As a pivotal state with projective and ambitious normative claims situated in a regional complex, Iran has played a critical role in shaping the dynamics of contemporary international relations. This paper will address key and enduring factors that have shaped Iran’s foreign policy and have set the framework of Iran’s place in the international system and the attitudes of other players towards Iran. In addition to traditional geopolitics, this study will address the essential role of the revolution and the US-Iran encounter in shaping Iran’s geoculture, the process of systemic securitization, as well as the evolving nature of the notion of the “state” and “national security” among the Iranian elite and decision makers; factors which collectively shape Iran’s material and social capability in dealing with regional and global politics. This study will also theoretically frame and shed light on the ongoing scholarly debate over the core energy behind Iran's international behavior. The paper will thus address the ambiguity of the conceptual underpinnings of this debate and the constant fluctuation between “agency” driven scholarship (which favors ideology and identity as foundational) vs. those who explicitly or implicitly privilege “structural” explanations.