The dynamics of US-Iran relations - from alliance to hostility

Abstract

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, US-Iranian relations entered a heated phase. In the same year, after Iranian students stormed the US embassy and took embassy employees hostage, the United States and Iran severed diplomatic relations in April 1980. After that date, the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran did not have official diplomatic relations. However, until 1979, the two countries had a clearly different relationship. For the United States, Iran was one of the most important bulwarks in the Middle East and was even called the "island of stability" and the "gendarme of the Gulf", which indicates the importance of US-Iranian relations to each other. Before the Islamic Revolution, for the United States, Iran was a deterrent to the spread of the Soviet Union and communism in the Middle East. Iran was also a regional counterweight to the Arab countries united in the Middle East, opposing the main US ally - Israel.

It should be noted that after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran was the most active supporter of terrorism in the world. For years, Iran has been arming, financing, training and providing various types of assistance to anti-American and anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. The list of these terrorist organizations supported by Iran includes Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, etc. For more than four decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been posing a great challenge to the international community. On the one hand, the Iranian regime’s radical Islamist ideology, support for terrorism and regional subversion, and on the other hand, its pursuit of illegal nuclear weapons potential, have made it a dangerous revisionist force, which has led to the confrontation and the formation of hostile relations between the US and Iran.

Methodologically, the work falls into the category of qualitative research, and various qualitative research techniques were used to collect data during the research process.

The work is based on the assumptions and conjectures of dominant and influential theories of international relations, namely neoclassical realism and holistic constructivism.

The study has shown that Iran’s attempt to create nuclear weapons is conditioned by the desire to change the balance of power in the Middle East region, which has led to the formation of hostile relations between the US and Iran. Iran's nuclear program, which was supported by the United States before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, became a threat to American political elites after the revolution. In the context of constructivism, it is precisely the change in identity and perceptions between countries that led to the confrontation between them and the transformation of foreign policy. Neoclassical realism believes that state action in the international system can be explained by: the intervention of systemic variables - such as the distribution of power in countries; cognitive variables - such as the accuracy of a state's perception and prediction of other states' intentions and alleged foreign policies; internal variables - such as perceptions of leaders, state institutions, political parties; ruling elites, which influence the power and freedom of action of decision-makers in foreign policy. According to neoclassical realism, distrust and misperception among states, the lack of ability or inability of state leaders to mobilize state power and public support, can lead to insufficient or excessive balancing, which leads to imbalances in the international system, the rise and fall of great powers, and war.