British Foreign Policy Towards The I.R. Iran With Special Reference To The Two Main British Governing Parties: 2000-2015
Summary
The article examines the Irano-UK diplomatic relation, with an academic emphasis through the United Kingdom’s foreign policy-making the process, during the first and a half decade of the twenty first century. The two main British governing parties will be the focus of the article’s attention. This is a contemporary British diplomatic research into the relation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United Kingdom.
The article starts by looking at the Labour foreign policy attitudes, and approaches, then moves on to the actual policy process of the Labour party, during the administration of the two Labour leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Having completed our investigation into the British Labour party’s policy ideas towards the Islamic Republic of Iran, the article will proceed with the British Conservative party’s policy attitudes in foreign policy, and then towards the Islamic Republic of Iran, since moving into Office.
This examination attempts to demonstrate the complex and intriguing process of foreign policy in the beginning of the twenty first century, as the world has become a maze of interdependent relationships.
Introduction:
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s relation with the United Kingdom deserves an academic attention, through the UK’s foreign policy making process within the Iranian context.
Americans especially have often admired British foreign policy making for its method if not its substances, believing that diplomatic wisdom, and shrewdness prevailed over political emotions and parochial concerns.
However, sustaining this reputation has been less likely during Britain’s decline in the contemporary world of twenty to twenty first century in status among the great powers.
No other nation ever surrendered so much in so short a time as did Britain in the fifteen or twenty years after 1945.
The expensive reputation into the mid twentieth century, and ever since, of the increasingly unsubstantial policies of independent nuclear deterrence, and responsibility flowing from a ‘special relationship’ with the United States, has been as a result of Britain’s failure in foreign policy, such as towards the Middle East as a whole, and more specifically, towards the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In this article, attempts will be made to examine British foreign policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran, concentrating on the two main British governing parties, during the period, 2000-2015. In this manner, hopefully, a thorough examination of the Anglo-Iranian relation in the beginning of the twenty first century will be offered.
