Iran’s Post-Cold War Foreign Policy
Event
On June 22, the New America Foundation hosted an event in which Shireen Hunter outlined a few major trends in post-Cold War Iranian foreign policy discussed in her new book, Iran's Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era: Resisting the New International Order. She argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union generated systemic change worldwide, but affected Iran the most and adversely because its geographic positioning and power potential made its neighbors – Arabs and Turks with whom it has historically antagonistic relations – and world powers alike uneasy. Ms. Hunter claimed that this structural and geopolitical difficulty was compounded by Iranian ineptitude and ignorance in the conduct of its foreign policy. She then cited a number of instances of Iranian foreign policy missteps, including continued and unfruitful efforts to enlist Gulf Arab states and Russia in its misguided confrontation with the United States, uncooperativeness on Palestinian issues, difficulties with the pipeline to Central Asia, poor choice of allies within Afghanistan, and missed opportunities for bold, transformative action. She argued that the dearth of foreign policy expertise after 1979 and the ideological constraints the revolutionary regime faces are among the causes of this incompetence.
Participants
featured speaker
Shireen Hunter
Author, Iran's Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era: Resisting the New International Order
moderator
Flynt Leverett
Director, Iran Initiative
New America Foundation
Publisher, Race for Iran