Problem of National Interest's Definition in I.R. of Iran's Foreign Policy

At first analysis, “National Interest” seems to be an evident and unquestionable concept; hence, many international and foreign policy scholars have been interested in studying it. However, ambiguity in the nature and position of this concept can create some problems in designing and implementing the foreign policy of any political system including that of the I.R. of Iran. It seems there is no independent research that has emphasized the difficulty of defining national interest as the prime directive for I.R. of Iran's foreign policy. Hence, the question raised here could be: what are the major difficulties of clearly defining national interest in I.R. of Iran's foreign policy? To respond, one can say that a lack of national thinking, lack of elite group's consensus on the definition and instances of the issue, and ambiguity in the relation between ideal and reality are some of those problems. This article is to rethink about the meaning of national interest as the prevalent concept in the justification of our foreign policy actions. In the framework of Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistic theory, this research would emphasize the problem of fixing the relation between “National Interest” concept (as the signifier), and its objects (as the signified). Discovering some important reasons for the indefinite meaning of national interest, and the necessity of a serious rethinking of it and purifying its meaning and delineating its instances in I.R. of Iran's foreign relation policies, could be regarded as some results of the article.