Contentious Politics in Iran: Factions, Foreign Policy and the Nuclear Deal*

Year 2015, Volume: 14 Issue: 3, 1 - 12, 11.01.2016

Sezgin Kaya , Zeynep Şartepe

Abstract

This paper endeavors to analyze the evolution of
Iran’s foreign policy in the post-revolutionary era by focusing on the
‘historic nuclear deal’ (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action- JCPOA) which is
expected to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. The
objective of the paper is to shed some light on Iran’s striving to maintain a
delicate balance between ideology and pragmatism and the elements of change and
continuity in its conduct of foreign policy since the Islamic Revolution of
1979. In this regard, different foreign policy agendas adopted respectively by
Khomeini, Rafsanjani, Khatami, Ahmadinejad, and Rouhani will be examined within
the context of factional rivalries which emerged out of the political, economic
and social structure of the country. With the ascent of the reformist cleric
Khatami to presidency in 1997, the long lasting rivalry between the reformist
faction that seeks ‘Islamic democracy’ at home and Iran’s integration into the
world politics, and the conservative faction whose guiding principle is the return
to a revolutionary Islamic ideology, has become apparent in post-revolutionary
Iran. While the hardliner Ahmadinejad’s rise to power in 2005 meant flashback
to revolutionary ideology both in domestic and foreign affairs of Iran, the
victory of pro-reform cleric Hassan Rouhani in 2013 marked the beginning of a new
era in Iran’s relations with the West through nuclear negotiations.

Keywords

Nuclear Deal, Factional Rivalry, Foreign Policy, Iran

References

• Fayadayan-e Islam was an Islamic fundamentalist organization founded by Navab Safavi, who considered militant opposition to the Pahlavi dynasty as the only solution to the problems Iran was facing (Hani Mansourian, “Iran: Religious Leaders and Opposition Movements”, Journal of International Affairs, 61 (2007): 230, accessed November 14, 2015).
• Tudeh was the early Marxist formation in pre-revolutionary Iran founded by those who studied in Europe and were influenced by socialist and communist movements there. The main purpose of the party was to mobilize workers, peasants, progressive intellectuals and the tradesmen in Iran (Ervand Abrahamian, Modern İran Tarihi, trans. Dilek Şendil, (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2009), 142).
• Sami Oğuz and Ruşen Çakır, Hatemi’nin İranı, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2003), 47.
• Oğuz and Çakır, 48.
• Ibid.
• Oğuz and Çakır, 52-53.
• Ali Mirsepassi, Democracy in Modern Iran: Islam, Culture and Political Change, (New York and London: New York University Press, 2010), 108.
• Forough Jahanbakhsh, “Religious and Political Discourse in Iran: Moving Toward Post-Fundamentalism”, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 19 (2003): 140, accessed June 14, 2015.
• Asef Bayat, Post- Islamism The Changing Faces of Political Islam, (USA: Oxford University Press, 2013), 59.
• Ziba Mir Hosseini and Richard Tapper, Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 138.