Geography is an important factor in informing Iran's foreign policy. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the newly formed Islamic Republic, under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, dramatically reversed the pro-American foreign policy of the last Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Since Iran's policies then oscillated between the two opposing tendencies of revolutionary ardour to eliminate non-Muslim Western influences while promoting the Islamic revolution abroad, and pragmatism, which would advance economic development and normalization of relations, bilateral dealings can be confused and contradictory.
According to data published by RepTrak, Iran is the world's second least internationally reputable country, just ahead of Iraq, and has held that position for the three consecutive years of 2016, 2017, and 2018.CountryReptTrak: 2018 . Reputation Institute. Accessed 24 April 2019.Staufenberg, Jess. "Countries with the best and worst reputations for 2016 revealed" . The Independent. 11 August 2016. Islamism and nuclear proliferation are recurring issues with Iran's foreign relations.
In a series of international polls by Pew Research in 2012, only Pakistan had the majority of its population supporting Iran's right to acquire nuclear arms; every other population polled overwhelmingly rejected a nuclear-armed Iran (90–95% opposed in the polled European, North American, and South American countries), and majorities in most of those polled nations were in favor of military action to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran from materializing. The majority of Americans, Brazilians, Japanese, Mexicans, Egyptians, Germans, Britons, French, Italians, Spaniards, and Poles (among other national groups within the poll) had majority support for "tougher sanctions" on Iran, while majorities in China, Russia, and Turkey opposed tougher sanctions."A Global “No” To a Nuclear-Armed Iran" . Pew Research Center. May 2012.
Background
Iranians have traditionally been highly sensitive to foreign interference in their country, pointing to such events as the Russian conquest of northern parts of the country in the 19th century, the tobacco concession, the British and Russian occupations during the First and Second World Wars, and the CIA plot to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. This suspicion manifests itself in attitudes that many foreigners might find incomprehensible, such as the "fairly common" belief that the Iranian Revolution was actually the work of a conspiracy between Iran's Shi'a clergy and the British government.Movali, Ifshin, The Soul of Iran, Norton, 2005
This may have been a result of the anti-Shah bias in BBC Radio's influential Persian broadcasts into Iran: a BBC report in March 2009 explained that many in Iran saw the broadcaster and the government as one, and interpreted the bias for Khomeini as evidence of weakening British government support for the Shah. It is entirely plausible that the BBC did indeed help hasten revolutionary events.
Significant historical treaties Treaty of Zuhab by which Iran irrevocably lost Mesopotamia (Iraq) to the Ottomans. Roughly settled the modern-day Iran-Iraq-Turkey borders Treaty of Gulistan 1813, by which Iran irrevocably lost Georgia, Dagestan, and most of Azerbaijan. Treaty of Turkmenchay 1828, by which Iran irrevocably lost Armenia and the remainder of the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan (comprising the Lankaran and Nakchivan khanates. Treaty of Akhal Treaty of Paris (1857) (by which Iran renounced claims over Herat and parts of Afghanistan) Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907
Revolutionary period under Khomeini
Under Khomeini's government, Iran's foreign policy often emphasized the elimination of foreign influence and the spread of Islamic revolution over state-to-state relations or the furtherance of trade. In Khomeini's own words:
We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry "There is no God but Allah" resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.[11 February 1979 (according to Dilip Hiro in The Longest War p.32) p. 108 from Excerpts from Speeches and Messages of Imam Khomeini on the Unity of the Muslims.
The Islamic Republic's effort to spread the revolution is considered to have begun in earnest in March 1982, when 380 men from more than 25 Arab and Islamic nations met at the former Tehran Hilton Hotel for a "seminar" on the "ideal Islamic government" and, less academically, the launch of a large-scale offensive to cleanse the Islamic world of the satanic Western and Communist influences that were seen to be hindering the Islamic world's progress. The gathering of militants, primarily Shi'a but including some Sunnis, "with various religious and revolutionary credentials", was hosted by the Association of Militant Clerics and the Pasdaran Islamic Revolutionary Guards.Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage (2001), p. 28
The nerve centre of the revolutionary crusade, operational since shortly after the 1979 revolution, was located in downtown Tehran and known to outsiders as the "Taleghani Centre". Here the groundwork for the gathering was prepared: the establishment of Arab cadres, recruited or imported from surrounding countries to spread the revolution, and provision of headquarters for such groups as the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, the Iraqi Shi'a movement, and Philippine Moro, Kuwaiti, Saudi, North African and Lebanese militant clerics.
These groups came under the umbrella of the "Council for the Islamic Revolution", which was supervised by Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, the designated heir of Ayatollah Khomeini. Most of the council's members were clerics, but they also reportedly included advisors from the Syrian and Libyan intelligence agencies. The council apparently received more than $1 billion annually in contributions from the faithful in other countries and in funds allocated by the Iranian government.Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, (2001), p. 33
Its strategy was two-pronged: armed struggle against what were perceived as Western imperialism and its agents; and an internal purifying process to free Islamic territory and Muslim minds of non-Islamic cultural, intellectual and spiritual influences, by providing justice, services, resources to the mustazafin (weak) masses of the Muslim world. These attempts to spread its Islamic revolution strained the country's relations with many of its Arab neighbours, and the extrajudicial execution of Iranian dissidents in Europe unnerved European nations, particularly France and Germany. For example, the Islamic Republic expressed its opinion of Egypt's secular government by naming a street in Tehran after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's killer, Khalid al-Istanbuli.Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, Norton, (2006), p. 143 At this time Iran found itself very isolated, but this was a secondary consideration to the spread of revolutionary ideals across the Persian Gulf and confrontation with the US (or "Great Satan") in the 1979-1981 hostage crisis.
Revolutionary influence and regional interventions Arab and other Muslim volunteers who came to Iran were trained in camps run by the Revolutionary Guards. There were three primary bases in Tehran, and others in Ahvaz, Isfahan, Qom, Shiraz, and Mashhad, and a further facility, converted in 1984, near the southern naval base at Bushire.Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, (2001), pp. 34-5
In 1981 Iran supported an attempt to overthrow the Bahraini government, in 1983 expressed political support for Shi'ites who bombed Western embassies in Kuwait, and in 1987 Iranian pilgrims rioted at poor living conditions and treatment during the Hajj (pilgrimage) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and were consequently massacred. Nations with strong fundamentalist movements, such as Egypt and Algeria, also began to mistrust Iran. With the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Iran was thought to be supporting the creation of the Hizballah organization. Iran went on to oppose the Arab–Israeli peace process, because it saw Israel as an illegal country.
Iran–Iraq War
Iranian relations with Iraq have never been good. They took a turn for the worse in 1980 when Iraq invaded Iran. The stated reason for Iraq's invasion was the contested sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab waterway (Arvand Rud in Persian). Other unstated reasons were probably more significant: Iran and Iraq had a history of interference in each other's affairs by supporting separatist movements, although this interference had ceased since the Algiers Agreement.
Iran demanded the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Iranian territory and the return to the status quo ante for the Shatt al-Arab, as established under the Algiers Agreement. This period saw Iran become even more isolated, with virtually no allies. Exhausted by the war, Iran signed UN Security Council Resolution 598 in July 1988, after the United States and Germany began supplying Iraq with chemical weapons. The ceasefire resulting from the UN resolution was implemented on 20 August 1988.
Neither nation had made any real gains in the war, which left one million dead and had a dramatic effect on the country's foreign policy. From this point on, the Islamic Republic recognized that it had no choice but to moderate its radical approach and rationalize its objectives. This was the beginning of what Anoushiravan Ehteshami calls the "reorientation phase" of Iranian foreign policy.
Pragmatism Like other revolutionary states, practical considerations have sometimes led the Islamic Republic to inconsistency and subordination of such ideological concerns as pan-Islamic solidarity. One observer, Graham Fuller, has called the Islamic Republic "stunningly silent" about [Muslim] Chechens in [non-Muslim] Russia, or Uyghurs in China,See Uyghurs Human Rights Project simply because the Iranian state has important strategic ties with both China and Russia that need to be preserved in the state interest. Iran has astonishingly even supported Christian Armenia in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War against Shi'ite Azerbaijan and has been careful not to lend too much support to Islamic Tajiks in Tajikistan, where the language is basically a dialect of Persian.
Khamenei's leadership Post-war foreign policy and regional influence
Since the end of the Iran–Iraq War, Iran's new foreign policy has had a dramatic effect on its global standing. Relations with the European Union have dramatically improved, to the point where Iran is a major oil exporter and a trading partner with such countries as Italy, France, and Germany. China and Pakistan have also emerged as friends of Iran; these three countries face similar challenges in the global economy as they industrialize, and consequently find themselves aligned on a number of issues.
Iran maintains regular diplomatic and commercial relations with Russia and the former Soviet Republics. Both Iran and Russia believe they have important national interests at stake in developments in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus, particularly concerning energy resources from the Caspian Sea. The Islamic Republic of Iran accords priority to its relations with the other states in the region and with the rest of the Islamic world. This includes a strong commitment to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement.
Relations with the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), especially with Saudi Arabia, are characterized by rivalry and hostility. An unresolved territorial dispute with the United Arab Emirates concerning three islands in the Persian Gulf continues to mar its relations with these states. Iran has close relations with Kuwait.
Isolation, sanctions, and global ambitions