Iran - Continuity or Recalibration: An Existential Choice

Addressing vulnerability and promoting security
Jun 03, 2012 | Sean Cleary, Executive Vice Chair, FutureWorld Foundation

In a remarkable recent article a leading Iranian academic has shed light on the current sense of identity and the weltanschauung of the powers that control the Islamic Republic of Iran.

His argument, which has profound implications for the foreign and national security policies of other states towards Iran, is that certain idées fixes, deeply embedded in the worldview of the Islamists who control Iran’s state institutions, have shaped, and ensured the continuity and consistency of Iran’s foreign policy since the Islamic revolution of 1978/79.
The implication of his analysis is that these ideological anchors will define the Islamic Republic’s sense of itself, and accordingly the way it engages with others – both states and sub-state movements – for some time to come. All Iranians, and many others in the region and beyond, can only hope that this is not their future!

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