US—Iranian Elite Interactions and the Pathologies of Engagement

Abstract

A large strand of the theoretical literature concerning revolutions examines the dilemma that emerges when revolutionary movements achieve statehood and are faced with the pressure to conform to the conventions of international society. David Armstrong observes that the revolutionary state commonly finds itself in a situation where ‘the belief system on which its revolution was founded and which legitimized the assumption of state power by the revolutionary elite is certain to run counter to the prevailing political doctrines of most other states’.¹ At this point, scholarly opinion divides; there are those, such as Armstrong and Kenneth Waltz, who believe that revolutionary states are unable to resist external pressures to conform and eventually assume more moderate and pragmatic foreign policies. In contrast, scholars such as Raymond Aron and Fred Halliday argue that the process of socialisation is never fully accepted by revolutionary elites.² Foreign policy then becomes a battleground in which radical and pragmatic strands compete, resulting in policies that mix ideological conditioning and realpolitik.