Power Demonstration, Iran’s Diplomatic Priority

Iran should rethink its foreign diplomacy to make full advantage of the current regional and global circumstances.

Analysis of a country’s foreign diplomacy cannot be decontextualized from international circumstances. So, when we call Tehran’s foreign diplomacy throughout the past Iranian year unsuccessful and inactive, we attribute this to both Tehran’s political behavior and the international conditions.

Iran’s has over-engaged itself with regional crises and this will have a tough kickback. There was no need to become deeply involved the situation in Gaza or Sudan. The ultimate objective of a country’s foreign diplomacy is to fulfill national interests. However, it seems that Iran ignores this principle and has set power demonstration as its basic diplomatic goal. This approach clearly hasn’t resulted in desirable outcomes. Foreign diplomacy may be one of the significant defects of Ahmadinejad’s administration. Another problem is lack of an unequivocal strategy, which has led to chaos in Iran’s diplomatic body.

The next president and Iran’s foreign diplomacy

Iran is now a critical regional power for various causes. Now it’s time to fully utilize this power and turn into a more influential political actor both regionally and globally. This dormant strength hasn’t yet been used to advance national interests. Regarding the global economic crises and United States’ Middle East quagmire, Iran must devise a shrewd diplomacy which would bring us benefits and serve our interests.

Within this framework, we can’t persist on our one-dimensional diplomacy and multiple parameters should be taken into consideration. First of all, we should bear in mind that Iran has become a powerful regional -and partially global- actor. Second, United States has gotten into hot water in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thirdly, the global economic crisis has affected nearly all Western countries. These conditions urge Iran to revise its current policies and pursue a more flexible diplomacy.

Iran should also move towards reconciliation. The quality of this reconciliation and how it is achieved is hard to predict, but it is better for West to accept a nuclear Iran and receive guarantees in return. We are waiting for new moves by the diplomatic apparatus in the new year, though Iranian diplomacy is in a period of hibernation despite all its potentials.