Politics of oil and natural gas vis-a-vis the foreign policy of Iran

Abstract

This study discusses the relationship of Iran’s oil and gas resources with its foreign policy. Because these resources play a major role in government power, they serve as a major focus of Iran’s governmental policy and relations with other countries. Our review led us to conclude that despite Iran’s abundant reserves – the world’s fourth-largest crude oil and largest natural gas reserves-international powers influenced the country’s foreign policy sufficiently for Iran to decrease its oil production. The authors will demonstrate how fluctuations in oil and natural gas production were the outcome of a globalized structure that affected instability in Iran’s foreign policy in specific ways. Our conceptual investigation of energy politics after the 1979 revolution revealed different policies that caused numerous concerns for the new government. While Iran’s politicians strove to retain the Islamic Republic above all, both doctrine and foreign policy revolved circuitously from a radical 1979 Revolution position to renewed radical position in 2005 with two intermediate shifts in position. One was pragmatic shift in the late 1980s, and the second took a more moderate tone in late 1990s by focusing almost entirely on the production of oil and natural gas.