Frazer 1 Risky Behavior: Understanding Iranian Foreign Policy Sarah Frazer Class of 2019 Senior Honors Thesis Government 490 Advisor: Professor Jennifer Kibbe Department of Government Franklin & Marshall College Date of Honors Defense: 1 May, 2019 Frazer 2 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank Professor Jennifer Kibbe for being my thesis advisor and guiding me through this process with support and enthusiasm. Thank you for always pushing me to do my best and for this great opportunity. I would not have thought to pursue an honors thesis without your suggestion and confidence in me. I have greatly enjoyed working with you over this past year.. To my mom, thank you for always encouraging me and believing in me. I’m grateful that you raised me to work hard and follow through to accomplish my goals. Lastly, thank you to my sister, Marie, for many hours and late nights of listening to my ideas, editing drafts, and giving constructive criticism. Frazer 3 Abstract Since its founding in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has played a pivotal role in Middle East politics and beyond; therefore, understanding the factors that influence Iran’s international behavior is essential to understanding regional politics. In this paper, I will analyze Iran’s foreign policy towards three neighboring states: Saudi Arabia, Iran’s archrival; Turkey its “frenemy,” and Syria, its closest state ally. I will consider Iran’s relations with these countries during the Khatami (1997-2005) and Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) presidencies and will apply prospect theory to explain Iran’s behavior. Through my research, I discovered that the Islamic Republic’s behavior is best explained by prospect theory, which contends that Iran will behave differently when it is in a domain of loss as opposed to when it is in a domain of gain. When facing a domain of loss, Iran will be risk seeking, and when in a domain of gain it will be risk averse. Indeed, Iran’s foreign policies towards Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Syria consistently follow this pattern. This finding is important to any state that interacts with Iran since applying it would allow states to make better decisions towards Iran. For example, the United States and other Western actors should avoid placing Iran in a domain of loss that would influence Iran to take more aggressive or more risky choices, such as increasing aid to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. Frazer 4 Table of Contents: Introduction……………………………..……………………………………………………....5-7 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………...…8-25 Case Studies……..…………………...…….............................................................................26-80 Saudi Arabia…………………...……..........................................................................26-47 Turkey……………………………...…………………………………………………48-64 Syria…………………………...……………………………………………………...65-80 Analysis………………………………...….…………………………………………………81-97 Conclusion…………………………………..........................................................................98-102 Tables……………………………………………………………………………………….......103 Bibliography……………………………..….……………………………………..……....104-109 Frazer 5 Introduction Since its founding in 1979, the Islamic Republic has played a pivotal role in the regional politics of the Middle East. Along with its allies, Iran has posed a formidable foe to all of its adversaries and has effectively countered the hegemonic ambitions of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. For this reason, understanding how Iran makes and conducts its foreign policy is critical for policymakers and anyone who wants to understand Iran’s place in regional politics and the future of the Islamic Republic and of the Middle East. As will be shown in the following pages, Iranian foreign policy has a clear, discernible pattern that it usually applies to its policies towards other state actors, be they a friend, an enemy, or something in between. Specifically, Iran’s behavior is risk seeking when it is in a domain of loss; conversely, when in a domain of gain, the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy is both more risk averse and more dependent on who is in office at the time. This paper will examine the evolution of Iran’s bilateral relations with three states in the Middle East, namely Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Syria, during Mohammad Khatami’s and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidencies (1997-2013) since Iran was under the leadership of two quite different administrations during this period. The Khatami administration (1997-2005) led the reformist camp and pursued an open, ‘dialogue of civilizations’ type policy. In stark contrast, the Ahmadinejad administration (2005-2013) led the conservative faction and favored a ‘clash of civilizations’ approach in its foreign affairs. After detailing all three cases, I will analyze Iran’s policies towards these states by applying prospect theory to each, in the hopes of drawing overarching conclusions regarding Iran’s foreign policy and, based on my analysis, potential policy implications for international decision-makers. Frazer 6 Case Selection To better understand Iran’s foreign policy, this paper will analyze Iran’s policies towards three states: Saudi Arabia, Iran’s archrival; Turkey, a “frenemy” of the Islamic Republic; and Syria, Iran’s staunchest ally. Research on Iranian foreign policy disproportionately focuses on its relations with the United States and to a lesser extent Israel. Though some scholars have studied Iran’s foreign policy towards Middle Eastern states like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Syria, as well as its ties to the EU, India, Russia, and countries in Africa and in South America, this research is far less prevalent in the literature. The bulk of the literature still has a singular focus on Iran’s policy towards the US. While this aspect of Iranian foreign policy is undoubtedly consequential, it is not all that matters. The study of US-Iranian relations overshadows all other aspects of Iranian foreign policy to the extent that it limits our ability to understand how Iran develops and executes its policies towards everyone else. Since the US is by no means like any other state that Iran deals with, seeing as it is not a regional power and operates as perhaps the world’s only superpower, we cannot learn much about how Iran would act in general by looking at the US as a case study. To remedy the above problem, I will be analyzing three case studies of Iranian foreign policy towards three less-studied countries to see how Iran behaves as an international actor. The three states are Syria, the closest thing Iran has to an ally; Saudi Arabia, Iran’s arch rival in the region and usually its enemy; and Turkey, a wildcard state which Iran has both worked with and against depending on the situation. I have chosen these cases since they represent the range of relationships Iran has within the Middle East and since they are all comparable to each other as regional, middle power states. At the same time, they have key differences which determine Frazer 7 Iran’s relations with them. Thus, more research on each of these key bilateral relationships will provide a better understanding of Iran’s foreign policy. The time frame I will be observing, 1997-2013, spans two presidential administrations: President Mohammad Khatami’s (1997-2005) and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s (2005-2013). I chose these two presidencies for a few reasons. I chose these two administrations because Khatami and Ahmadinejad are the most recent presidents to have completed two terms in office. President Hassan Rouhani was elected in 2013 and is still in office today; studying his presidency would be problematic since it is too recent and not yet finished. Second, and most importantly, Khatami was a reformist, and Ahmadinejad was a conservative hardliner, meaning that their foreign policies should theoretically represent a wide range of possible Iranian policies. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not the focus of this paper. It is true that since his assumption of the role of Supreme Leader in 1989, he has had considerable sway over Iran’s foreign policy and can limit the actions taken by Iran’s president.1 Nevertheless, Khamenei is not the only one with decision-making power in the Islamic Republic. Whoever is president of Iran exerts influence over its foreign policy. More to the point, any effect the Supreme Leader would have on that policy would remain consistent throughout both presidential administrations. The Supreme Leader does not seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, so any difference in Iran’s policy would come primarily from the president, possibly along with Iranian voters. Thus, Khatami’s and Ahmadinejad’s foreign policies paint a good picture of Iran’s policy overall. 1 Jerrold D. Green and Frederic Wehrey Green, Charles Wolf (2009), Understanding Iran, (Santa Monica, CA; Arlington, VA; Pittsburgh, PA: RAND Corporation), 7-10. Frazer 8 Literature Review Since the days of the Safavid Empire (1501-1722), Iran has been a key actor in the Middle East and the surrounding region; perhaps equally important, Iran has been a leader of Shia Muslims around the world for just as long. Given Iran’s geopolitical importance, international relations scholars worldwide have sought to understand the process by which Iran makes its foreign policy. Following the Revolution of 1979, the newly declared Islamic Republic of Iran dramatically shifted its foreign policy and its foreign policy decision-making process. Much has been written about the Islamic Republic's foreign policy; this literature can be broken down a few different ways.2 Here, it will be analyzed and divided according to the questions its authors seek to answer. First, scholars are divided on whether Iran’s foreign policy is driven mainly by ideology or by pragmatism. Second, another way scholars have framed this question is whether Iran’s behaviour is best explained by a neorealist, neoliberal, or constructivist worldview. Lastly, the literature is broken up according to the Islamic Republic’s relations with specific countries, namely the United States and Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies, Turkey and other regional powers, and other non regional states.