The Role of Villain

Iran and U.S. Foreign Policy

Bibliographic Data

ID7966604
AuthorsPaul R Pillar (corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume131
Issue2
Pages365-385
Publication date2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Science Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-3195 • E-ISSN: 1538-165X
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1002/polq.12479
OpenAlexW4243750156
LanguageEN
Citations received17

THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN HAS BECOME, in two senses, an extraordinary preoccupation of the United States. One sense is that Iran is the subject of a strikingly large proportion of discourse about U.S. foreign policy. American pundits and politicians repeatedly mention Iran, usually with specific reference to its nuclear program, as among the biggest threats the United States faces. Republican nominee Mitt Romney, when asked in the last presidential debate of the 2012 campaign what was the single greatest future threat to U.S. national security, replied “a nuclear Iran.”1 For politicians of both major U.S. political parties, expressions of concern about Iran and of the need to confront it have become a required catechism. The U.S. Congress has spent much time on such expressions and on imposing with lopsided votes ever broader economic sanctions on Iran. Frequent and evidently serious references are made to launching a military attack against Iran, even though such an attack—an act of aggression—would probably mean a war with heavy costs and damage to U.S. interests and probably would stimulate the very development of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it ostensibly would be designed to preclude.2

Center (category theory) · Economic history · Economic sanctions · Foreign policy · Institution · Islamic republic · National security · Nuclear weapon · Officer · Pillar · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Presidential system · Sanctions · Sociology · Economic Sanctions and International Relations · Engineering · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Public Administration · Security, Politics, and Digital Transformation · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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