Islamic utopianism and international relations: A reflection on the symbolics of Khomeini's 'Neither East, Nor West' doctrine

A salient, as well as an intriguing feature of understanding the international behavior of Revolutionary Iran under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1979--1989) revolves around an incorporation of the cultural underpinnings and exigencies of the Islamic Revolution into the accumulative inquiry of international politics.;Legitimized in the image of Islamic utopianism (metaphysics), Khomeini's international doctrine of `Neither East, Nor West but Islamic Republic' became the doctrinal basis of Iran's international behavior throughout the 1980s. It is because of the mobilizing power of utopian ideas in popularizing a foreign policy doctrine that a reflection on the symbolics of `Neither East, Nor West' can determine the patterns in which utopian images lend rightfulness and legitimacy to the international behavior of Iran's faqih-led revolutionary state. This, of course, displayed a ressentiment expressed by the Guardianship of Jurisconsult (wilayat-i faqih) against a secularist international system whose major powers were blamed for the debilitation of Muslim culture and identity.;Once ressentiment was expressed by creating a nonconventional context in international relations by Iran (hostage taking), the hegemonic expansionism of faqih was impaired by the imperatives of the operational code of the post-1945 international system as well as regional constraints. This forced Iran to maintain a balance between its power and its commitments by adopting a gradual accommodationist posture vis-a-vis the international system.;This accommodationism became possible after the Islamic Revolution had succeeded in revitalizing Islamic culture (kiyan-i Islami) and existence by establishing the hegemony of faqih within Iran during 1979--81. Since then, Iran's international behavior has vacillated between defiance and accommodation vis-a-vis the international system. To justify this international behavior, the clerical establishment of wilayat-i faqih resorted to the Islamic notion of expediency ( maslaha), a vast source which renders ethical justifications of political behavior possible more than any secular ideology. In this regard, since 1979, Iran has become an Islamic practitioner of international realpolitik along with secular states in the international arena.