For realists, each state acts out a drive for power. The Iranian government says that its goal in developing a nuclear program is, as the New York Times writes, “the ability to generate electricity without dipping into the oil supply it prefers to sell abroad.” From the state perspective, the Iranian government is acting out its best interest in creating nuclear weapons. It is looking to increase its profits by preserving its oil supply for sales, and not using it for energy. As Mingst says, “once the state (with power and ideas) acts, according to the realists, it does so as an autonomous, unitary actor.” (104) The Iranian government, again, is acting against the wishes of the United States. It is acting out the interest of its own state, as oppose to abiding by other state’s wishes. A current article in the New York Times discussed Iran’s 29th celebration of its Islamic Revolution this month. The story focused on Ebrahim Yazdi, who helped generate the revolution that led the shah to flee Iran years ago, and how he feels the government to not be upholding more democratic ideals which he and others had originally intended for Iran. Mr. Yazdi comments that Iran “ is not a monarchy, it’s a republican state… however, the political system, basically, is a despotic one.” (NY Times, Slackman). It is possible to say that, 29 years ago, Mr. Yazdi would have had a instrumental radical view of state, believing that the state can and will change under social pressure, that of which can come during a revolution (like the one he participated in). However, it is safe to say that Mr. Yazdi view of state today is one which is constructivist. The Times notes that he, “is a staunch democrat who defines democracy not by the mechanics of governance, not by elections and institutions, but by ideas.” To constructivists, the governance of a state is liable to change as the norms, or the identity, of that state change. Mr. Yazdi works to promote his ideas in Iran, in hopes that if enough people join with him, he can change the character of the state, and as a result, more democratic ideals will start showing themselves in the Iranian government. While it may not currently appear that Iran is working towards achieving a democracy, it is important to note that part of the point of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 was to stop the tyrannic rule in Iran and begin a democracy. However, the problem is that democracy has never been incorporated into politics in the Middle East so they are learning through trial and error. Liberals believe that the state is a process, which involves contending interests; the interests and need of both society and government must be dealt with, and that is what Iran is trying to do. States must also deal with other states, which is a current issue in Iran concerning nuclear power. According to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solanato, as quoted in the New York Times, major powers are “discussing possible new moves to draw Iran into negotiations over its nuclear program while still pushing for more U.N. sanctions.” Even though oil and nuclear power seems to be the chief goal of Iran, they are by no means the only goal; on the state level, liberalists believe that there is still the potential for democracy in Iran. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/world/asia/16yazdi.html
Iran and the International System Friday, Feb 15 2008
Uncategorized 10:47 pm
Studying Iranian and American political relations at the International System level of analysis is interesting because each of the four contending International Relations theories emphasize different aspects of the relationship the two nations have. The main problem between Iran and the United States is Iran’s nuclear program and the question of whether or not Iran is actually utilizing it for peaceful purposes; this falls right in line with that aspect of the international system as a process not as a structure in terms of the economic, social, and security interests. The International System is anarchic, of course, thus interaction between states is key; the sense of “we-ness” found in international society is tweaked because problems between Iran and the United States have been occurring for decades. The “we-ness” exists separately for the two nations: the U.S. is concerned with militarily protecting itself and the world in relation to nuclear weapons and defending democracy and freedom, while Iran is concerned with being a strong theocratic republic and building up nuclear weapons for “peaceful purposes.” In a uni-polar world, where the United States is the one true super-power, stratification according to the radical viewpoint is interesting to look at for a few reasons. Militarily and economically, the United States is by far better off than Iran; in terms of natural resources, the United States might have more, but Iran is in possession and control of oil, an entity our lives revolve around. Iran has a certain amount of influence over the American way of living because Iranian oil revenues have skyrocketed since the implementation of the theocratic Shiite regime and the dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While it is clear that there is a truly uneven division of resources amongst these two states, seeing as the United States is considered a developing country and Iran a partly developed country, the oil possession is key. Systematic change is also very clear, seeing as Ahmadinejad became president in 2005; before he was president, the United States and Iran were working towards stronger relations. Again, from the radical viewpoint, we see a perfect example of stratification: the United States is a capitalist state while Iran is a developing state. The United Nations plays a key role in the relations between these two nations, especially when viewing the situation from a realist or liberal viewpoint; the United Nations was created out of self-interest to moderate state behavior. Largely in part due to the United States, economic and diplomatic sanctions were taken against Iran when they refused to suspend their nuclear weapons program and when they were pushed to suspend their uranium enrichment in 2006.It is interesting internationally to look at Iraq’s situation from the standpoint of the European Union, since the EU represents a huge global force commanding power in our world today. Ex-E.U. external relations officer, Chris Patten, stated that Iran’s backwardness towards human rights and unwillingness to cooperate with UN nuclear demands a grave problem facing our world. According to Patten, the EU has an “umbilical relationship” with Iran, (with trade concessions on the EU side, and social and political reforms, and guarantees that nuclear power will be limited to civil purposes on the Iranian side). He then notes that Iran has failed to uphold its side of the deal. While the EU sees hope in Iran, as a developing country with massive sway especially because of their oil reserves, they are fearful of their nuclear potential as well. Internationally, while the EU seems to view Iran just as the United States does, Patten noted that he believed the United States is unnecessarily too stringent with Iran at the present moment. Here are some websites we thought might be useful:http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/09/1fe3acec-1399-4222-8229-2e63d31df7c3.html http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8792.doc.htmhttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/index.htmlhttp://www.cfr.org/publication/13503/#9http://www.cfr.org/publication/15028/
IR Theories in Relation to the Issues in Iran Thursday, Feb 7 2008
Uncategorized 3:21 am
Many of the theories we’ve looked at in class can be used to study the issues plaguing Iran and its relationship with the United States and the rest of the international world. While they appear to be conflicting, we choose to focus on viewing the situation in Iran from both a liberal perspective and a realist perspective. We found that each theory carries evidence in the current situation, and while it is impossible to determine which theory most accurately describes the situation or reacts in the best manner, hopefully examining Iran through the lens’ of both these theories will help us to more deeply understand the differing motivations for actions taken towards Iran. For liberals, Iran presents itself as an opportunity for improvement. Since they believe that at the individual level human nature is good, it would be possible to work and co-operate with officials and representatives in Iran. The United States does not currently have political ties with Tehran, but in the liberals minds, those ties would be possible through possible cooperation with lawmakers and government officials. Liberals view Iran as also having the capability to become a liberal capitalist nation, since liberals believe in the spread of democracy as a right that all citizens should be ensured. It would be the liberals who would fight against the problem of a theocratic republic in order to create a “new Iran,” which could, in the future, fall under President Bush’s plans to spread democracy to all nations, as he has tried to in the current war in Iraq. Although, it must be noted, with the American public growing increasingly weary and outraged with the Iraq war’s progress, as well as the fact that Bush’s term is coming to an end, a war to spread democracy in Iran seems unlikely at this juncture. One last point concerning liberals: On the international level, liberals believe in collective security, which could be used to sway Iran. It is possible that Bush could try to quell any sort of nuclear action against the United States by Iran through use of a collective security group, such as NATO, which could pressure Iran to disarm its nuclear weapons. Realists would view Iran in a completely different light than liberals, simply because of their belief that human nature is inherently bad. With the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, realists would absolutely despise him because of his outward hatred of the United States, his denial of the Holocaust, and the support he provides to terrorists. At the state level, Iran’s national interest or self-interest could be interpreted as assisting terrorists (Iran is maybe the greatest state-sponsor of terrorism). The insecurity of Iran and its reliance on terrorism would be perfectly explained by realist beliefs on the international system; since Great Britain and Russia stopped being a colonial presence in Iran and the rest of the Middle East, Iran has been in complete turmoil, insecure, and in a struggle for power. The question would be raised, which power is more important: terrorist or political? Can they even be separated?As a subset of realism, it is possible to discuss President Bush’s stance towards Iran as one that falls within his neoconservative worldview. From reading The Defense Strategy of the United States, we learned that Bush takes a realist view that our country must be preemptive rather than preventative, or in other words, be the one to conduct action rather than react to the actions of other nations. After reports of Iran fostering chemical plants for substances such as uranium, which aid in the development of nuclear weapons, the Bush administration dubbed Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil.” While President Bush insists he has no plans to invade Iran, he has taken other actions against the country of Iran, such as arming Iran’s Arab neighbors with Patriot missiles, halting sales of spare jet parts because of concerns they could be transferred to Iran, and authorizing the military to kill or capture Iranian agents who are plotting attacks on U.S. forces (Time, Feb 2007). Above all, Bush strives to protect America’s democracy and security, which he has made blatantly clear is threatened by Iran and its actions. We also wanted to include some websites:http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iran-rice-ambassador.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=iran&st=nyt&oref=sloginhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7010962.stm
