Evolution in Iran's Foreign Policy: 1979–1982

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran gave rise to the emergence of serious difficulties between the new revolutionary government and the outside world, inclusive of great powers and regional countries. Many analysts of Iran’s foreign policy in the post-revolutionary period have attributed this phenomenon,  in large measure, to the idealism of revolutionary leaders and their discourse and efforts geared to “exporting the revolution.” The present article tries to look into the evolving nature of the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran during its formative years; 1979-1982. The author argues that the seemingly aggressive posture of the Iranian foreign policy in the period under review should in fact be viewed and analyzed within the particular state of interactions between the new revolutionary regime and the external forces it had to grapple with while trying to establish the new system in Iran. In his analysis, the new Iranian foreign policy was not “aggressive” in essence and did not represent a peculiarly aggressive line of thinking on the part of the revolutionary leaders,   rather it reflected the complex state of bilateral relations between Iran under the new regime and a wide array of countries and states unhappy with the revolutionary change in Iran.