| The inauguration of the second Rouhani administration has intensified debate on the Islamic Republic’s defense posture and its relations with neighboring countries and the United States. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, relations between Tehran and Western powers, led by the United States, have been characterized by mutual suspicion and hostility. Iranian leaders claim that Western powers, particularly the United States, have never accepted the Islamic Revolution. Meanwhile, Washington and its allies have accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism, abusing human rights and meddling in the domestic affairs of its neighbors. The dispute over the nuclear program has dominated the debate for most of the last two decades. The signing of the nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) in July 2015 was supposed to open a new page in the relations between Iran and Western powers. To be sure, since the agreement went into effect (January 2016), relations between Iran and several European countries have improved. But very little, if any, change has taken place in relations with Washington. The latest rise in tensions was caused by the election of Donald Trump, who has “put Iran on notice” and has strongly sided with Iran’s rivals in the Persian Gulf, while not formally distancing the United States from the JCPOA. In a visit to Saudi Arabia in April 2017, Secretary of Defense James Mattis repeatedly warned against what he described as the malign influence of Iran: “Everywhere you look, if there’s trouble in the region, you find Iran.”۱ From Iran’s perspective, this means that the country continues to be surrounded and threatened by the much more powerful United States and its well-armed Arab allies. Under the Pahlavi regime, Iran was a major player in the U.S. “twin pillars” strategy, conceived to ensure regional security and stability, managed by America’s local allies. Accordingly, Tehran had access to the most advanced American and European weaponry and was involved in many forms of military cooperation with Western powers. Since the 1979 revolution, however, Tehran has been under sanctions regimes and, unlike its regional rivals, barred from access to advanced Western weapons systems. Despite Iran’s being portrayed as an aggressive regional power and despite being one of the largest and most populous countries in the Middle East, Tehran’s military expenditures, in both absolute and relative terms, have been quite modest and much lower than those of its neighbors. |
