Iran and Israel have long been enigmatic players on the international stage, belonging to the Middle East but not quite identifying with the majority of its inhabitants. For the sole majority-ethnic Persian state in the Middle East and one of the few Shiite Muslim ones, friction and tension have been constant features of its relations with the predominantly Arab and Sunni Middle Eastern states. If Iran is somewhat of an outcast in the region, this is even more the case for Israel as the only ethnically and religiously Jewish state, not only in the region but in the world at large. Aside from Turkey, which is really the only other significant non-Arab state actor in the region, Iran and Israel represent deviations from the norm of mostly Sunni Muslim and ethnically Arab states in the Middle East. Still, what stands out as truly unique in the modern Middle East is the Iranian-Israeli connection, a facet of international politics unparalleled elsewhere in terms of Persian-Jewish contact and cooperation spanning thousands of years, overall international interdependence, and the abrupt switch from amity to enmity as of 1979.
While the international media has cast an ever-stronger spotlight on the Iranian-Israeli relationship in the past five or ten years, it has long deserved closer scrutiny. For two countries to be as intertwined at the political, military, economic and societal levels – like Iran and Israel from the 1950s through to the 1970s – and then to become and remain bitter and irreconcilable enemies – thanks to a radical Iranian regime change in 1979 – is virtually unheard of in the realm of international politics. This phenomenon begged further study, and was spurred along by the need for an impartial and inclusive analysis to mitigate the perpetual barrage of news headlines and journal articles prophesying the inevitable showdown between the two states (and invariably the United States and its fellow friends and enemies), resulting in a region-wide conflagration or global nuclear meltdown. While not claiming to be the epitome of objectivity, impartiality and neutrality on the subject, it is hoped this paper is a step in the right direction, a step towards a more rational and unbiased point of departure.
Where does the subject-matter of this paper fall within the field of Political Science? Beginning with broad strokes, it is clear from the outset that any comparison of Iranian-Israeli political relations falls somewhere between the subfields of International Relations and Comparative Politics. Chapter 2 introduces the theoretical framework used throughout the remainder of the paper and borrows heavily from the Realist and Constructivist brands of International Relations theories.[1] Chapter 3 lays out a broad literature review which draws sparsely from a wide range of theoretical and empirical sets of literature, including but not limited to: Foreign Policy Studies, Area Studies (Middle East Studies, particularly), Strategic/Security Studies, Political Psychology, and Comparative/Domestic Politics. The point is that no single branch or strand of Political Science monopolizes the content of this paper or dominates all others. While International Relations scholars and theories account for a significant portion of the sources used in this paper, many other writers, authors, journalists, and scholars contributing to a diverse set of literatures were consulted, referenced, incorporated, and integrated into the arguments of this paper.
What are the most important or most valuable resources for knowledge and information on the Iranian-Israeli relationship? Put another way, who are the major reporters or analysts of the conflict? Samuel Segev, Sohrab Sobhani, and Henry Paolucci have all written seminal accounts of the Iran-Israel connection in the late 1980s or early 1990s, a pivotal time in world affairs.[2] Not only was the Cold War coming to an end, but the almost decade-long Iran-Iraq War was winding down, and enough time had passed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran to make some informed evaluations of the change in Iranian-Israeli dynamics. More recently, more critical and analytical perspectives have been brought to bear on the international interactions of Iran and Israel. This was not doable when the bipolar balance of power known as the Cold War was disintegrating and would definitely not have even been possible today without the pioneering studies mentioned in the first footnote. Nevertheless, Trita Parsi and Haggai Ram manage to blend strategic, geopolitical and power-centric analyses with normative, discursive and ideational critiques in a powerful synthesis of Iranian-Israeli bilateral political relations.[3]
Any analysis of international politics needs to take into account some key factors: what game is being played, who are the main players, what are their resources and capabilities, which objectives or goals are being pursued, how exactly do they plan to achieve them, and who is the target audience of this analysis? It is hoped this paper has managed to answer these questions and sparked new ones in the minds of any interested and engaged readers. Finally, the Iranian-Israeli relationship is one which will continue to fascinate political scientists and scholars while simultaneously confounding and confusing them. With any luck, this paper will succeed in fostering fascination and curtailing confusion.

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework
Theory plays a central role in the analysis of any regional or international politics. For the purposes of this paper, two theoretical frameworks from the discipline of International Relations (IR) – Waltzian Structural Realism (WSR) and Wendtian Social Constructivism (WSC) – will be applied to the analysis of Iranian-Israeli relations from 1948 to the year 2010. The main reason for using both theories is their different ontological and epistemological starting points, facts that lead each to observe different ‘real worlds’ (or realities) and to evaluate some types of ‘knowledge’ (or evidence) as relevant to their conclusions and others as not. While WSR may explain some aspects of the Middle East’s international politics excellently, a substantial amount remains inexplicable or ignored. WSC fills in these analytical gaps and allows analysts to rethink WSR’s faulty causal relationships and poorly understood variables. Both theories occupy central places within the IR literature, and both have been successfully deployed in the analysis of case studies in the Middle East. Still, neither theory is entirely uniform or coherent; each represents broad schools of thought where multiple factions and perspectives vie for relevance and dominance within the particular discipline of IR and the general faculties of the social sciences.
Both theories (WSR and WSC) are single varieties among many, each with its own pluses and minuses. Realism exists in the Classical, Neo-Classical, Structural, Offensive and Defensive prototypes, while Constructivism is less easy to label since enormous differences exist within its own ranks at the meta-theoretical levels of ontology and epistemology.[4] In order to avoid becoming bogged down in the theoretical minutiae and multiple points of view available within both WSR and WSC – condensed and necessarily over-simplified versions of each theory – will be presented in this chapter, and then applied to the case studies of Iranian-Israeli relations in the following chapters. The narrow yet cogent theoretical frameworks used in this paper are Structural Realism, developed singlehandedly by Kenneth Waltz (WSR), and the brand of Social Constructivism advanced by Alexander Wendt (WSC). Although much of the richness and diversity of each theoretical tradition will be neglected by using only the work of these two theorists, it is the price that must be paid to create a standard model of each theory. That being said, the remainder of this chapter will outline their main assumptions and arguments and the relevance of these to the 62-year old Iranian-Israeli bilateral relationship.
Waltzian Structural Realist (WSR) Theory
Realism as a general school of thought within IR traces its roots all the way back to Thucydides and his 2500-year old retelling of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in Ancient Greece.[5] Since then, other scholars claimed by modern Realists as intellectual precursors to their own strands of thought include St. Augustine of Hippo (5th century CE), Niccolò Machiavelli (16th century), Thomas Hobbes (17th century), Carl von Clausewitz (19th century), and Hans Morgenthau (20th century).[6] Many others could be named, but these thinkers are the most famous and the most cited in terms of original political philosophy, and much Realist theory has been developed in the process of either agreeing or arguing with them. Recurring Realist concepts involve war, power, the balance of power, security, strategy, alliances, and arms races. This paper is only concerned with a single vein of Realist thought – one of the most recent, in fact – as it was articulated by a single thinker. Neo-Realism (or Structural Realism, as it is also known) is laid out in the thought of Kenneth Waltz and is best expressed in his seminal work, Theory of International Politics.[7] It is this specific variant of Realism, Waltzian Structural Realism (WSR), which will be applied to Iranian-Israeli relations in the rest of this paper.
For the second-half of the 20th century and well into the 21st, Waltz has been one of the leading figures in Realist thought. In an earlier publication entitled Man, the State and War, Waltz made a name for himself within IR by identifying the main causes of international war at three different levels, an idea which has caught on as the ‘levels-of-analysis’ problem.[8] Essentially, Waltz proposed that war was the result of processes or events taking place at one or more of the following three analytical levels: the individual (unit-level variable) or human nature, the state (intermediate-level variable) or national unit, and the interstate system (systemic-level variable) or international structure. What Theory of International Politics does is effectively cancel out the first two levels and allow the systemic or structural level to determine the frequency and probability of war between states. Hence, ‘Structural’ Realism refers to the structural/systemic-level of the interstate political system and discards the ‘Classical’ political philosophy of centuries past which tended to explain the occurrence and likelihood of war with descriptive unit-level variables, something Waltz would reject as ‘reductionist’ and ‘unscientific’ according to his particular formulation of systemic, social scientific theory.[9]
Before getting into the substance of Waltz’s theory, it is important to acknowledge some issues of meta-theory. WSR is an ontologically ‘rationalist’ and epistemologically ‘positivist’ theory of politics. This is a fancy way of saying that the interstate system seen through Realist lenses consists of ‘rational’ state actors competing with each other in pursuit of self-interest (ontology) and that it is possible to build a theory out of these types of observations thanks to methods of rigorous and parsimonious theoretical falsification (epistemology). Waltz himself acknowledges that the intellectual inspiration behind his Theory of International Politics is derived from two principal sources: theories of philosophy of science and economics. Some of the philosophers of science most cited by Waltz are those interested in empirical and rigorous construction of theory, like Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and especially Imre Lakatos, while theories of economics are derived from both the ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ ends of the spectrum – microeconomics for the rational calculations of individual unit actors and macroeconomics for the structural determinants acting on these same units – in this case, states versus systems.[10] This new and improved iteration of Realism, WSR, has reenergized and reinvigorated this particular theoretical tradition ever since the 1980s and continues to do so even today.
WSR can at its simplest be boiled down to three core assumptions about states and about the nature of the international system to which they belong and in which they interact. Firstly, the ordering principle of the international state system is anarchical rather than hierarchical, meaning not that chaos and disorder are to be expected but that there is no overriding authority able to supersede the legitimate claim to sovereignty of each state.[11] Simply put, each state has ultimate authority over its citizens, within its legal borders and over its entire territorial, maritime, and aerial jurisdiction. Because no state answers to a higher authority than itself and the international system is populated by similarly sovereign and independent entities, it is said that a condition of international anarchy therefore exists where the survival of each state unit is not guaranteed. In order to assure their survival, states are driven to accumulate power, which in turn provides security. Each state is a self-interested, rational actor seeking to maximize its own chances of survival and obsessed with acquiring power towards that end. Consistent with the international or systemic level of analysis, war then results from the absence of an authority structure analogous to the national level which would otherwise inhibit the use of force between states in international society, not because of human nature or domestic politics.
The second Waltzian assumption is the non-differentiation of function among units within the same system. In this case, the function of all states is the same: to protect its citizens and territory from abroad while providing for law, order and domestic stability at home.[12] Because each state performs the same functions (ensuring survival and providing security), this second proposition – differentiation of function – drops out of Waltz’s theoretical equation.[13] This proposition, of course, is only negligible according to Waltz if all state functions are virtually identical from one state to the next. If the ostensibly secondary state functions of economic prosperity, environmental sustainability and foreign assistance differ across states, then the theoretical strength of this second Waltzian assumption is suddenly called into question.
The third and final assumption is that the distribution of capabilities among functionally alike states determines the balance of power between them. In other words, all states possess power resources (capabilities) which act as countervailing forces for the power resources of other states.[14] In turn, the status quo of the international system becomes a situation in which no single state can dominate all others, and relative rather than absolute gains become of paramount concern as each state attempts to ‘one-up’ the other.[15] Given the small number of states with both the capacity and the desire to dominate this type of system, international anarchy and great power conflict conform to the ‘logic of small number systems.’[16] Basically, this final assumption posits that the balance of power only considers great powers seriously and relegates minor or middle powers to near-irrelevance.
These assumptions about the structure of the international state system and the nature of the states populating it lead to several hypotheses about state behaviour within that system. Perhaps the most important theoretical hypothesis – and conclusion – of WSR is that states are more likely to ‘balance’ against rising powers and growing threats than to ‘bandwagon’ with them.[17] This ‘balance-of-power’ theory of international politics grants states the autonomy to choose whether the most prudent balancing act is internal (allocating more national resources to military and economic security) or external (forming alignments and alliances with states possessing similar interests and, thus, similar enemies). WSR, along with virtually all Realist-inspired theories, is first and foremost concerned with stability over justice, power over morality, and continuity over change.[18]
Waltz also considers the issue of polarity (how many poles, or great powers, exist in one system) and concludes that bipolar systems are more stable than unipolar or multipolar ones. To see why this is so, it is useful to distinguish between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ forms of balancing. Internal balancing arises when one state uses its own resources and capabilities to counterbalance its enemies’ resources and capabilities. External balancing refers to allying or aligning with similarly threatened states, rather than relying solely on one’s own power, in order to balance against other states.[19] According to these classifications, then, unipolar systems involve only internal balancing by definition – if one powerful state dominates the interstate system, then no comparable powers amenable to external balancing exist.[20] Internal balancing also involves internalizing many of the costs of maintaining international peace and security, and so is inherently unstable.[21] Multipolar systems, however, are much less predictable and much more uncertain since both types of balancing occur, essentially adding more variables to a nominally parsimonious balance of power equation. Therefore, bipolar systems are the most predictably certain and stable systems since the external type of balancing is eliminated, leaving internal balancing as the only indicator of a system’s evolutionary trajectory as a whole.[22]
At a time when many feared the possibility of unrestrained nuclear warfare between the two Cold War superpowers, Waltz predicted that the inability of either side to successfully overcome the other’s nuclear deterrent through their own internal efforts made bipolarity that much stronger and more stable.[23] Precisely because of its theoretical parsimony and empirical rigour, WSR is a benchmark and a milestone for IR theory. This is true not only for Realist thought and its supporters but for its detractors as well, especially considering how much intellectual fodder it has provided over the years for many of WSR’s critics.
Wendtian Social Constructivist (WSC) Theory
As a school of thought, Constructivism owes an enormous intellectual debt to the fields of sociology and sociological institutionalism for its fluidity and versatility.[24] Epistemologically ‘rationalist’ and ‘positivist’ theories dominated the IR literature for much of the discipline’s history and continue to retain impressive staying power in the face of post-positivist critiques. Constructivism, straddling the divide between positivist and post-positivist epistemologies, made its semi-official debut in IR theory in the 1980s as theoretical pluralism flourished and the Cold War’s ideological straitjacket came undone.[25] It is difficult to say when, but Constructivist scholars began to make their mark sometime between IR’s Third and Fourth ‘Great Debates,’ a time of intellectual creativity and theoretical diversity beginning sometime in the 1970s and continuing to the present day.[26] During this period of time, many parochial versions of Constructivism – Wendtian Social Constructivism (WSC) among them – have emerged as serious competitors among IR theories under the general banner of Constructivism.
Unlike Realism and thanks to the interdisciplinary nature of Constructivism’s origins, it is no easy feat to track its intellectual genealogy. Nevertheless, some of the most prominent scholars include Nicholas Onuf, Friedrich Kratochwil, Peter Katzenstein and Martha Finnemore, just to name a few.[27] These Constructivists examine materialist concepts like positivist-minded Realists but emphasize the social and non-material variables as well, variables like the constructed nature of all politics, national and cultural identities, values, norms, and beliefs, processes of learning and adaptation, and the underlying dynamics of change (and continuity) in the international system of states. Constructivist theory is also more engaged in understanding the ‘constitutive’ nature of international political issues, not so much in explaining them as in the case of Realism.[28] Still, one of the few and only attempts to evolve Constructivism beyond an ontological viewpoint or methodological tool within IR and construct a logically consistent and internally coherent theory was Alexander Wendt’s pivotal study, sardonically titled Social Theory of International Politics in light of Waltz’s ‘asocial’ theory.[29] This unique brand of Constructivist theory, from here on referred to as WSC, will be employed later on in the analysis of Iranian-Israeli bilateral relations.
As was done with Realism, it may help the meta-theoretically minded to briefly examine the ontological and epistemological bases of Constructivism. Robert O. Keohane’s 1988 presidential address to the International Studies Association inaugurated the meta-theoretical division between ‘rationalist’ and ‘reflectivist’ theories, essentially parallel to the positivist/post-positivist divide.[30] In terms of meta-theory, rationalism (as in rational-choice theory) espouses a foundationalist ontology, positivist or empiricist epistemology, and quantitative methodology while reflectivism is ontologically anti-foundationalist, epistemologically post-positivist or interpretivist, and methodologically qualitative. Realism – whether Structural or any other kind – is a rationalist theory because it explicitly assumes that unit-level actors are rational, goal-oriented, and self-interested entities. WSC, as with many other theories employing post-positivist epistemologies, is a reflectivist theory, or at least it is according to Keohane’s dichotomy. This simply highlights the fact that the nature of reality is not taken as objective, absolute or independent of perception but is instead seen as subjective, relative, and dependent upon the viewer’s biases and (mis)perceptions. These distinctions between Realist and Constructivist theories at the level of meta-theory are incredibly significant within IR since they provide different philosophical models and starting points for theoretical investigation.
WSC shares some principles with WSR that other variants of each theoretical school of thought normally do not. First off, states remain the primary units of the international system and the most important actors on the international stage. This is not a starting assumption shared by other Constructivist scholars who emphasize the social construction of the nation-state just as much as any other aspect of the international system. Another key similarity between Waltz and Wendt is where they stand on the agent-structure debate, or the issue of free-will versus determinism. Both theorists are most comfortable with a top-down approach to international politics, purposely fashioning a more systemic, structural or deterministic theory as a result. The third and final parallel between Wendt’s and Waltz’s theories is the reality and unavoidability of anarchy, meaning that the only real difference between Social Theory of International Politics and Theory of International Politics is precisely what the titles imply: the ‘social’ aspect of politics at the international level. It is important to note, however, that Wendt does not see anarchy as leading inevitably and inexorably to conflict as does Waltz but claims instead that ‘anarchy is what states make of it,’ allowing agent-actors to prevail over structural-systemic anarchy and achieve cooperation.[31] Clearly, this means that anarchy – a very real construct – can lead either to conflict or cooperation, depending on how states acting and interacting under anarchical conditions choose to alter their behaviours and perceptions.
For all their similarities, WSC diverges from WSR in key ways, with three core ontological propositions about social life standing out more than others.[32] In general, Realists adhere to an asocial conception of interstate interaction where national interests are formed prior to socialization and states enter into social relationships only in order to achieve their interest-based goals. Constructivists argue that interests are not formed in this way, which leads to the first ontological difference between themselves and Realists. For Constructivists, interests need not be formed in isolation and pre-socialization by universally similar ‘rational actors,’ but they can be formed and transformed via social interaction and by differences in identities. Social identities at the domestic and international level are central pieces of information for post-positivists and political analysts exactly because “identities are the basis of interests.”[33] To better understand national identity, social variables ignored by Realists like language, culture, ethnicity, religion, and gender need to be included in analysis.
The second difference of ontology between WSC and WSR involves one of their similarities: acceptance of the influence of social and political structures on the interests and actions of agents within that structure, or units within that system. ‘Material’ forces and structures are privileged by Realists above all else since they are the only relevant forces and structures acting upon the relevant actors. Constructivists recognize the importance of material concepts like arms, militaries, and balances of power, but they are also complemented by ‘ideational’ or ‘normative’ forces and structures like values, beliefs, cultures, and ideologies. The stress here is laid on shared ideas and understandings, all of which are socially constructed but which cannot be given meaning without a material basis. After all, “material resources only acquire meaning for human action through the structure of shared knowledge in which they are embedded.”[34] Simply put, there is more to the world and its political happenings than purely material variables would suggest; the material and ideational are mutually constitutive and reinforcing. Socio-ideational factors are added to the material ones to facilitate understanding.
The third and final difference relates to the agent-structure debate. It has already been shown that pre-Waltzian ‘Classical’ Realists tend to privilege unit-level variables – whether individuals, elite groups, states, or otherwise – over systemic-level ones and that WSR places structural determinism ahead of agential free-will in the search for a superior theory. WSC, on the other hand, takes a different approach. As with most critical theorists, Constructivists are of the position that agents and structures are mutually constitutive; that is, they recreate and reconstitute one another in such a fashion that neither side of the debate is able to dominate or eliminate the other. This is somewhat like the way in which Neo-Classical Realism simultaneously examines agent- and structure-level variables, as opposed to the Classical Realist focus on agents/units and Structural Realism’s preoccupation with structures/systems.[35] Therefore, agents and structures cannot be studied in isolation but must interact and be studied in tandem since “it is through reciprocal interaction that we create and instantiate the relatively enduring social structures in terms of which we define our identities and interests.”[36] All three differences effectively introduce the ‘social’ into the study – and theory – of international politics.
Conclusion
The interdisciplinary field of International Relations offers a wide range of theoretical positions and frameworks for explaining and understanding issues and events of international political importance. Of these varied and multifaceted theories, WSR and WSC are two of the most rigorous, concise, and inclusive. In the following two chapters, the conundrum of Iranian-Israeli relations over the past 60 years will be analyzed through the prism of these two theoretical frameworks. Together, Realist and Constructivist theory will collectively promote the explanation and understanding of material and non-material (social and ideational) aspects of the relationship, contributing to a fuller and more sophisticated theoretical examination of Iranian-Israeli relations between 1948 and 2010. These Realist and Constructivist concepts are in most instances applied to empirical cases implicitly since this chapter has already provided the necessary intellectual basis for the theory. Therefore, the tools of each theory are automatically applied to the relevant case studies unless otherwise stated.
Chapter 3: Literature Review
Although the Iranian-Israeli rivalry has in recent years attracted more attention than ever before, it has not always resulted in well-informed or even well-intentioned analyses. To hone in on a more realistic image of the bilateral relationship between Iran and Israel, it is crucial to first examine the wide range of existing literature. In the course of compiling a literature review on any topic, it helps to keep some questions in mind. What is the purpose of this review? How wide-ranging is its breadth and depth? Who is the target audience and how are they affected? This review attempts to answer these questions and more as it provides a basic introduction to Iranian-Israeli relations in six sections: security and foreign policy; power, strategy, and geopolitics; triangular Iranian-American-Israeli relations; terrorism, proxies, and covert operations; nuclear technology, policy, and weaponry, and perceptions, psychologies, and identities.[37] Iranian-Israeli relations over the past 62 years – from 1948 to 2010 – are examined critically and analytically so as to connect previously disparate conceptual dots and lay the groundwork for a thoughtful and theoretical consideration of this conflict.
Security and Foreign Policy
It should come as no surprise that in a region as potentially unstable and insecure as the Middle East, Iranian and Israeli security and foreign policy concerns are of prime importance. Both countries have experienced large-scale warfare in the past few decades with the perpetual threat of a renewal in hostilities emanating from former enemies (often neighbours) with legitimate or perceived grievances, intrusive and meddlesome foreign (super)powers, or the demands of the international community (IGOs like the United Nations and the European Union or NGOs like human rights and democracy regimes).[38] Therefore, achieving, maintaining, and increasing national security remains the dominant concern in virtually all Middle East states.[39] In other words, national security is the common theme for all national actors in the region.
Here a distinction needs to be made between national security and foreign policy. Although national security is often considered to be an indivisible part of a country’s foreign policy, the two are logically distinct. National security refers in this context to national threats emanating both from within and from outside of that state’s borders. Foreign policy, however, addresses only those threats to the state which originate from beyond national boundaries. Regardless, the two often overlap, and so conceptual distinctions between ‘national security’ and ‘foreign policy’ break down and become less rigid and well-defined as they merge and blend into one another.[40] In the literature, these broad categories represent useful theoretical constructs, but in a region as insecure, unpredictable, and conflict-ridden as the Middle East, national security and foreign policy might as well be studied together rather than separately.
Making the transition from national security to foreign policy is not difficult in the Middle East since a whole host of foreign, regional and international issues have immediate consequences at the domestic, national and sub-national levels. Consider the American-led ‘War on Terror’ in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a doctrine which explicitly labelled some regimes as sponsors and supporters of terrorism and legitimized their invasion and regime change, something which then proceeded to take place in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). In this particular case, a state’s foreign policy orientation – in essence, pro- or anti-American – can have implications that resonate far beyond that state’s national security boundaries and go on to affect regional and international security.[41] On the other hand, in the early 1990s the bipolar security environment that had characterized the Cold War for half a century disappeared. Gradually, foreign policy in the Middle East became less polarized between rival superpower blocs and regional powers began to assume greater autonomy and significance in their own affairs, giving minor powers and regional politics more autonomy than great-power international politics had previously allowed.[42] More than ever before, today it is difficult to determine where the dividing lines are between national, regional, and international levels of security, and what their relation is – or should be – to foreign policy. Meta-theoretical changes in the social sciences – post-positivist epistemologies, for instance – have spilled over into the fields of ‘security studies’ and ‘foreign policy’ within political science, and have resulted in more interdisciplinary, interdependent, and interrelated types of studies in both fields.
The field of security studies generally encompasses the national, regional and international levels of analysis altogether. While ‘traditional’ security studies are still largely synonymous with the military and geopolitical issues of the Cold War era, ‘critical’ security studies have arisen as a result of the societal, environmental, economic, and other types of security concerns that have eclipsed the so-called traditional ones.[43]Certain structural factors, like the region’s democratic deficit, militarized and authoritarian states, inefficient and rentier economies, young and vulnerable populations, the unequal distribution of resources throughout the region, and massively underdeveloped civil societies reduce the immediate relevance of critical security studies in favour of traditional security issues.[44] Foreign policy studies have followed the same general trajectory as security studies – along with the political and social sciences, for the most part – in moving from a focus on the traditional to the critical, from ontologically rationalist, epistemologically positivist and methodologically quantitative theories to more reflectivist, interpretivist and qualitative understandings of theory. These latter theoretical variables all add to the number and types of variables relevant to foreign policy analysis.[45] As security studies and foreign policy analysis have become more conceptually complex and analytically dynamic fields of study, their growing abilities to shed new light on the nature of Iranian-Israeli relations have only become more evident.
Power, Strategy, and Geopolitics
The concepts of power, strategy and geopolitics are closely linked to Realist thought in IR. Power politics and balances of power, closely related concepts, are often used to justify or rationalize the onset of war in the Middle East. In a similar way, ever since the United States (US) ousted Saddam Hussein in Iraq and eliminated the strategic threat that he posed to regional stability and international security, the dominant Arab-Israeli conflict in the region has been superseded by the Iranian-Israeli one. Just as wars between Arabs and Israelis were (and continue to be) the result of the former conflict, wars between Iran and Israel could result from this newer conflict.[46] The concepts of war, conflict, power, and strategy remain pertinent themes in the Middle East.
The roots of this Iranian-Israeli discontent can be traced back to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, an event which replaced the autocratic rule of the Shah with that of an Islamic fundamentalist government. An interesting phenomenon is that most revolutionary governments – as idealistic and romantic as their revolutions may be – eventually succumb with time to the harsh realities of governing and tend to moderate their zeal and fervour accordingly. A stark exception to this rule in Iran’s case is its raging anti-Zionism, an inexplicably vigorous policy since it targets a country with which Iran shares no historical grievances or territorial disputes.[47] A puzzling question emerges from this enigma: if no tangible reason exists for the origin, duration, intensity, or universality of hostilities between Iran and Israel, then what could lead to its resolution? Put differently, do any material incentives or non-material (ideational) policy shifts hold the proverbial keys to reconciling Iranian-Israeli differences?
The answers may lie in Iran’s growing regional ties to the ‘rejectionist front’ of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Iran’s creeping influence has been linked to Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, its 2008-09 war with Hamas in Gaza, and overall Syrian intransigence, startling developments that unite the hitherto disparate Arab-Israeli and Iranian-Israeli conflicts.[48] Whether the remaining ‘moderate’ and pro-US Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc.) befriend Iran and isolate Israel or tacitly ally with Israel against Iran and its more ‘radical’ and anti-US Arab allies (Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas) will determine which way the regional balance of power tilts.[49] Regardless of what the future holds in store for the balance of power between Arabs, Iranians, and Israelis, loyalties and alliances in the Middle East are known to change suddenly and abruptly. This is a lesson which has been made painfully clear by Turkey’s gradual eastward drift towards the Islamic World and away from the secular West.[50] Predicting these shifts remains central to a better theoretical understanding of the region.
Although some historical context may seem out of place in a literature review, it is important to introduce some key facts, dates, and trends at this point. Two other issues of geopolitical and strategic importance which should be mentioned are energy and Israeli legitimacy/recognition. Beginning with oil, it would seem that pipeline construction should follow the straightest and shortest path – from source to destination. Since the 1950s, however, oil pipelines have been built within instead of across national borders since security concerns have impeded the market’s normal operating logic.[51] Pipelines are not the only method of transporting petroleum and natural gas but remain essential for the global supply and the international economy. Iran accounts for a large share of energy exports to industrialized countries and has not been afraid to use this fact to its advantage by periodically threatening to blockade the Persian Gulf – a vital energy corridor for overseas Middle East exports – and disrupt global energy flows to deter potential American or Israeli aggression.[52] Iran’s bellicosity in this regard is a far cry from the days (1950s to 1970s) when it satisfied the majority of Israel’s energy demands.[53]
In addition to the realm of bilateral energy cooperation, Iran was one of the earliest Muslim-majority countries to grant Israel a significant sign of diplomatic legitimacy – de facto recognition in 1950, second only to Turkey in 1949. At first this recognition signalled an increase in economic ties and technical assistance between Iran, Israel, and by extension the communities of the sub-Indian continent, but eventually evolved into a dynamic and strategic balance between fellow non-Arab states in an Arab-dominated region.[54] These are all powerfully, strategically, and geopolitically significant issues; nonetheless, they represent only some of the many proverbial pieces of the puzzle of Iranian-Israeli cooperation and conflict. Other variables need to be introduced into the theoretical equation if the ongoing patterns of amity and enmity between Iran and Israel are to be fully explained.
Triangular Iranian-American-Israeli Relations
The unique, decades-long triangular relationship between Iran, Israel, and the United States has taken many forms over the years. Bilateral relations between the Americans and the Iranians had begun even before World War I, with Israel’s bilateral relationships beginning shortly after its independence in 1948 and trilateral relations taking still longer to develop. Compared to other imperial powers of the time, like Britain, France, and Russia, American involvement in Iran and the Persian Gulf area is quite recent. The most audacious case of American (and British) intervention (and Israeli support) in Iranian affairs dates back to 1952-53 when popular revolts led by Mohammad Mossadegh – a highly charismatic and nationalistic leader aiming, along with other projects, to nationalize Iran’s oil industry – deposed the Shah. Less than a year later he was ousted from power himself and replaced with the Shah after the US’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) backed an organized coup against him.[55] The ebb and flow of these tripartite relations for the most part followed the general pattern of Iranian-Israeli bilateral relations, so that during the Cold War years their collective anti-Soviet and anti-Arab political and security interests coincided. This remained true for some time following Iran’s 1979 revolution simply because Iraq was an Arab state, a Soviet client, and a growing security liability for Iran, Israel, and the United States. In short, it was in the interests of all three states for Iran to counterbalance against a growing Iraqi threat.[56] Without the Iraqi threat, the US and Israel may perceive Iran to be the newest and most potent threat to their interests in the region.
The unstable and inherently ambiguous balance of power leads to interesting and contradictory regional configurations of friend and foe, ally and enemy. During the Cold War years, American, Iranian, and Israeli political and strategic interests lay in balancing against the ideological forces of pan-Arabism, Socialism and Communism. The most infamous case of American-Iranian-Israeli covert cooperation, the Iran-Contra Affair of the 1980s, reveals just how shallow rhetoric aimed at pleasing domestic constituents and achieving foreign policy goals can be. For Iran to resist Iraqi aggression – an aggression which the international community did little to curtail after having helped Saddam Hussein build one of the fiercest armies the Middle East had ever seen – it secretly acquired arms from the ‘Big Satan’ (the US) and smuggled them through the ‘Little Satan’ (Israel), an event indicative of the level to which these three countries had become strategically and geopolitically intertwined.[57] Trilateral relations since the 1979 Revolution remain complex.[58] It is clear that even the flamboyantly rhetorical and ideological nature of the revolutionary regime in Iran failed to rupture contacts and connections that took decades to develop between it and the West – at least not immediately.
This three-way relationship quickly collapsed shortly after 1979 and only remained suppressed because of common security interests throughout the remainder of the 1980s. Ever since both the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) and the Cold War came to an end, Iran and Israel have been locked in a hegemonic struggle for power and influence in the region.[59] One creative way to resolve this struggle for hegemony involves admitting Israel into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and working with Europe to contain Iran in an American-dominated Middle East, though Iranian and/or Israeli acceptance of this plan is highly dubious.[60] It is an inescapable reality that the US-Israeli special relationship is bolstered by similar values and convergent regional interests, whereas dissimilar values and divergent regional interests between Iran and the West translate to conflict and antipathy.[61] Interestingly, this three-way interaction has over the decades changed forms and followed the logic of various patterns at different times: from tacit alliance and extensive collaboration (1948-79) to covert cooperation (1979-88) and, finally, to overtly strategic and ideological conflict (1988-2010).
Regional analyses rather than narrowly national ones have also made the link between these three countries. The Arab-Israeli Levant and the Persian Gulf regions of the Middle East are traditionally thought of as independent regions, but systemic-level analysis points to a high level of interdependence and shared destiny between these two regions that would link Iran and Israel in ways that transcend traditional analyses.[62] In a way, this is exactly what Trita Parsi’s Treacherous Alliance has done, quickly becoming one of the most probing, incisive and inclusive analyses of strategic and pragmatic relations between the US, Iran and Israel.[63] Critics have been quick to point out, however, that Parsi’s work relies too much on interviews with questionable sources and personalities, in effect resembling a journalist’s shocking and provocative prose rather than the detached and methodical approach of a political analyst or diplomatic historian.[64] Regardless, any attempt to make analytical sense of Iranian-Israeli bilateral relations must include the US and account for the trilateral dynamic between these three countries.
Terrorism, Proxies, and Covert Operations
A proper analysis of Iranian-Israeli bilateral relations would not be complete without examining the effects of terrorism, proxy agents and clandestine operations. There can be no question that the tragic events of September 11, 2001, altered the definitions of ‘terrorism, terrorists and terror’ for the public imagination, even for scholarly discourse.[65] In former US President George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address, Iran was singled out along with Iraq and North Korea as part of the now-famous ‘Axis of Evil’ in an effort to collectively brand these countries as terrorist sponsors and rationalize their future regime change. However, the link made between Iran and terrorism precedes 9/11 by decades; fears of Iran’s Shiite revolutionary fervour influencing the mostly Sunni Arab Middle East states and fomenting pockets of anti-Western, fundamentalist Islamic mini-states were clear from 1979 onwards.[66]
This eventuality soon came to pass in the guise of Hezbollah, a radical Shiite Lebanese movement initially formed in order to resist Israeli invasions into and occupation of Lebanon during the early 1980s. This group was supported ideologically, militarily, and financially by Iranian Revolutionary Guards since its inception in 1982, a situation which has changed very little today.[67] With Iranian backing, Hezbollah militants not only waged an 18-year long guerrilla war against Israel until the latter unilaterally pulled out in 2000, but Hezbollah-linked suicide bombers killed 241 US servicemen and 58 French paratroopers in 1983 in a series of coordinated suicide bombings on their military barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.[68] Iran’s support for groups actively engaged in terrorism and classified as terrorist organizations – like Hezbollah and Hamas – only cements the conceptual linkage between Iran and terror in the West.
Hamas and Hezbollah have become increasingly important players in regional politics for many reasons, but none is arguably as central as Iranian support. Hezbollah’s origins and ideologies differ in key respects from Hamas’, which was founded in 1987 as a Sunni fundamentalist group and as a result of the First Palestinian Intifada.[69] Nevertheless, both possess anti-Western, anti-Zionist, anti-American and pro-Palestinian sentiments along with traditional Islamic values, making the revolutionary Iranian regime a natural ally in the struggle to annihilate Israel and liberate Palestine. This reality has led some analysts to proclaim the materialization of an ‘Islamist Axis’ opposed to secularism, modernity and the status quo in the Middle East.[70] Israel’s wars with Hezbollah in Lebanon during the summer of 2006 and Hamas in Gaza during the winter of 2008-09, along with periodic increases in tensions with its northern neighbour Syria, only reinforce the image of an increasingly powerful Iran menacing Israel from afar via its regional proxies.
Aside from their very public provocations and recriminations, Iran and Israel are also locked into a not-so-public struggle of covert operations, political subterfuge, clandestine subversion and top-secret espionage. Not only did the Mossad – Israel’s top spy agency – have a direct hand in the CIA-led ouster of Iran’s populist President Mossadegh in 1953, but they also provided extensive military training and material support to the Shah’s notorious secret services, SAVAK, from the 1950s to the 1970s.[71] It is indeed ironic that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the elite military protectorate of the regime, received much of its expertise from Israel’s support for its precursor under the Shah, SAVAK, and is now reusing those same skills against Israel by training and supplying its regional proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, and to a lesser extent, Syria. Furthermore, a clandestine war of intelligence is currently underway between Iran and Israel as the Iranians step up their influence abroad by supporting these terrorist proxies and Israel jumps on the American bandwagon and continues the American-inaugurated ‘War on Terror’ in the wake of 9/11.[72]The polarizing narrative of ‘who is a terrorist’ and ‘what is terror’ becomes painfully evident here, as is the endless loop of political intrigue and covert operations undertaken by both states.
Nuclear Technology, Policy, and Weaponry
Nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation pose momentous problems for security and stability in the Middle East. More than anywhere else in the world, nuclear weapons would fundamentally alter the strategic balance of power in the region. Nuclear policy, weaponry and non-proliferation were not always points of contention between Iran and Israel, but they have become especially sensitive in the past decade. Both countries have long histories of nuclear program development and were greatly aided in this regard by the West as stalwart allies in the Cold War struggle against Communist influence. The West was never threatened by nuclear programs within Iran or Israel during the Cold War, but the regime change in Iran after 1979 clearly reversed the perceptions of Western countries and Israel to the potentially irrational and ideological nature of a nuclear Iran.[73] As a secular autocrat, the Shah of Iran was at least predictable because the West had assumed that his actions were guided by a rational mind; the same could not be said about the fundamentalist clerics and ayatollahs who replaced him, however. Whenever nuclear power, policy, technology or weaponry is discussed or debated in the Middle East today, contention and provocation arise primarily as a result of Iranian-Israeli interactions.[74]
Iran’s nuclear program dates back to the 1950s when the Western powers protected Iran as a bastion of secularism and modernity threatened by the Arab World’s volatility and hostility and the expansionist tendencies of the Soviet Union.[75] Ever since the Islamic Revolution, many have questioned Iran’s desire to resume its nuclear program for a number of reasons: many of the countries involved in Iran’s nuclear program pre-1979 abruptly pulled out afterwards, freezing assets and leaving construction sites unfinished; much of the country’s nuclear infrastructure was heavily damaged after an 8-year long war with Iraq; and an almost total American dominance of the region and the international system at the end of the Cold War.[76] Since 2006, four rounds of sanctions have been slapped on Iran through the United Nations in an effort to prevent the country from enriching uranium and producing fissile material that could be used in nuclear weapons on top of its failure to meet the transparency and openness demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).[77] Iran has been repeatedly censured by the international community in its quest to develop nuclear technology.
Israel, for its part, began research on nuclear technology shortly after its independence and received critical help from France and Great Britain, developing nuclear weapons capabilities by the early to mid-1960s.[78] Cooperation with outside powers and peripheral countries in the Middle East has been a cornerstone of Israeli foreign, defence and security policies since the days of Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, and this policy applied to Israel’s development of nuclear technology and weaponry just as it did in many other respects.[79] Israel has never actually threatened to decimate any of its neighbours or enemies with a nuclear attack, but it has acted swiftly and decisively in order to thwart the nuclear ambitions of its neighbours. For example, the Israeli Air Force bombarded Iraqi and Syrian construction sites in 1981 and 2007, respectively, to prevent the development of nuclear installations in these countries.[80] It goes without saying that Israel considers nuclear policy and potential proliferation in the region to be of the utmost importance.[81] A broader question remains: why do some countries deem it to be in their national interests to invest substantial resources in the development of nuclear technology and weaponry while others take a completely different path to achieve similar goals?
Standard nuclear deterrence theory would seem to suggest that nuclear weapons provide power, security, influence, respectability, status and prestige on the regional and international stages.[82] Many of these reasons may apply to Israel, though it has of course neither confirmed nor denied that it possesses nuclear weapons, an uneasy reality that no doubt fails to assuage the worries and fears of its Arab and non-Arab neighbours alike.[83] By the same logic, one state’s (un)declared acquisition of nuclear weapons could be construed as a threat for others and spiral out of control in the form of a region-wide nuclear arms race.[84] In some ways, the United States has only exacerbated this problem by adopting a double standard in its approach to nuclear states, the most glaring contradiction being their divergent policies towards Iranian and Israeli nuclear programs.[85] Regardless, the point to be made clear here is that the issue of nuclear technology, weapons and proliferation is one that cannot be avoided in the Middle East or in the analysis of Iranian-Israeli relations.