From the Islamic Revolution to the Post-Revolution Foreign Policy: A Discourse Analysis

One of the major consequences of the Islamic Revolution, and perhaps one of the most dramatic changes in Iran, that distinguishes the post-revolution developments from the pre-revolution era is the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. Even some may see foreign policy as one of the main constitutive factors in shaping the identity of Iran during the last forty years. That is why it has become one of the major topics in post-revolution studies. This article seeks to show how the discourse of Islamic Revolution made the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran possible. It shows the constitutive effect of three main elements of the revolutionary discourse (independence, resistance, and justice) on the formation of the Self and the Other during the revolution and how these identifications shaped the identity of the State and its friends/allies and the constitution of the US and Israel as the major Others in its foreign policy.