Strategic Policy; Content-Related or Structural? With a Focus on the 11th and 12th Governments

With a focus on the 11th and 12th governments casts a short and historical view on the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran from the victory of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979 to date, in which light to follow contents and structures of the foreign policy of the 12th Government in line with its constitutional goals. The Foreign Ministry is the only one in Iran that is governed by two sets of laws. One being the June 1973 Organizational, Recruitment, Financial, and disciplinary Law, decreed by The Senate and National Consultative Chambers, and the other being the 1981 Law of the Missions of the Foreign Policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran passed through Majlis, the Parliament. In the 1985 constitutional revision that was approved by the Nation, The Foreign Ministry underwent three obligations in addition to those two laws: The Constitution, the Supreme Leadership, and the Majlis. Through the passed governments, the revolutionary and/or diplomatic viewpoints have always experienced a volatile process. The process has ended up to the JCPOA negotiations preceded by the “Heroic flexibility”. In those two Governments, the revolutionary viewpoint has shied away in favor of the diplomatic one during the long process of 1985-2017. The pinnacle of this total variation was the 2017 change in the organizational structure of the Foreign Ministry where the three regional under-secretariat omitted at once and an economic under-secretariat was established. This was one that had been wrapped up in the 1990s due to its unsuccessfulness.