Iran's foreign policy towards Afghanistan (2001-2014)

Abstract

The present Ph.D. dissertation deals with the analysis of Irana s foreign policy towards Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. The main purpose is to understand and explain the motives for Irana s contradictory behavior and actions with regard to its neighbouring country Afghanistan. The main research question is: a What is the nature of Irana s foreign policy towards Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014?a Conceptually, Irana s foreign policy is interpreted in the study from the realism (Hans Morgenthau; John Mearsheimer) perspective. This is done in a format that provides an overview of the history of Iran-Afghanistan relations, presents an in-depth analysis of the formal power structure of Iran, singles out four main visions of Irana s government which help to interpret the interplay of the three major foreign policy interests Iran has: security, political and economic interests. This is a qualitative study which makes use of historical reconstruction, content analysis, and the analysis of the semi-structured interviews, conducted in Iran and in Afghanistan as part of the field trip research. The analysis of the primary and secondary sources has enabled the answer of the research question on the nature of Irana s FP towards Afghanistan and revealed the contradictory policies of Iran vis-a-vis Afghanistan. The realism approach was assessed as an appropriate approach that adequately addressed Irana s three major foreign policy interests: security, political and economic and it provided explanations for the contradictory character of Irana s foreign policy. Nevertheless, realism was not able to fully unfold the peculiarities of the Iranian governmenta s geographical and cultural vision (the Shia factor). Towards this end, the suggestion for further studies would be to focus on this area in order to elucidate the cultural factor in Irana s FP towards Afghanistan.