Iran as a ‘pariah’ nuclear aspirant

Abstract

This article demonstrates that Iran conforms to Richard K. Betts' model of a ‘pariah’ nuclear aspirant, as its nuclear program is driven by a potent combination of security, normative and domestic political motivations. The regime's commitment to its nuclear program is influenced by Iran's long-standing sense of vulnerability to both regional and international adversaries, and an enduring sense of national humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, in parallel with a powerful belief in the superiority of Persian civilisation. This has resulted in the development of a narrative of ‘hyper-independence’ in Iran's foreign policy that simultaneously rejects political, cultural or economic dependence and emphasises ‘self-reliance’. The presumed security benefits that a nuclear weapons option provides are seen as ensuring Iranian ‘self-reliance’ and ‘independence’. This suggests that current strategies that focus exclusively on Iran's security motivations or on a heightened regime of sanctions are fundamentally flawed, as they fail to recognise the mutually reinforcing dynamic between Iran's security and normative/status-derived nuclear motivations.

Keywords:

• Iran
• nuclear weapons
• nuclear proliferation

Notes

1. The author would like to acknowledge that research for this article was conducted under an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, LP0883246, Australia's Nuclear Choices.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke is a Senior Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. His research interests and expertise include Chinese history and foreign policy, Central Asian history/politics, terrorism, and nuclear strategy and proliferation. He has published on these subjects in a variety of academic journals and is the author of Xinjiang and China's Rise in Central Asia—A History (Routledge, 2011); co-editor, with Stephan Frühling and Andrew O'Neil, of Australia's Uranium Trade: The Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges of a Contentious Export (Ashgate, 2011); and co-editor, with Ashutosh Misra, of Pakistan's Stability Paradox: Domestic, Regional and International Dimensions (Routledge, 2011)