Online published on 24 November, 2011.
This article seeks to explain why Iranian foreign policy towards Western countries in general and the United States in particular, even under systemic pressures has remained relatively unchanged. To this end, it identifies the determinant factors affecting Iran's foreign policy. The ideological and Islamic nature of the 1979 revolution distinguishes it from other revolutions and movements throughout the world. Since then, Iranian foreign and security policy has been dominated by a new set of revolutionary discourses. Policy is driven more by its revolutionary values and ideological perspectives than the logic of nation-states. To understand Iran's foreign behaviour, one needs to examine the basic characteristics of the country's discursive structures. Due to the role of normative factors in constructing Iranian foreign policy, the holistic constructivist approach is considered the most applicable theory for explaining it.
