پژوهشنامه انقلاب اسلامی
پیاپی 3 (تابستان 1391)

Foreign aid can be defined as any kind of assistance and behavior of a state to another governmental or nongovernmental organization in order to achieve foreign policy goals of the state. If we define soft power as the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce and rather than using force or money as a means of persuasion to change the behavior of others, the foreign aid can be classified as a part of soft power and the means for states to counter their opponents. The main question of this article is studying the role of U.S foreign aid in soft war against Islamic Republic of Iran. Defeating United States engagement and confronting policies against Iran, the alternative policy has been adopted to deter this country through soft war. In this way all of U.S Foreign aid policies against Iran concentrated on using soft power ways and means. The aim of these U.S foreign aid policies is to de-legitimize Iranian government and decline its efficiency in order to eliminate people's support from the government and to attract them to the western countrie's policies.

The Islamic Revolution in Iran has influenced the Shiite political discourse throughout Islamic countries. Iraq is one of the most important countries in this regard. Imam Khomeini, during his exile in this country, brought about such profound developments in Iraq that resulted in major developments in the Najaf Hawza (Religious School). Then, other figures like Shahid Sadr and Ayatollah Hakeem, following Imam Khomeini's model, played a significant role in Iraq. Thus, developments in Iraq gain great significance for these reasons and for the fact that it has been part of Iran in its past history. The present study has been an attempt to answer the following question: How has the Islamic Revolution of Iran influenced the Shiite political discourse in Iraq? Based on Lakla and Moaf Discourse Model and Dispersion/Diffusion Theory, the researcher developed a model of analysis by which to test the main hypothesis of the study: The Islamic Revolution of Iran has caused the Shiite political thought in Iraq to be more dynamic, active and revolutionary. The hypothesis-testing was done with a focus on Saddam's ruling period as resistance discourse period and two micro-discourse periods, namely, resistance against terrorism and foreign occupation, and internal participation discourse after Saddam's downfall.

Iran's Islamic revolution in February 1357 was the source of great change in the region. The event had a great influence in awakening the Muslim world and the revival of religious beliefs. One of it's achievements in the region and the world, was exporting the Islamic Revolution in which to export the revolution in Iran has been at the top of the agenda in the framework of Iran's foreign policy and even the issue has turned to be a principle of foreign policy. And the contrasting attitudes in the administration and macro management both in domestic and international levels can be found, so that the different patterns on the issue of Iran's foreign policy discourse can be outlined.Attempts are made in the article to answer how the ruling elits in Iran have reacted in each period to the policy of exporting Islamic Revolution. There seems to be no common pattern in foreign policy of exporting Iran's Islamic Revolution at different periods. While in the first decade, exporting a revolution with idealistic and value- driven discourse was on the agenda and highlighted exporting Islamic Revolution in one way or another, after the eight- year war a more realistic foreign policy ruled which aimed to present an example model of the Islamic Revolution to be copied by others. It is to be noted that the model of peaceful exporting of the Revolution is preferred over in all foreign policy discourses.

This survey set out to examine the hypothesis of the relation between two variables namely people’s political coordination and the soft power of Iran; the purpose of this study was to examine the relation between people’s political coordination and Iran’s soft power with an emphasis on an aspect of partnership titled participation in the elections that embraces a vast domain of people’s political activities.The survey was applied in nature and the data were quantitative. The data collected were the opinions of 72 people involved in holding the election, the elite and the officials familiar with the country's soft power in the foreign ministry, as well as in the security and in formational organizations who were randomly selected as the sample of the study. The data collection adopted instrument was an eighteen –item questionnaire analyzed by spearman statistical test.The results of the study indicated that there was a strong positive significant correlation (r=0.7) between people's participation in the election and the soft power of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a factor which can enhance Iran's soft power.

Islamic awakening (emerging revolutions in the Arab world) includes transformations which affect the foreign policy of all regional players such as Iran. Islamic Republic of Iran which is in nature a religious revolution in confrontation with these transformations has, simultaneously different threats and opportunities in term of its foreign policy. This trend makes it inevitable for Iran to choose a reliable and sustainable strategy to turn the threats into opportunities. In this paper by insisting on Defensive Realism Theory attempts have been made to analyze the mentioned transformations to find out which strategy in the region is the best for Iran to increase its national power and decrease the conflicts with the other regional competitors. In this regard Iran, by identifying two urgent and nonurgent cycles in its security environment has tried to use strategic and ideological tools to achieve the strategic concerns. This effort makes it possible for Iran to concur to the security threats on the one side and by supporting regional revolutions to extend its regional influence and Islamic resistance.

Institutional theory, despite the capacity it offers for analyzing thought and action in contemporary thinkers, isnt a theory known in the Islamic Revolution and Political Studies in Iran. On this analogy, explaining the ideas and the expression of a thinker and emphasizing its relationship with the Islamic Revolution and its institutional dimension has also no precedent. The present article is to explain and examine this situation for the first time in Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti's thought and practice of institutional facets and to clarify its relationship with the Islamic Revolution. Thus, the main question the article is: What are the institutional dimensions of thought and action of Ayatollah Beheshti? This is important because Beheshti is one of the number of effective people in the appearance of Iran's Islamic Revolution and the emergence of its subsequent structures in the form of Islamic revolution. The author's argument is that both thought and action of Ayatollah Beheshti possess elements that are associated with institutional theory, and that it can be adopted to analyze his thought. The ultimate goals of such discussions are to institutionalize part of the values in society and thus to resolve the problems that our society has been involved with for more than a century.

More than two decades after the acceptance of resolution 598 by Imam Khomeini, there are a lot of questions about this decision including, why Imam Khomeini compared the acceptance of the resolution to drinking poison, and why he finally accepted it? In other words, by accepting the resolution, did Imam Khomeini abandon his ideals? More generally, it can be questioned that whether Imam Khomeini was a realist leader or an idealist one? The hypothesis of this paper is that ideals in Imam Khomeini's thinking had different levels and by accepting the resolution only his minimal ideals were realized.