IRAN’S STATUS-SEEKING FOREIGN POLICY THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE NUCLEAR ISSUE: THE AHMADINEJAD PRESIDENCY, 2005 – 2013 Submitted by Morgane Colleau to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Middle East Politics In September 2015 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: Morgane Colleau ABSTRACT This thesis adopts a Wendtian constructivist perspective in order to explore how Iran defined its interests in the context of the nuclear issue during the Ahmadinejad presidency. Against realist-type approaches which often attributed a nuclear weapons rationale to Iran and framed its programme as a threat to international security, it argues that Iran’s nuclear policy must be interpreted within the context of its identity and the latter’s causal and constitutive effects on its interests and behaviours. The Wendtian perspective, together with a mixed methods approach combining document analysis and interviews, sheds light on how Iran understood its interests and why the regime perceived opportunities/threats and permissible/unacceptable options in the way it did. This thesis demonstrates that Iran’s nuclear programme was interpreted within a structure of meaning that emphasised its legality and legitimacy. Additionally, it shows that the Ahmadinejad administration’s resistance strategies cannot be understood outside the context of the perceived humiliating failure of the Khatami administration’s confidence-building approach. Not only had Iran’s reputation and independence been jeopardised, but its failure to secure recognition of its nuclear rights also confirmed that the issue was a Western-led manufactured crisis that aimed to undermine the IRI, prevent the development of the Iranian nation and transform the IAEA’s mandate. Iran thus engaged in strategies of self-assertion to challenge the perceived illegal and illegitimate policies of its negotiation partners, the UNSC and the IAEA. Furthermore, this thesis contends that the Ahmadinejad administration sought to transform the diplomatic focus on its nuclear programme into multifaceted geopolitical opportunities. On the one hand, Iran attempted to situate the issue within the wider context of global debates around access to peaceful nuclear energy and the sustainability of the non-proliferation regime. Its denunciations of the Western NWSs’ discriminatory practices echoed with other states’ concerns. On the other hand, Iran’s proposals to the EU-3/P5+1 included repeated offers of cooperation on a range of dilemmas of common interests and aversion. As such, Iran pursued dual- 3 track strategies towards its main nuclear opponents, combining enforcement costs with inducements. Finally, the belief that the US lay at the core of the nuclear issue prompted important debates and developments within Iran about the question of their bilateral relations. While these challenged conventional wisdoms about the principlists’ preferences, Iran’s discursive and ever-increasing strategic dependence on the US continued to explain its Janus-faced strategies towards the superpower. 4 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ 11 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 13 Iran’s Nuclear Programme: a Threat to International Security ....................... 13 The Securitisation of Iran’s Nuclear Activities: Iran, the Rogue State ................ 18 The Ahmadinejad Presidency: a Threatening Nexus Between Intentions and Capabilities ........................................................................................................ 24 Statement of the Problems ................................................................................. 28 Materialist Approaches and the Exclusiveness of “Ideology” and “Pragmatism” 28 The Aggressive/Confrontational Versus Détente/Accommodation Prism of Debate ............................................................................................................... 33 Thesis Aims and Rationale ................................................................................ 36 Research Objectives .......................................................................................... 36 Analytical and Empirical Contributions ............................................................... 40 Methodological Considerations .......................................................................... 41 Structure of the Thesis ....................................................................................... 51 CHAPTER 2. Theoretical Considerations: Wendtian Constructivism and its Complements ......................................................................................................... 57 States’ Identities and Interests .......................................................................... 61 Subjective and Intersubjective Qualities ............................................................ 61 Corporate, Type, Role and Collective Identities ................................................. 62 Identities and Interests ....................................................................................... 66 Universal National Interests: Physical Survival, Autonomy, Economic Well-Being and Collective Self-Esteem ................................................................................ 67 “Anarchy is What States Make of it” ................................................................. 72 Role and Effects of Collective Knowledge ......................................................... 72 Social Structures and Domestic Politics ............................................................ 74 Roles and Reasons in Foreign Policy Decision-Making ..................................... 76 Role and Effects of Language ........................................................................... 79 Cultures of Anarchy ............................................................................................ 81 The Hobbesian Culture of Anarchy .................................................................... 82 The Lockean Culture of Anarchy ....................................................................... 84 The Kantian Culture of Anarchy ......................................................................... 86 The Possibility of Structural Change Towards More Collective Identity Formation ............................................................................................................ 88 Domestic and Systemic Factors Facilitating Collective Identity Formation ........ 88 Domestic and Systemic Factors Inhibiting Collective Identity Formation ........... 93 5 Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................... 97 CHAPTER 3. Securitisation and Polarisation of Iran’s Domestic Politics: Domestic Functions of, and Constraints on, Foreign Policy ............................. 99 Securitisation of Iran’s Domestic Politics ....................................................... 100 Key Dynamics behind President Ahmadinejad’s June 2005 Election .............. 100 Popular appeal. ........................................................................................... 101 Support of the military-security stratum and the conservative establishment .................................................................................................................... 103 Increasing Influence of the IRGC Over State Institutions ................................. 105 The role of the IRGC prior to the Ahmadinejad administration. ................... 105 Formal and informal penetration of Iran’s economic and political institutions...... .............................................................................................. 107 Economic infiltration .................................................................................. 108 Political infiltration ..................................................................................... 109 Post-Electoral Challenges to the Stability of the IRI in 200 .............................. 110 Electoral fraud: popular and elite indignation, legitimacy deficit .................. 111 Repression, violence and control ................................................................. 112 A challenging external environment ............................................................. 115 Polarisation of Iran’s Domestic Politics .......................................................... 117 Old and New Lines of Fracture Within Iran’s Elite............................................ 118 Acute political competition within conservative factions ............................... 118 National elections: thermostat of Iran’s elite-level polarisation .................... 119 Economic Policies and Foreign Relations: Two Particularly Contentious Issues...... ........................................................................................................ 120 Economic policies: ruptures and continuities