I.R. Iran’s economic defense diplomacy to counter and mitigate the effects of economic sanctions

The present paper attempts to present a codification of economic defense diplomacy policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in terms of; monetary and fiscal, trade, energy, diplomatic and military-security relations spheres; thereby taking a step towards countering or reducing the effects of sanctions and thus enhancing the economic strength and security of Iran. For this purpose, the modus operandi of this paper utilized the Delphi interviewing method to collect preliminary data for the above-mentioned five spheres. Thereafter, using the data gathered from interviews, a questionnaire was developed which was then completed by 132 university faculty members, experts and researchers in economic, political and military-security spheres. The number of policies of interest were 13, 9, 4, 8 and 10 adopted in each of monetary and fiscal, trade, energy, diplomatic and military-security categories, respectively. The most significant policies under each field were identified as follows: "developing bilateral monetary treaties with the allegiant countries"; "increasing diversity by avoiding restrictions on goods and services of select countries and/or domestic based entrepreneurs"; “Identifying high potential companies that have hitherto been unbale take a prominent share of the market; the reduction of the dependence on a limited number of large corporations"; "enhancing co-operation and co-ordination between the private and financial sector and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the view for having representatives of businesses and banks in diplomatic meetings", and lastly, "Strengthening bilateral defense, military and technological relations and cooperation with neighbors in fields such as electronics industry, telecommunications, optics, joint venture production and/or marketing for specific products".