This book examines the dynamics of relations and the substance of the negotiations between the international community and Iran over the latter's nuclear programme. Iran’s nuclear programme and the alleged threat to international peace and security remains one of the most important issues in the United States, as well as in European foreign affairs. In the US, Iran has dominated the political discourse for over three decades and Europe has spent considerable political capital in finding a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. While relations between both states remain subject to mutual hostility, the EU remains a channel of communication and since 2003 has maintained a multilateral negotiation framework. By and large, the narrative on nuclear negotiations is dominated by constructivist and realist literature, portraying relations between the US and Iran in ideological terms as a prolonged struggle for regional influence. Embedded within conflict resolution and diplomatic theory, this work attempts to bridge this gap. Drawing upon primary documents and interviews, the text examines negotiation behaviour, and strategies and tools of statecraft, as well as analysing technical aspects of initiatives concerning the nuclear programme. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, international diplomacy, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR in general.

The United States’ commitment to non-proliferation often propels its foreign policy rhetoric. In 2002, George W. Bush framed his goal of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons within the context of the global war on terror, accusing Iran of being part of the “Axis of Evil.” Iran’s nuclear program was declared an intolerable threat to global peace and stability. This approach however showed the conflict between the rhetoric of good vs. evil and the need for a pragmatic and measured approach to non-proliferation in the Middle East. The book explores this divergence between the alarmist rhetoric of the Bush Administration’s public diplomacy and its actual non-proliferation policy toward Iran. It shows how the two policy directions, the war on terror and negotiations over the nuclear issue, were often at odds. Further, the Administration’s desire to change the regime in Iran undermined efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue. Ultimately, the policies implemented failed both to shut down Iran’s nuclear program and bring significant democratic reform within the Islamic Republic. The book also examines this legacy and how Obama’s approach differs or follows that of his predecessor. Lastly, the implications for non-proliferation policies beyond Iran are discussed, as nuclear proliferation remains a key concern in a Middle East plagued by instability.

In Donald Trump’s Digital Diplomacy and Its Impact on US Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East is well-blended marriage of history and politics. Even though Trump’s actions have often been rash and chaotic - some of his foreign policies were successful in the Middle East.

This book is the first to provide comprehensive and comparative analyses to conceptualise the interaction between ‘hegemonic structures’ and those actors resisting them using the Iranian nuclear case as an illustration. It analyses the foreign policies of China, Russia and Turkey towards the Iranian nuclear programme and thereby answers the question to what extent these policies are indicative of a security culture that resists hegemony. Based on 70 elite interviews with experts and decision-makers closely involved with the Iranian nuclear file, it analyses resistance to hegemony across its ideational, material and institutional framework conditions.

Tehran’s willingness to pause aspects of its nuclear program may offer opportunities to stroke regime concerns about the potential costs of moving forward. Since halting its crash nuclear weapons program in 2003, the Islamic Republic has pursued a cautious hedging strategy that has enabled it to become an advanced nuclear threshold state, while also avoiding a military confrontation with the United States and Israel. Yet Iran’s willingness to pause aspects of its nuclear program in order to ease pressure—and in turn to pursue more urgent objectives—may help Washington constrain Tehran’s nuclear ambitions by amplifying its concerns about the potential risks and costs of proliferating. In this Policy Focus, military analyst Michael Eisenstadt surveys the evolution of Iran’s nuclear hedging strategy and suggests ways for the United States, along with its allies and partners, to shape the regime’s proliferation calculus with the goal of preventing an Iranian breakout and a nuclearized Middle East.

This collection brings together leading scholars and practitioners to assess the processes, institutions and outcomes of the EU's collective diplomatic engagement in the fields of security, human rights, trade and finance and environmental politics. It analyzes successes and failures in the EU's search for global influence in the post-Lisbon era.

This volume investigates secret diplomacy with the aim of understanding its role in shaping foreign policy. Recent events, including covert intelligence gathering operations, accusations of spying, and the leaking of sensitive government documents, have demonstrated that secrecy endures as a crucial, yet overlooked, aspect of international diplomacy. The book brings together different research programmes and views on secret diplomacy and integrates them into a coherent analytical framework, thereby filling an important gap in the literature. The aim is to stimulate, generate and direct the further development of theoretical understandings of secret diplomacy by highlighting ‘gaps’ in existing bodies of knowledge. To this end, the volume is structured around three distinct themes: concepts, contexts and cases. The first section elaborates on the different meanings and manifestations of the concept; the second part examines basic contexts that underpin the practice of secret diplomacy; while the third section presents a series of empirical cases of particular relevance for contemporary diplomatic practice. While the fundamental conditions diplomacy seeks to overcome – alienation, estrangement and separation – are imbued with distrust and secrecy, this volume highlights that, if anything, secret diplomacy is a vital, if misunderstood and unfairly criticised, aspect of diplomacy. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, intelligence studies, foreign policy and IR in general.

This book, written by a leading expert on Iran's foreign and nuclear affairs, provides a fresh and insightful perspective on Iran's nuclear program. Based on in-depth interviews with the key nuclear decision-makers in Iran, Europe, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the book is a welcome addition that sheds new light on the present international crisis over Iran's nuclear program. In a lucidly-written narrative intended for both general readers as well as academics and policy-makers, the book covers the history of Iran's nuclear program, the Iran-Europe negotiations, the IAEA reports and other similar reports, the media's coverage, and the prospects for a successful resolution of the nuclear standoff with Iran. Afrasiabi presents a compelling case for non-proliferation in Iran and the Middle East, drawing on his first-hand knowledge of the region. The book has been divided into 20 chapters and has an appendix that documents Iran's nuclear standpoint.

The post-World War II emergence of a full-blown state of perpetual war is arguably the most important feature of contemporary American politics. This book examines the "warfare state" in terms of a broad ensemble of structures, policies, and ideologies: permanent war economy, national security-state, global expansion of military bases, merger of state, corporate, and military power, an imperial presidency, the nuclear establishment, and superpower ambitions. Carl Boggs makes the argument that the "Good War" led to an authoritarian system that has expanded throughout the post-war decades, undermining liberal-democratic institutions and values in the process. He goes on to suggest that current American electoral politics show no sign of rolling back the warfare state and in fact, may push it to a new threshold bordering on American fascism.

This book examines the dynamics of relations and the substance of the negotiations between the international community and Iran over the latter's nuclear programme. Iran’s nuclear programme and the alleged threat to international peace and security remains one of the most important issues in the United States, as well as in European foreign affairs. In the US, Iran has dominated the political discourse for over three decades and Europe has spent considerable political capital in finding a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. While relations between both states remain subject to mutual hostility, the EU remains a channel of communication and since 2003 has maintained a multilateral negotiation framework. By and large, the narrative on nuclear negotiations is dominated by constructivist and realist literature, portraying relations between the US and Iran in ideological terms as a prolonged struggle for regional influence. Embedded within conflict resolution and diplomatic theory, this work attempts to bridge this gap. Drawing upon primary documents and interviews, the text examines negotiation behaviour, and strategies and tools of statecraft, as well as analysing technical aspects of initiatives concerning the nuclear programme. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, international diplomacy, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR in general.