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