Iran's Shia Diplomacy: Religious Identity and Foreign Policy in the Islamic

SEPTEMBER 2020 BERKLEY CENTER FOR RELIGION, PEACE & WORLD AFFAIRS | BROOKINGS INSTITUTION GEOPOLITICS OF RELIGIOUS SOFT POWER POLICY BRIEF #3 IRAN’S SHIA DIPLOMACY: RELIGIOUS IDENTITY AND FOREIGN POLICY IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC By Edward Wastnidge EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Organizations such as the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization and the religious outreach arms of the Iranian state play an important role in helping cement transnational religious links between Iran and the wider Muslim world. Such links not only take the shape of traditional religious activities affiliated with the seminaries but also involve educational and diplomatic missions undertaken abroad by the Iranian government. The outreach and development of such parastatal organizations operating across the world highlights a complex and multi-layered articulation of Iran’s combined spiritual and political mission in global politics. KEY TAKEAWAYS • Iran’s foreign policy draws on core Shia themes around fighting oppression and injustice to craft messages capable of transcending sectarian and regional boundaries. This brief is a product • The utilization of such themes leverages Iran’s position as a global religious hub, but its of the Geopolitics of projection of religious soft power is just one aspect of a multidimensional foreign policy. Religious Soft Power • Iran’s cultural and religious diplomacy is agile and multifaceted and can shift gears (GRSP) project, a multi- depending on the target audience. year, cross-disciplinary • Iran relies on various parastatal organizations to enact its cultural and religious diplomacy effort to systematically on the world stage. study state use of religion in foreign affairs. The conclusions and recommendations of this Berkley Center publication are solely those of its author(s) and do not reflect the views of the center, its leadership, or its other scholars. INTRODUCTION engagements in the region. Secondly, Iran’s cultural diplomacy and soft power strategies Since the founding of the Islamic Republic, are examined, as illustrated through the Iran’s leaders have sought to harness both example of state-sponsored outreach and universalistic and particularistic Shia claims development initiatives in the work of the to legitimacy in the Muslim world. Beginning Islamic Culture and Relations Organization with attempts to actively export the Islamic (ICRO), with a particular focus on Lebanon. Revolution in the 1980s, Iran has invested in building its diplomatic and religious THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF IRANIAN infrastructure and expanding its religious FOREIGN POLICY: SEEKING JUSTICE, outreach activities across the Shia world, RESISTING OPPRESSION drawing on its position as something of a Shia metropole in demonstration of its growing Iran utilizes specific historical and cultural soft power. Iran also translates this into its characteristics that allow religion to be wider international diplomacy, drawing on part of its varied foreign policy repertoire. common themes of fighting oppression in its The foundation for much of this foreign efforts to build links with the Global South policy thinking comes from a conception of and resist U.S. dominance in world affairs. justice that provides a contextual basis for The following overview of Iran’s religious soft understanding the role of religion in Iran’s power explores the ways in which religious foreign policy. The Islamic Republic’s views identity informs the diplomacy of the world’s on justice are informed by a particular framing pre-eminent theocracy, highlighting how of injustice arising from two interrelated religiously grounded notions of justice and points: firstly, the historical framing of Iranian resistance to oppression have informed its political Islam as an ideal that draws on the foreign policy thinking and diplomatic reach. religio-philosophical heritage of Shiism, and with it the idea of rallying against injustice; The Islamic Republic contains a range of and secondly, the subsequent position of the parastatal organizations which carry out Islamic Republic as a historically counter- religious outreach and soft power projection hegemonic power that has often chafed across the Shia world. These not only take against Western-defined norms in the the form of traditional religious activities international system. Justice can therefore affiliated with the hawza (seminaries) but be seen as a continual thread that has been also involve the educational and diplomatic maintained in Iran’s diplomacy since 1979, missions undertaken abroad by the Iranian showing an ongoing desire to maintain government. Thus, one can see how the the heritage of the revolution as well as the transnational linkages associated with Iran’s continued importance of the supreme leader position as religious hub are used as a vector as the embodiment of revolutionary ideals to enhance diplomatic relations and deepen who has final say in all matters of state. ties with communities across the Shia world.1 Islamic historical reference points have a long- This brief starts with an overview of standing tradition in the political Shiism of religiously informed notions of justice that the Islamic Republic, and the clergy have an are foundational in the Islamic Republic’s enduring role in the affairs of the Iranian state. foreign policy. It then goes on to examine how Iranian politics has been made in coordination religious identity informs the foreign policy with the clergy since Shiism became the and diplomacy of Iran. The analysis of the role state religion under the Safavid Empire in of Shia identity in Iranian foreign policy looks 1501. However, though Iran’s revolution in at two broad aspects. Firstly, it illustrates how 1979 was not the beginning of the clergy’s elements of Iran’s Shia identity are utilized relationship with politics, a tradition of to help provide a justification for its strategic 2 Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs at Georgetown University quietism historically predominated until important corollaries for the way in which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s rise to the country enacts its cultural and religious prominence, when he sought to bring the diplomacy even today. clergy into politics in a much more activist sense. As such, politicized articulations of RELIGIOUS IDENTITY IN IRANIAN religious events—such as the revolutionary FOREIGN POLICY AND DIPLOMACY interpretation of Hussein’s death (the Prophet Thus, there was The idea of supporting the oppressed and Muhammad’s grandson and third imam)— seeking justice is something that is foundational are a relatively recent, twentieth-century a strong Third in Iranian foreign policy—regardless of the phenomenon, which finds its roots in the different political orientation of successive writings of key Shia scholars such as Musa al- Worldist hue Iranian administrations—because it forms Sadr and Ali Shariati.2 Thus, once the Islamic part of the Islamic Republic’s constitutionally Republic was established, we see religiously that heavily defined foreign policy objectives. Two articles defined notions of justice as constituting a of the constitution spell this out explicitly. key part of the Islamic Republic’s worldview, influenced the Article 3.16, for example, describes the which remain relevant today. Islamic Republic as “…framing the foreign ideological course The formation of the Islamic Republic policy of the country on the basis of Islamic institutionalized clerical rule, and with it, criteria, fraternal commitment to all Muslims, of the revolution Khomeini’s ideas on justice—which also and unsparing support to the mostazafin of became manifest in its international outlook. the world.”7 and the Islamic As Iranian political scientist Homeira H. E. Chehabi and Hassan Mneimneh Moshirzadeh notes,3 justice can be seen Republic’s self- schematize the ways in which the Islamic as providing a “meta-discourse” that gives Republic reflects this thinking within its meaning to Iranian foreign policy in general. perception on the foreign policy by referring to three concentric The fight against oppression is therefore key 8 circles. Support for the oppressed starts in Khomeini’s thinking on justice where world stage, which with an outer circle of Third World countries he encourages an Islam that “repudiates and liberation movements, a middle circle oppression and an Islam in which the ruler has important comprising the Muslim world, with Shia and the people from the lowest walk of life 4 Muslims forming the inner circle. The ways in corollaries for the are equal before law.” Key to his political which this support continues to be articulated thought was emphasizing a type of Islam to this inner circle can be seen in its well- way in which the “whose standard-bearers are the bare-footed, documented, recent strategic engagements, oppressed and poor people of the world.”5 and in its religious and cultural diplomacy in country enacts This was a form of political Shiism that the region, both of which are discussed in the drew in part on the intellectual heritage of following section. The emphasis on fighting its cultural and Shia modernizers such as Ali Shariati. This oppression manifests itself in a counter- emphasis on populist egalitarianism saw hegemonic discourse that seeks to challenge religious diplomacy him revive and invoke the Quranic concept perceived U.S. imperialism in the Middle of the mostazafin (the oppressed), a term East and beyond. Thus, we see Iran utilizing even today. which went on to play a key role in the such a discourse

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