Smart power and promotion of Iran's regional position in West Asia

Smart power is a purposeful and intelligent combination of hard (coercion and coercion) and soft (persuasion and attraction) power, the use of which leads to improving the capabilities of a country in foreign policy and obtaining national interests with less cost and time. This problem has caused governments to try to use the combination of their soft and hard resources in different ways according to different conditions. Taking into consideration the surrounding developments of Iran in West Asia and the connection of Iran's national interests with these developments, the question arises, what is the role of intelligent power in Iran's use of its foreign policy in order to achieve the goals and national interests of the Islamic Republic? And the secondary question is, what are the strengths and weaknesses of Iran's smart power in its surrounding environment and with an emphasis on the West Asian region? The findings of this research show that by considering Iran's hard and soft measures in its surrounding environment, including in the countries of Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, and Lebanon, it can be said that Iran in order to gain influence and deal with the ever-increasing threats of smart power (soft power) and hard power) so that Iran's actions in the field of soft power pay attention to cultural capacity, discourse capacity, scientific capacity, media communication, tourism communication, prevention of psychological war and in solving three major challenges and threats which include the threat of America and Israel It is proxy wars and Salafism and separatism. It has used its hard power in an intelligent way with actions such as strengthening military power, sending advisory forces, strengthening proxy groups, military maneuvers. Also, sanctions and economic pressure have been considered as one of the tools of hard pressure on Iran through resistance economy and expansion of economic cooperation.