Pragmatic Fundamentals of Messianic Thought in Imam Khomeini’s Foreign Policy Discourse

The objective of this paper is to analyze the pragmatic fundamentals of Messianic thought and Shia-Islamic Messianism (belief in the coming of Imam Mahdi) in Imam Khomeini’s foreign policy discourse.  On this basis, the main question of this paper is: How and on what basis, with what components and procedures has the belief in Messianism been articulated in Imam Khomeini’s foreign policy discourse and how this articulation has exerted its influence on the macrostructure of the I. R. of Iran’s foreign policy? In response, the preliminary hypothesis states that Imam Khomeini’s foreign policy discourse chiefly addresses the pragmatic aspect of the belief in Messianism. On this basis and in the light of the oppressed-the oppressor dichotomy, it articulates three ideological (fundamentals and basic identity resources), strategic (field of hard power, security and national development), and diplomatic (based on realization of national interests) levels for the foreign policy of the I. R. of Iran. In this approach, which maybe called idealistic realism, Shia Messianism or the philosophy of Mahdaviyyat (belief in the coming of Imam Mahdi) is understood in between a historical issue and religious text and a social issue. The theoretical and methodological framework of this paper is based on a combination of semiology of Essex School of discourse and theory of critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough