چکیده:
What is Ayatollah Khamenei’s strategic thinking, and how does it shape and influence Iran’s foreign policy, military and national security strategy? This article studies the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of Ayatollah Khamenei’s foreign policy and strategic thinking, including his aims and principles, approaches, behaviors, decisions, and incentives, as the Islamic Republic of Iran’s commander-in-chief of armed forces. The authors strive to explain how the political and military doctrine of Iran’s Supreme Leader is designed to increase the country’s relative security. They argue that Iran’s leader tries to neutralize challenges caused by new changes that have occurred in Iran’s immediate security sphere through activating patterns related to active deterrence. Thus, for him, sufficient military power can only be obtained by maximizing security. This way of thinking can best be explained by defensive realism theory. In this context, four dimensions of this theory i.e., balance of power, balance of threat, interconnected security, and offense-defense approach are discussed in the thoughts of Iran’s leader. The authors also hold that the ethical aspect of Ayatollah Khamenei’s strategic thinking, based on the principles of Islamic international relations, gives realism in the Middle East a critical approach.
خلاصه ماشینی:
This article studies the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of Ayatollah Khamenei’s foreign policy and strategic thinking, including his aims and principles, approaches, behaviors, decisions, and incentives, as the Islamic Republic of Iran’s commander-in-chief of armed forces.
Therefore, since Ayatollah Khamenei, unlike many executive officials in different countries, explicitly states his policy and strategy in foreign relations and there is not inconsistency between Iran’s declared policies and practiced policies, our analysis in this article will be based on conceptual and referential recognition of the Supreme Leader’s views on defensive and military domains through which we can understand the regional strategy of Islamic Republic of Iran.
(54) Thus, as Saudi Arabia has changed from a "serious rival" into a "serious threat," in May 2015, Ayatollah Khamenei, by referring to the balance of threat strategy stated that "our enemies and some of ignorant officials in the Persian Gulf region must know that if there is any intrigue and if they want to bring the proxy wars into Iran’s borders, then the Islamic Republic of Iran will react harshly.
The permanent need for effective and powerful military forces to protect the country’s territorial integrity, results from this fact that according to Ayatollah Khamenei’s defensive approach, it is necessary to connect the interests of the country to the security matters of the region, to focus on newly emerging security threats, and to reduce enemies’ risks for attacking Iran.