United States' Policy towards Iran after the Islamic Revolution

Enayatollah Yazdani and Rizwan Hussain
Additional contact information
Enayatollah Yazdani: The authors are Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Isfahan, Iran and Former Research Scholar, Australian National University, Australia respectively.
Rizwan Hussain: The authors are Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Isfahan, Iran and Former Research Scholar, Australian National University, Australia respectively.

International Studies, 2006, vol. 43, issue 3, 267-289

Abstract: The United States has pursued an antagonistic policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran ever since the fall of the pro-US monarchy. Even though subsequent US administrations since 1979 have been trying to restore earlier influence in that country, the disintegration of the Soviet Union has reinforced the US resolve to regain political leverage in Iran. The realization of this objective could remove a major impediment to the growing US hegemony in the region. Thus, Iran forms part of the Bush administration's so-called ‘axis of evil’. The Iranian Islamic government's autonomous foreign and domestic policies pose a challenge to the US-led Western bloc's preponderant political, military and economic influence in the Persian Gulf and South-west Asia. The ongoing pressure on Tehran to abandon its nuclear programme is an integral component of a multifaceted strategy that seeks to isolate Iran both at the regional and international levels. The US-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 11 September events have facilitated the encirclement of Iran with US military power. Further, the absence of a global counter-weight to check US interventionism in the region has increased the chances of US political or even military interference in Iran. Consequently, the US has enhanced its attempts to weaken and possibly overthrow the Islamic regime as part of its plans to redraw the political and strategic maps of the region. In this regard, the US is using various political and economic instruments to undermine the Iranian government.

Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002088170604300302 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:intstu:v:43:y:2006:i:3:p:267-289

DOI: 10.1177/002088170604300302

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().