Muhammad Riza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (r. 1941-1979), had long desired an expanded regional role for his rapidly developing nation. By the late 1960s, he had finally obtained the necessary means to further his objectives, and with announcement of the Nixon Doctrine (July 1969) followed by the well-chronicled Nixon-Kissinger visit to Tehran in May 1972, the ruler received American blessing for the maintenance of a stable, pro-Western order around the shores of the Persian Gulf. Beginning in 1971 the shah expanded Iranian influence through a variety of actions, including economic assistance, loans of military equipment, or direct intervention, as in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Arab sheikhdoms along the Gulf. One of his most determined and successful interventions came in Oman from 1971-1976. In response to a request from Sultan Qabus, Tehran initiated a major deployment of troops and materiel to combat the Marxist rebels in Dhufar province, who were receiving support from, among others, China, the Soviet Union and Iraq. The shah feared that the success of the rebels would lead to establishment of a hostile regime across the Straits of Hormuz, which would interrupt the flow of Persian Gulf oil. Iran remained involved there to the eve of the Islamic Revolution, although most imperial troops departed soon after the sultan declared victory at the end of 1975. Many agreed that the Iranian contribution had assured victory. For neighboring Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, however, Iran’s intervention elicited a continuous chorus of complaints, all rooted in suspicion of the shah’s larger ambitions. US diplomats did what they could to allay these concerns, determined to avoid at all costs direct US military intervention. In this case, the shah had proven to be an able surrogate, serving American interests while furthering his own. Drawing on recently declassified documents in US and British archives as well as a variety of published materials in Persian and Arabic, this paper will examine the complexities of Iranian foreign policy in what was arguably the most sensitive region of the Middle East.

Few events involving the Middle East have been analysed, examined in their multiple facets, causes and effects as the Iranian revolution. The numerous and, in many cases, remarkable studies that have been trying to explain the unexpected collapse of the Pahlavi regime should not, however, discourage from addressing the issue, rather than induce to consider other perspectives, widening the range of actors and interests involved. This is one of the purposes of the present study, which takes into consideration Western European dealing with the Iranian Revolution and its immediate aftermath, with particular attention to the impact that the hostage crisis and the outbreak of hostilities with Iraq had on European policy towards Teheran. In doing so, the analysis will try to emphasise the different responses the countries under analysis, especially France, Italy, and United Kingdom, produced in reaction to these events. In the aftermath of the revolution of 1979, though eager to protect their substantial financial investments in Iran, most of them acquiesced in the American position to demonstrate transatlantic solidarity. Nonetheless this initial cohesion among the Western countries showed signs of divergences, above all with regard to the commercial restrictions to be imposed to the new regime. Drawing on Western European official papers, the sources located in some Italian and French private archives, oral histories and interviews, the paper will, therefore, try to explore the main fields in which these divergences emerged and their relevance, both on the U.S.-Europe front as on the intra-European one. The paper will finally explore the role played by the evolution of Iranian domestic scenario in the reshaping of the country’s foreign relations, in a moment of profound debate on the country’s revolutionary identity and on Teheran’s engagement with the outside (especially Western) world.

Ideology is a constant in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign policy, but the ideology itself has evolved in some areas and remained the same in others. This paper will examine the Shia-centric theocratic model espoused by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the first decade of the revolution and its drive to export Iran’s revolutionary experience, which was followed by roughly fifteen years of relative pragmatic behavior that indicated a tempering of the ideological impulse. The paper will then review the ideological imperative behind Iranian foreign policy since 2005-2006, which is Eastward-looking and emphasizes Third World-ism. The final section of the paper will address the effect of the Arab Spring on Iran’s foreign policy and the implications for the future. Among the topics that will be addressed in this paper are factors that influence modern Iranian foreign policy, whether under a monarchy or a theocracy, including nationalism, exceptionalism, and entitlement, as well as the apparently more recent phenomenon of millenialism (Mahdism).

Turkey and Iran had only basic relations in the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1950s, the two countries closed ranks. Together with Britain, Iraq, and Pakistan, they became allies under the Baghdad Pact in 1955. But Turkey and Iran failed to become close allies. This paper explains that failure by analyzing Turkish and Iranian leaders’ diverging geostrategic priorities, mutual distrust, and domestic troubles from the 1960s onward. In the mid-1970s, Ankara and Tehran wanted to cooperate in the field of arms production and highway construction. But the deterioration of political order in the two countries in the second half of the 1970s meant that their leaders could not realize the joint projects. Turmoil also made Turkish and Iranian leaders suspicious. The Shah worried that political violence in Turkey and Ankara’s deteriorating relations with Washington in the aftermath of the Cyprus crisis of 1974 could endanger Iran. Opinion-makers and political leaders in Turkey had their doubts about Iran: when the Turkish press realized how the Shah had supported the Kurdish insurgency in northern Iraq, they wondered if the Iranian king supported armed Kurdish groups in Turkey as well. Meanwhile, the Turkish political elite, with their military suffering under the U.S. embargo, watched the Shah’s massive arms buildup with a mix of unease and jealousy. The Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War turned the tables. Iran’s mounting domestic and international problems – revolutionary excess, economic downturn, the hostage crisis, diplomatic isolation – allowed Turkey to deal with its eastern neighbor from a position of strength. As Turkey’s September 1980 coup brought turmoil to an end, it took advantage of Iran’s cold war with the United States and devastating war with Iraq by expanding trade with Iran and Iraq. Beyond the two countries’ Cold War relations, this paper also explores the underlying dynamics that constrain Turkish-Iranian cooperation today. The political systems of Turkey and Iran (the former viewed as secular, democratic, and pro-Western and the latter perceived as religious, undemocratic, and anti-Western) are frequently used to explain their differences. But this paper argues the opposite: the two countries’ desire to become the regional hegemon, as well as the chasm between their preaching peace and democracy without fully practicing them, are the most important reasons for their inability to cooperate. That chasm could make both the Turkish and Iranian “models” irrelevant to the countries undergoing the Arab Spring.