In the light of the developing Iranian nuclear capability, assess the continuity and change in contemporary American foreign policy towards Iran’s quest to become a regional hegemon.

This study begins with the premise that Iran and Iraq were, following the end of the Cold War, seen as the two obstacles to American hegemony in the Middle East. America has always had strong strategic interest in the area. During the Cold War, the Middle East was one of the battlegrounds from which to contain the Soviet Union, and therefore all policy was generally in line with preventing Soviet domination of the area through containment and deterrence, thereby protecting American strategic interests. With the Soviet threat confined to history, America found itself without a global competitor in what has been called The Unipolar Moment (Krauthammer 1990). This dissertation seeks to understand and analyse how the administrations in power in America during the unipolar moment have adapted their thinking towards the Middle East beyond Cold War paradigms, chiefly in reference to the rise of Iran as a possible regional hegemon bolstered by its nuclear ambitions. In order to understand this question, the analysis will examine changing ideological perspectives and the effects of those perspectives on the exercise of foreign policy. The study will focus primarily on the policies of the William J. Clinton (Clinton) and George W. Bush (Bush II) administrations. The reasoning for this is one of context, as these are the two administrations that campaigned for and gained office after the end of the Cold War and therefore from the outset were faced with a need for a new approach to international relations. The George H.W. Bush (Bush I) administration came to power during the Cold War, and will therefore only be analysed briefly in relation to the way in which it altered its policies during the years after the fall of the Soviet Union, if at all.

In order to appreciate the complexity of the issue an initial historical review will be carried out, which comprises the first chapter. This review will rely on relevant commentary and scholarly books and articles. It will account for why Iranian regional and nuclear ambitions are of primary strategic importance to America in the post Cold War era and establish the relevance of this within the wider sphere of contemporary international politics. The chapter will also seek to understand the wider ideological approaches to the Middle East and the role of America in the world, which is essential groundwork for this analysis.

With the context established, the second chapter will undertake a detailed analysis of policy papers, official documents, speeches, and biographies to establish continuity and change between chiefly the Bush II and Clinton approach towards Iran. This analysis focuses particularly on Iranian proliferation and the perceived threat of Iran to American hegemony and America’s aspirations for a transformed Middle East. As already mentioned the Bush I administration’s approach will be analysed where appropriate. Various national security strategy papers will form the backbone of this chapter.
With the historical context, ideological framework, and the policy pattern established, a third chapter of the study will examine the impact of chiefly three external actors on American decision-making regarding the Iranian issue. The growing polarity between Israel and Iran as chief regional protagonists in the Middle East will constitute the central focus of this chapter and will serve to open up the analysis to consider the involvement of the European Union as it involved itself in a diplomatic effort towards Iran, independent of America. This will form a more detailed picture of the American approach to the Iranian nuclear issue adding the wider geopolitical scope to the analysis of the internal American political and ideological processes.

The study is therefore at its heart a comparative study based around a chronological analysis of American policy towards Iran and the ideology driving it. However the nature of the issue deserves a wider consideration. The Iranian issue has brought into the open the debate that will possibly shape the future of international politics. It addresses the conflict between hard and soft power approaches, addressing acutely the ideological incompatibilities that inform that debate and how this has come to divide the international community. Because of these factors, throughout the analysis the relevant normative paradigms of international relations scholarship will be addressed where necessary. This will enlighten and complete rather than dilute the empirical analysis, and allow for a more informed analysis.