The Impact of Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Policy-Making on Attracting Foreign Investment during the Presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013)

The commencement of executing the fourth program, in other words, the first year of implementing the vision document, was simultaneous with the change of government and the coming to power of the principlist government of Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A government that, while explicitly criticizing the policies of previous governments, prioritized the return to the ideologies of the revolution regarding the administration of justice and fight against poverty, corruption, and discrimination in domestic politics and rejection of the hegemonic system, strengthening Looking at the East, developing relations with neighbors, Islamic countries and the developing world, as well as the primacy of the regional view in the international relations within a framework of an “aggressive but software foreign policy”. The economic plans of the ninth government at regional and international levels, including goals related to the development of non-oil exports, attracting foreign investment, issuing technical and engineering services, and fighting against the sanctions, increased the responsibilities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the field of foreign economic relations more than ever. Furthermore, due to the concentration of all bilateral, multilateral and international economic affairs in the economic deputy of this ministry, the direct responsibility of the joint economic commissions with neighboring countries and several other important countries was assigned to this deputy. Throughout the presidency of Ahmadinejad, the government sought to establish a political-economic relationship through a special attitude and reading. During this period, the government, with a revisionist view of the structure of the international system and with a kind of aggressive political literature, cast Iran into the list of security-threatening countries, and its nuclear diplomacy eventually led to international economic sanctions against Iran. This period is considered a failure of Iranian diplomacy and the abandonment of foreign investors.