Iran’s ballistic missile program and its foreign and security policy towards the United States under the Trump Administration

INTRODUCTION[Up]

The expansion of Iran’s missile program after 2005 has contributed to the volatility in the Middle East region. While Iran’s military and financial support to Hezbollah and other paramilitary groups fighting Israel has been moving the US toward confrontation with Iran (Perthes, Volker. 2010. “Ambition and fear: Iran’s foreign policy and nuclear programme”, Survival, 52 (3): 95-114. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2010.494879.‍Perthes, 2010; Pompeo, Mick. R. 2018. “Confronting Iran: The Trump Administration’s Strategy”, Foreign Affairs, November-December: 60-97.‍Pompeo, 2018), Saudi Arabia —Iran’s main political rival in the region— received comprehensive support from Donald Trump. What followed were the attacks by Iran-supported Houthis movement in Yemen (including their equipment with missiles and advanced weapons), at airports and Saudi Arabia’s and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s oil companies. The regional situation exacerbated especially in May 2019, after five oil ships were attacked at the Fujairah port of UAE and a hybrid attack (with missile and military drones) on Aramco —the world’s biggest oil company in Saudi Arabia— in September 2019.^‍‍[1]

In addition, Iran’s position has become less pro-cooperative following US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), new sanctions and most importantly, the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani. In mid-2019, Iran declared its intention to breach the 3.67 percent uranium enrichment limit stipulated in the agreement, while it also admitted to have exceeded the negotiated limits on uranium enrichment but did not threatened to reach weapons-grade level. Moreover, following the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Professor Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in late 2020, Iran took steps to decrease its commitments under the JCPOA, including the use of new centrifuges, renovation of Arak reactor and the 20 percent uranium enrichment. In this connection, Iran’s officials declared that the country “will produce 8-‍9 kilogram 20 percent Uranium every month”^‍‍[2] , while it was also stated that the country was ready to enrich the uranium “even above 20 percent, if needed”^‍‍[3] .

In the meanwhile, the 2020 US presidential election raised high expectations in Iran, especially because of the green light for returning to the negotiation table [for a round of negotiations beyond nuclear program and JCPOA] was shown by Joe Biden, that led to the President Rouhani’s statement that “the negotiation’s doors are always open” and “if the US repents, we would accept”^‍‍[4]. This remark provoked a sharp and uncompromising reaction by the Head of Air-Space forces of IRGC, who stated that the missile program is Tehran’s “red line” adding that “no one shouldn’t even dare to hold negotiation in this regard.” He emphasized that “no official is allowed to negotiate about [Iran’s] missile capability”^‍‍[5]. This is one of the most offensive statements articulated by IRGC officials to the government throughout the history of the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Except for the nuclear steps Iran took after the assassination of Soleimani and Fakhrizadeh, the development, testing and employment of long-range ballistic missiles in Iran grew extremely fast. There are only four instances when Iran employed its Ballistic Missile Program (BMP) for the military means after Iran-Iraq war; and all of them occurred during the Trump era, namely: a) the IRGC attack on the ISIS’s base and headquarters in the Syrian province of Deir al-Zour in June 2017, in response to the terrorist attack perpetrated by ISIS on Iran’s Parliament; b) a retaliatory attack at the ISIS bases in the Eastern Euphrates in Syria in October 2018; c) the shooting down of the largest and most advanced US UCAVs, Global Hawk RQ4, by Iran’s air defense system in June 2019; and d) an attack on the two US military bases of Ain Al-Asad and Al-Taji in retaliation for the assassination of IRGC General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.

This article explores Iran’s perspective on its ballistic missile program (BMP), by drawing on the Strategic Culture Theory (SCT) which pays special attention to non-material, internal factors as they shape the state elites’ identity as well as the population of the country, thus allowing to understand the reasons behind the course of foreign policies undertaken by individual countries (Gray, Colin. S. 1999. “Strategic culture as context: the first generation of theory strikes back”, Review of International Studies, 25 (1): 49-69.‍Gray, 1999). Historical experiences and the unique language associated with the acquisition, production or testing and military employment of ballistic missiles are viewed as “culturally endowed ways” (Kartchner, Kerry and Jennie Johnson. 2009. Strategic culture and weapons of mass destruction: culturally based insights into comparative national security policymaking. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ‍Kartchner and Johnson, 2009) which define the costs and benefits of a particular decision, creating its own, particular rationality (Eslami, Mohammad and Alena V. G. Vieira. 2021. “Iran’s strategic culture: the ‘revolutionary’ and ‘moderation’ narratives on the ballistic missile programme”, Third World Quarterly, 42 (2): 312-328. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1813562.‍Eslami and Vieira, 2021). According to Meyer, this “allows to map a corridor of ‘normal’ or ‘probable’ behavior of states and integrate them into more comprehensive analyses of strategic choice” (Meyer, Christopher. O. 2005. “Convergence Towards a European Strategic Culture? A Constructivist Framework for Explaining Changing Norm”, European Journal of International Relations, 11 (4): 523-549. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066105057899.‍2005: 528).

Against the background of the current state of the art, three individual dimensions of Iran’s strategic culture are distinguished here: First, deterrence which draws upon preserving territorial integrity, self-sufficiency and independence. Second, fighting global arrogance which includes anti-imperialism, support for the mostazafin, and anti-Zionism. And third, skepticism about international cooperation, which produces a de-facto-prohibition of any negotiation about BMP. The application of these elements of the Strategic Culture Theory to Iran suggests that several aspects of the history of the country including the role of ancient civilizations and Mongol invasions, identity and religion are often intertwined and mutually reinforcing (Stanley, Willis. 2006. “The strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. In A. Larsen (ed.), Comparative strategic culture syllabus. London: Palgrave Macmillan.‍Stanley, 2006; Thaler, David E., Alireza Nader, Shahram Chubin, Charlotte Lynch and Jerrold D. Green. 2010. Mullahs, Guards, and Bonyads: an exploration of Iranian leadership dynamics. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7249/MG878.‍Thaler et al., 2010). First of all, contributions highlight Shi’ism as a determining set of norms and values that defines most of its foreign policy (Cain, Anthony C. 2002. Iran’s Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Alabama: Air University Press. ‍Cain, 2002; Stanley, Willis. 2006. “The strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. In A. Larsen (ed.), Comparative strategic culture syllabus. London: Palgrave Macmillan.‍Stanley, 2006; Knepper, Jennifer. 2008. “Nuclear Weapons and Iranian strategic culture”, Comparative Strategy, 27 (5): 451-468. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0149593 0802430080.‍Knepper, 2008; Haynes, Jeffery. 2008. “Religion and foreign policy making in the USA, India and Iran: towards a research agenda”, Third World Quarterly, 29 (1): 143-165. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436590701739668.‍Haynes, 2008; Barzegar, Keyhan. 2010. “Iran’s foreign policy strategy after Saddam”, The Washington Quarterly, 33 (1): 173-189. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/016366 00903430665.‍Barzegar, 2010). This “trait” is informed by concepts of Islam and the Sharia law, the principles and rules of morality, as well as jurisprudence (Salehian, Saeed. 2018. “Social resources of foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. Policy Studies Strategic Studies. 8 (26): 165-186 (published in Persian).‍Salehian, 2018). Importantly, the later has a number of guidelines about how to use warfare, including the prohibition of mass destruction weapons (Smith, Ben. 2012. “Is Iran developing a nuclear weapon?”, International Affairs and Defense Section, 6 (18): 7-14.‍Smith, 2012; Eslami, Mohammad and Alena V. G. Vieira. 2021. “Iran’s strategic culture: the ‘revolutionary’ and ‘moderation’ narratives on the ballistic missile programme”, Third World Quarterly, 42 (2): 312-328. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1813562.‍Eslami and Vieira, 2021). However, another key feature of the Shia religion identified as Iran’s strategic culture is deterrence that allows for both, strikes to prevent enemy attacks and a war on the aggressor’s soil (Giles, Gregory F. 2003. “The crucible of radical Islam: Iran’s leaders and strategic culture”. In Barry R. Schneider and Jerrold M. Post (eds.), Know Thy Enemy: Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures. Alabama: USAF Counter Proliferation Center.‍Giles, 2003; Taremi, Kamran. 2014. “Iranian Strategic Culture: The Impact of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Interpretation of Shiite Islam”. Contemporary Security Policy, 35 (1): 3-25. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2014.884341.‍Taremi, 2014). Contributions have also identified ideology (Strain, Frederick R. 1996. Discerning Iran’s Nuclear Strategy: An Examination of Motivations, Strategic Culture, and Rationality. War College, Air University.‍Strain, 1996; Stanley, Willis. 2006. “The strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. In A. Larsen (ed.), Comparative strategic culture syllabus. London: Palgrave Macmillan.‍Stanley 2006; Taremi, Kamran. 2014. “Iranian Strategic Culture: The Impact of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Interpretation of Shiite Islam”. Contemporary Security Policy, 35 (1): 3-25. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2014.884341.‍Taremi 2014,), in the sense of a very fixed set of views of Iran’s leadership (e.g., Iran’s representation as a victim of the Western imperialism), as a key component of Iran’s strategic culture (Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin. 2005. “Islamic utopian romanticism and the foreign policy culture of Iran”, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 14 (3): 265-292. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/10669920500280623.‍Adib-Moghaddam, 2005; Eisenstadt, Michael. 2015. The strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: religion, expediency, and soft power in an era of disruptive change. Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Available at: https://cutt.ly/9zDaIm1.‍Eisenstadt, 2015; Ostovar, Afshon. 2016. Sectarian dilemmas in Iranian foreign policy: when strategy and identity politics collide. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_288_Brief-Ostovar-Sectarianism.pdf‍Ostovar, 2016; Kinch, Penelope. 2016. The US-Iran Relationship: The Impact of Political Identity on Foreign Policy. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350989368.‍Kinch, 2016).

Contrary to the ongoing research on the strategic culture of other countries (Lantis, Jeffery S. 2002. “Strategic culture and national security policy”, International Studies Review, 4 (3): 87-113. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/1521-9488.t01-1-00266.‍Lantis, 2002; Larsen, Jeffrey A. and Jeannie L. Johnson 2006. Comparative strategic cultures curriculum project: assessing strategic culture as a methodological approach to understanding WMD decision-making by states and non-state actors. Prepared for: Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Advanced Systems and Concepts Office. Available at: https://doi.org/10.21236/ADA521640.‍Larsen and Johnson, 2006; Kartchner, Kerry and Jennie Johnson. 2009. Strategic culture and weapons of mass destruction: culturally based insights into comparative national security policymaking. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ‍Kartchner and Johnson 2009), contributions on Iran have been rare, especially when it comes to its foreign policy after 1979. While there is research applying the SCT on Iran’s nuclear program (Cain, Anthony C. 2002. Iran’s Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Alabama: Air University Press. ‍Cain 2002; Knepper, Jennifer. 2008. “Nuclear Weapons and Iranian strategic culture”, Comparative Strategy, 27 (5): 451-468. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0149593 0802430080.‍Knepper, 2008), SCT-informed analysis of Iran’s ballistic missile program is unaccustomed. With an aim to understand how strategic culture has shaped Iran’s foreign and security policy towards the US under Trump administration and to establish a link to the vast literature on Iran’s foreign policy (Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin. 2005. “Islamic utopian romanticism and the foreign policy culture of Iran”, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 14 (3): 265-292. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/10669920500280623.‍Adib-Moghaddam; 2005; Przeczek, Sermin. 2013. “Iran’s foreign policy under president Rouhani: Pledges versus reality”, Middle Eastern Analysis/Ortadogu Analiz, 5 (57): 64-71.‍Przeczek, 2013; Mazaheri, Mohammad. 2013. “Government, Identity and Foreign Policy in Contemporary Iran”, Strategic Policy Studies, 2 (7): 125-146 (published in Persian).‍Mazaheri, 2013; Katzman, Kenneth. 2015. Iran’s foreign policy. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service. Available at: https://cutt.ly/XzDsp23.‍Katzman, 2015, Katzman, Kenneth. 2017. Iran’s Foreign and Defense Policies. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service. Available at: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1027350.pdf‍2017; Ansari, 2016), this article analyzes the evolution of Iran’s policy towards the BMP; and it does so by drawing on the continuum constituted by two main narratives: the “revolutionary” narrative and “moderation” one (Eslami, Mohammad and Alena V. G. Vieira. 2021. “Iran’s strategic culture: the ‘revolutionary’ and ‘moderation’ narratives on the ballistic missile programme”, Third World Quarterly, 42 (2): 312-328. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1813562.‍Eslami and Vieira, 2021).

It will be argued that Iran has adopted a more offensive security policy towards the US under the Trump administration. This change is reflected in discourses by Iranian officials. It is important to take into consideration that the revival of the “revolutionary” narrative has established a more direct correspondence between the dominant narrative and Iran’s strategic culture, while it has also reinforced the already central role of BMP in the latter (id.). It is, thus, important to investigate how the aforementioned shift has taken place. This is precisely the present article’s endeavor. While drawing on Iran’s official strategic documents including military and defense doctrine, the centerpiece of this contribution is the analysis of 75 official statements delivered during the Trump era (since January 2017 to January 2021), by Iran’s high officials including the Supreme Leader and his Senior Advisors, Iran’s President, members of parliament, IRGC officials, the Defense Ministry, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Imams of Friday Prayers, individual political, strategists and experts. Official speeches and narratives have been retrieved from official websites, as well as official national and international newspapers.

The paper is structured as follows. The next section presents Iran’s military doctrine and the background of Iran’s BMP followed by the narrative analysis on the BMP in Iran’s strategic culture. The third section focuses on the narratives delivered from 2018 to 2019, including those related to the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and the shooting down of US drone by IRGC in Persian Gulf. The last section demonstrates the change towards a more offensive approach in Iran’s defense and foreign policy, while emphasizing the importance of the assassination of General Soleimani as a new turning point in this policy.

IRAN’S MILITARY DOCTRINE AND ITS BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM[Up]

Iran’s military doctrine is a fusion of western military concepts with ideological tenets, including martyrdom and revolutionary zeal (McInnis, J. Matthew. 2017. Iranian Concepts of Warfare: Understanding Tehran’s Evolving Military Doctrines. American Enterprise Institute. Available at: https://cutt.ly/ZzDsM9d.‍McInnis, 2017; Murray, Williamson and Kevin M. Woods. 2014. The Iran-Iraq War: A military and strategic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ‍Murray and Woods, 2014; Ward, Steven. R. 2005. “The continuing evolution of Iran’s military doctrine”, The Middle East Journal, 59 (4): 559-576. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3751/59.4.12.‍Ward, 2005). Since the 1979 revolution, the Iranian military doctrine has evolved and adapted, reflecting the shift of the leadership’s threat perceptions and regional political developments (Connell, Michael. 2010. “Iran’s Military Doctrine”, The Iran Primer. Washington: US Institute of Peace. Available at: https://cutt.ly/jzDaxLk‍Connell, 2010; Olson, Eelik. A. 2016. “Iran’s Path Dependent Military Doctrine”, Strategic Studies Quarterly, 10 (2): 63-93.‍Olson, 2016). Since the mid-1980s, Iran has adopted a defensive doctrine characterized by the development of ballistic missiles as a deterrence and defense mainly by irregular forces in asymmetric warfare. In this, Iran has drawn heavily on the lessons learned during its eight-year-long war with Iraq (Murray, Williamson and Kevin M. Woods. 2014. The Iran-Iraq War: A military and strategic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ‍Murray and Woods, 2014; Eisenstadt, Michael. 2015. The strategic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: religion, expediency, and soft power in an era of disruptive change. Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Available at: https://cutt.ly/9zDaIm1.‍Eisenstadt, 2015).

While Iran’s first attempt to build ballistic missiles and high-level artillery goes back to the Pahlavi era in 1977, the approach to the program changed critically during and after the Iran-Iraq war (1980-‍1988), known as War of the Cities, when Iran’s towns and cities were attacked by missiles, causing a high number of casualties (see table 1). All of Saddam missile strikes took place after Iraq defeats in ground and naval operations. This raised the idea that defending the borders by ground forces is not enough in the war with Iraq since Iraq was invading the depth of the country with long-range missiles. Therefore, the development of BMP with the assistance of Syria, Libya, China and North Korea became critical to Iran^‍‍[6]. Given the fact that the War of the Cities was largely ignored by the international community, the missile program as part of Iran strategic culture has become intricately connected with the ideas of self-reliance and it is underpinned by distrust towards the West and the US (Taremi, Kamran. 2014. “Iranian Strategic Culture: The Impact of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Interpretation of Shiite Islam”. Contemporary Security Policy, 35 (1): 3-25. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2014.884341.‍Taremi, 2014; McInnis, J. Matthew. 2017. Iranian Concepts of Warfare: Understanding Tehran’s Evolving Military Doctrines. American Enterprise Institute. Available at: https://cutt.ly/ZzDsM9d.‍McInnis, 2017). Since Iraq’s attack was aimed at containing Iran’s revolution, the ‘revolutionary’ state foundation has been closely related to the missile program (Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin. 2006. The international politics of the Persian Gulf: a cultural genealogy. London and New York: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203965320.‍Adib-Moghaddam, 2006).

Since 1984, Iran’s leadership started a systematical investigation into its own missile technology. If after 2003 and the US attack on Iraq, a US invasion became Iran’s main threat (Connell, Michael. 2010. “Iran’s Military Doctrine”, The Iran Primer. Washington: US Institute of Peace. Available at: https://cutt.ly/jzDaxLk‍Connell, 2010), the threat posed by Israel has always existed in Iran’s defense doctrine (Eslami, Mohammad and Alena V. G. Vieira. 2021. “Iran’s strategic culture: the ‘revolutionary’ and ‘moderation’ narratives on the ballistic missile programme”, Third World Quarterly, 42 (2): 312-328. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1813562.‍Eslami and Vieira, 2021). By 2005, Iran’s defense doctrine has been referred to as a “mosaic defense”, reflecting an asymmetrical approach by the IRGC and the Army (Artesh), through the mobilization of a large and dispersed militia force to engage in attritional warfare against the invading forces (Olson, Eelik. A. 2016. “Iran’s Path Dependent Military Doctrine”, Strategic Studies Quarterly, 10 (2): 63-93.‍Olson, 2016), in addition to naval and air-defense capabilities.

Since 2012, the emergence of terrorist groups in the region and insecurity at the borders also affected Iran’s military doctrine. The “forward defense” doctrine implies that Iran should fight its enemies outside its borders to prevent insecurity of its soil. Five main aspects show Iran’s new offensive approach: proxies, drone and naval warfare (speed boats), BMP and cyber technologies (Yossef, Amr. 2019. “Upgrading Iran’s Military Doctrine: An Offensive ‘Forward Defense’”. The Middle East Institute, 10. Available at: https://cutt.ly/IzDfPQw.‍Yossef, 2019). In addition to direct involvement by the IRGC forces in the war in Syria in support of Bashar Assad’s regime since 2012, Iran has expanded its network of military allies beyond Hezbollah in Lebanon (Ahmadian, Hassan and Payam Mohseni. 2019. “Iran’s Syria strategy: the evolution of deterrence”, International Affairs, 95 (2): 341-364. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiy271.‍Ahmadian and Mohseni, 2019).

More recently, Iran declared that IRGC “spent 17 billion dollars in the region”^‍‍[7] to support its allies, known as mostazafin and “neutralize 7 trillion investment of the US against the Muslim nations of the region”^‍‍[8]. This network approach has involved forming Shiite groups (from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan) to fight alongside the IRGC in Syria, supporting Iraq’s Mobilization Forces since 2014 in the fight against ISIS, and providing vital military support and advice to the Houthis in Yemen. While the support of Mustazafin is considered the “main responsibility of Quds IRGC’’^‍‍[9], “missile power of Hezbollah and Gaza has been built by Iran’s support”^‍‍[10].

Thus, Iran’s BMP has crucial importance to its foreign and defense policy, something that is firmly rooted in Iran’s strategic culture. This explains BMPs’ connection to Iran’s “national pride and the source of legitimacy”^‍‍[11] , namely, to the idea of obtaining self-sufficiency at all levels (Eisenstadt, Michael. 2011. The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Operational and Policy Implications. MES Monographs, 1. Middle East Studies, Marine Corps University.‍Eisenstadt, 2011) and the aspiration to demonstrate the accuracy of BMP. In particular, Ayatollah Khamenei’s aspiration to produce very accurate missiles has been closely linked to the idea that the killing of non-military innocents is prohibited in Shia (Abdi, Hossein and Mohammad Hashemi. 2018. “Analyzing the concept of weapons of mass destruction and their adaptation to the Islamic point of view, with emphasis on the views of the Supreme Leader of Imam Khamenei”, Political Quarterly, 48 (3): 709-732. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.22059/jpq.2018.207307.1006804.‍Abdi and Hashemi, 2018). Hence Iran’s tendency to publish images and videos of missile strikes, including attacks on ISIS positions and the US drone incident, or the choice of the title for the military exercise at the border of Turkey after the latter’s invasion to Syria “One Target, One Shot”^‍‍[12] proves the importance of weapon accuracy in Iran’s strategic culture.

Finally, Iran’s BMP and its role in Iran’s strategic culture is intertwined with the identification of deterrence, first and foremost, against Israel as the major threat and enemy of Iran, as well against the Zionist lobby influencing international politics, in the so-called “global arrogance”. Against this background, Iran’s missile capability is a critical means of deterrence: being surrounded by US and Israel military bases makes it necessary for Tehran to improve its military capabilities such as a ballistic missile program to defend itself and make deterrence (Eisenstadt, Michael. 2011. The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Operational and Policy Implications. MES Monographs, 1. Middle East Studies, Marine Corps University.‍Eisenstadt, 2011).

This issue has been essentially reinforced by the recent confrontation between Iran and the US in the region, including the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani and Professor Mohsen Fakhrizadeh; Iran’s attack on Ain Al-Assad and Al-Taji military bases in Iraq by Iran; and US provocative military action through the presence of US aircraft-careers and B52 bombers in the Persian Gulf region. In this line, and along with its political propaganda, Iran has unveiled an advanced ballistic missile called “Haj Qasem’’ with a range of 1800km and the so-called “Abu-Mahdi’’ naval cruise missile with a range of 1000 km. Considering Iranian officials’ statements on revenging the assassination of both Soleimani and Fakhrizadeh, celebrated as national heroes, further employment of BMP is expectable. A reflection of this was the statement by the General Staff of the Armed Forces Mohammad Hossein Bagheri following the agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel stating “We consider UAE as the source of instability in the region and from now they will be our legitimate target”^‍‍[13] .

According to the US Worldwide Threat Assessment issued in February 2016 (Izewicz, Paula. 2017. Iran’s Ballistic Missile Program: Its Status and the Way Forward. Non-Proliferation Paper, no. 57. SIPRI EU Non-Proliferation Consortium.‍Izewicz, 2017), Iran has nowadays the “largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East” (see table 2). US negotiators hoped that the missile program would be subject to the round of negotiations following the conclusion of the JCPOA, but US withdrawal from JCPOA prevented any further developments. Iran’s authorities have reiterated that its missile program is nonnegotiable (Bahgat, Gawdat. 2019. “Iran’s Ballistic‐Missile and Space Program: An Assessment”, Middle East Policy, 26 (1): 31-48. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/mepo.12398.‍Bahgat, 2019).

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF IRAN’S BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM[Up]

Generally, Iran’s strategic culture creates the room for maneuver for two narratives about Iran’s BMP, corresponding to two main currents of thoughts to which Iran’s elites adhere, namely the “revolutionary” and the “moderation” ones (Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin. 2012. “What is Radicalism? Power and Resistance in Iran”, Middle East Critique, 21 (3): 271-290. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2012.717800.‍Adib-Moghaddam, 2012; Firuzabadi, Seyyed J. 2014. “Moderation discourse in the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran”, Strategic Policy Research, 5 (19): 43-73 (published in Persian).‍Firuzabadi, 2014); each of them with its own specific approach to domestic and international issues (Eslami, Mohammad and Alena V. G. Vieira. 2021. “Iran’s strategic culture: the ‘revolutionary’ and ‘moderation’ narratives on the ballistic missile programme”, Third World Quarterly, 42 (2): 312-328. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1813562.‍Eslami and Vieira, 2021) and its own interpretation of Iran’s history, Shia identity and sense of threat and deterrence.

The “revolutionary” narrative on the BMP is rooted in Iran’s revolutionary national identity (Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin. 2012. “What is Radicalism? Power and Resistance in Iran”, Middle East Critique, 21 (3): 271-290. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2012.717800.‍Adib-Moghaddam, 2012 ) and it links together the so-called “issue” and the “international system” narrative (Miskimmon, Alister, Ben O’loughlin and Laura Roselle. 2014. Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order. London: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315871264.‍Miskimmon et al., 2014). Thus, the BMP becomes a symbol of “superior counter-discourse” (Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin. 2012. “What is Radicalism? Power and Resistance in Iran”, Middle East Critique, 21 (3): 271-290. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2012.717800.‍Adib-Moghaddam, 2012: 278; Ramazani, Reza. K. 2004. “Ideology and pragmatism in Iran’s foreign policy”, The Middle East Journal, 58 (4): 1-11 (published in Persian). Available at: https://doi.org/10.3751/194034604783997123.‍Ramazani, 2004), while leaving no room for negotiation. This narrative has two important characteristics: firstly, it interprets the deterrent/strategic culture as a necessarily “offensive”/ “essentialist” one; secondly, it is highly skeptical of the international cooperation and especially of the US (global arrogance); according to this narrative, the BMP has the highest strategic priority, something that demands unambiguous support on the part of Iran’s institutions and society.

The “revolutionary narrative” combines a particular discourse of “deterrence” resonating with Iran’s strategic culture, with the “offensive” discourse. The deterrence dimension, which is related to Iran’s strategic culture, is reflected in several discourses. This is the case of the statement by Ahmad Alamal-Hoda, the Imam of Mashhad, conveying that “[b]y having the missile, we do not need a nuclear bomb: a missile strike on the Dimona reactor is enough”^‍‍[14], or the claim that the US and its allies forces and their presence in the region can be mitigated because “[w]e know how to confront them, with the launch of 500 ballistic missiles at the same time, we are able to destroy all of US forces in the region”^‍‍[15].

Another statement holds that “[w]e will defend our country when the attack begins, but the aggressive power and the ability of our strike after the start of the war will be devastating and regrettable for aggressors”^‍‍[16]. The “revolutionary” narrative also affirms that “[w]e will not start any war, and the missiles are the means of defense”^‍‍[17]. While the deterrent dimension of the “revolutionary narrative” strongly draws upon the strategic culture, there is an important offensive in it as well, reflected in the idea that “Israel will not exist in the next 25 years”^‍‍[18] , implying Israel’s auto-destruction or collapse.

Another reflection of the offensive dimension appears in the justification of the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles. Accordingly, a self-restriction has been imposed on the range of missiles on the basis of the Shia religion. These limitations have been projected by Hajizadeh, who stated that “the reason we designed the 2000-kilometer missile, it’s aimed at targeting our main enemy, the Zionist regime”^‍‍[19]. Moreover, the ‘revolutionary narrative’ is resolutely against any kind of ideas related to restricting or destroying Iran’s BMP, as this is equivalent to the situation of “whenever the US wants, it can attack us”^‍‍[20]. This particular discourse strongly draws upon the precedent of Libya. Therefore, the narrative portrays a negotiation as “poison that kills”^‍‍[21], while it is also established that “the range limitation of 2000 km” of Iran’s existing missiles “is not forever”^‍‍[22] .

In addition, the “revolutionary narrative” is strongly skeptical of international cooperation. Accordingly, this narrative holds that missiles, not talks, are Iran’s future. This narrative allows specific actors such as Ebrahim Raeesi to scale up the ‘revolutionary’ content and stablish red lines for Iran’s foreign policy. Consequently, “negotiation with the killers of General Soleimani is haram (unlawful in Islam), we will meet American terrorists sooner or later for revenge and not negotiation”^‍‍[23].

The metanarrative of which this particular discourse is part of is the so-called “global arrogance”. Here, the “revolutionary narrative” holds that “the only way for a country to guarantee peace and security”^‍‍[24] is to rely on its own forces and, in case of Iran, on the BMP. This makes Iran’s BMP non-negotiable, what conveys a strong conviction in Iran’s deterrence, a domestically oriented narrative with the message that: “neither a war will happen; nor will we negotiate”^‍‍[25].

Finally, the “revolutionary narrative” attributes a sense of progress and a positive meaning to the missile program as such, thereby reinforcing the central role of missiles in Iran’s strategic culture. This is reflected, for instance, in statements with references to the Palestine military action in Iran’s official discourse, such as “Palestinians use missiles instead of rocks” as “progress”^‍‍[26].

As for the “moderation” narrative, it also resonates with Iran’s strategic culture, maintaining that the BMP is non-negotiable and key to Iran’s deterrence. Iran’s missile program is therefore seen as “one of the most long-lasting policies of the Islamic Republic”^‍‍[27]. At the same time, the narrative holds that cooperation is possible and problems can be solved through dialogue and negotiation. This narrative attributes high importance to economic power and the balance between the economic and military dimensions of Iran’s foreign policy.

An illustration of this “moderation narrative” is its critical positioning towards the ballistic missile tests conducted by IRGC since 2015, after the nuclear deal was signed. While having missiles for defense and deterrence has been considered important, IRGC had to act with caution while insisting that “everything has its own time”, contrary to the “revolutionary narrative” that holds that there can be no time limitation for developing the most important strategic program of a country; it is rather “now or never”. After the ballistic missile test by IRGC in 2015, the revolutionary narrative has become stronger, conveyed by different political actors, such as Motahari who noticed that “while it is always maintained that conservatism is always bad and it is better to be moderated”^‍‍[28] or Lahouti, for whom “the development will not be achieved by making a wall around the country”^‍‍[29].

The “moderation narrative” is especially concerned with the fact that an excessive emphasis on dissuasion would provoke international actors to impose even more stringent economic sanctions, which would eventually increase tensions, thereby pushing Iran to a more belligerent posture, in which Iran’s friends are rare. In Motahari’s words, “only two friend countries remained for us, Syria and Venezuela”^‍‍[30]. At the same time, adherence to the ‘revolutionary narrative’ gives a carte blanche to the non-implementation of JCPOA^‍‍[31]. Accordingly, actors who are engaged in provocative actions (including tested missiles immediately after JCPOA), “effectively preventing the implementation of the nuclear deal”^‍‍[32] bear the consequences of Iran’s unstable economy and new sanctions.

CONCLUSIONS[Up]

The question guiding the present investigation was how does strategic culture contribute to our understanding of Iran’s foreign and security policy towards the US under the Trump administration?

In this contribution, it has been argued that Iran’s strategic culture has shaped Iran’s foreign and defense policy, thereby “unpacking” the black box of Iran’s foreign policy. This way, I have demonstrated that Iran’s strategic culture is rooted in a particular historical political and geopolitical context which is shaped by two major principle: On the one hand, Iran’s policy towards BMP is intertwined with the historical precedent of vulnerability, during a eight years period (1980-‍1988) when Iran was attacked by missiles. Being surrounded by US military bases and perceiving a serious, constant and imminent threat from Israel and the US, the feeling of vulnerability that informs Iran’s strategic culture nowadays is additionally reinforced by the fact that Iran has antiquated air forces which IRI cannot modernize due to extensive sanctions which prevents the country from buying aircrafts. Consequently, Iranian leadership’s main concern is inevitably directed to create a powerful defense system, capable of defending its territory and deterring a “New Saddam Hussein” from an attack on Iran. On the other hand, US interference S in Middle East countries and the occupation of Palestine territory by Israel are viewed as expressions of “global arrogance”, which the Islamic Republic of Iran needs to confront by any diplomatic or, if necessary, military tools.

The present article has also demonstrated a change in narratives on the BMP in Iran. While Iran’s defensive strategic culture has been traditionally supported by a mixture of both “revolutionary” “(Israel must be destroyed)” and “moderation” (Missile power not for use)’ narratives, the present analysis suggests that a narrative shift is taking place since the US withdrawal from JCPOA. This shift towards a more offensive approach consolidated with the downing of the US drone and has reached to its peak due to assassination of General Soleimani. This murder also turned retaliation into a new principle in Iran’s strategic culture and military doctrine.

Prior to 2017, a strong narrative had been promoted by Iranian moderated actors conveying criticism of the BMP. This narrative maintained that, although defense, security and deterrence had been very important, economic issues had to be taken more seriously. Based on this ‘moderation’ narrative, international cooperation oriented towards the resolution of Iran’s economic problems was Iran’s main priority, therefore outweighing other issues and portraying negotiation as the best method for Iran’s international engagement and cooperation. On the other hand, the “revolutionary” narrative has viewed any systematic international cooperation with the West as a big strategic mistake that would inevitably lead to the destruction of the country. According to the “revolutionary” narrative, a strong defense power is the utmost priority of a country that is fighting for its survival.

Based on the present analysis, the “revolutionary” narrative after the drone incident, seizing British tankers and assassination of General Soleimani has grown stronger and supported by more actors. The shift towards revolutionary narratives was significant to the extent that even critical events such as the incident with the Ukrainian flight that caused 176 casualties could not revive the “moderation” narrative. It can be concluded that Iran’s nowadays strategic culture has become offensive and supported by the “revolutionary” offensive narrative. This is reflected in IRGC statements and Iran’s military doctrine. This claim can be proven by IRGC officials announcing that Iran’s military doctrine has changed from a defensive approach to a defensive-offensive one.