategy in the Middle East. The on-going instability and the increasing insurgency in Afghanistan as well as international concern about Iraq’s growing disintegration of state governance have been one of the most significant security concerns for the international community. The so-called nuclear impasse of nuclear negotiations with Iran has also been considered as one of major threats to peace and stability in the Middle East. However, Iran’s nuclear development policy has been often discussed as a separate subject from Iran’s seucirty policy in the Middle East. How has the change in Iran’s internal governance structure shaped Iran’s security policy since March 2003? To what extent the US and Iran have shared their political and security interests in the stabilization in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan? How has Iran exercised its negotiation power in the nuclear negotiations since March 2003 when the US-led military campaign in Iraq started? How has Iran’s strategy in its nuclear negotiations been linked with Iran’s both cooperative and conflicted policy toward the US in the Middle East stability? How has the on-going civil society movements in the Arab countires change the nature and the determinants of the US-Iran relationship? These questions will be answered in this paper. This paper is based on both English and Persian written sources relevant to Iran’s security policy as well as the author’s interviews with Iran’s foreign policymakers that were conducted in the summer, 2008, 2009 and 2010. This study attempts to discuss some prospects for the future relationship between the US and Iran in the changing variables of factors that have shaped and will shape the relationship in the contemporary Middle East politics.
Discipline
International Relations/Affairs
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Sub Area
Security Studies