Factors of Changing Iran's Foreign Policy Approach of Idealism to Pragmatism: The First and Second Decade of the Islamic Revolution

Sarmadi H* and Badri M

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the origins of Iran’s foreign policy approach from idealism to pragmatism relying on comparing the first and the second decades of the Islamic Revolution by using discourse analysis. Due to the nature of the Islamic revolution and the taking over of sovereignty by the Islamists, expressing idealistic slogans and the dominance of idealism in the field of internal and external discourse in the early years of the revolution were seemed commonplace. But the war and the destruction of the Iranian economy, international situation and the isolation of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the global arena and also the circulation of political elites in 1368 and the rise of pragmatic economy-driven of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s foreign policy shifted from the approach of idealism in the first decade of the Islamic Revolution to pragmatism in the second decade.