The book offers the first systematic account of Iran's foreign policy following the nuclear agreement (JCPOA) of July 14, 2015. The author evaluates in what ways the JCPOA, in conjunction with the dramatic changes taking shape in the international order, have affected Iran's foreign policy. Known as Normalizers, the moderate leadership under President Hassan Rouhani had planned to normalize Iran's foreign relations by curtailing terrorism and reintegrate Iran into the community of nations. Their hardline opponents, the Principalists, rejected the JCPOA as a tool of subjection to the West and insisted on exporting the Islamist revolution, a source of much destabilization and terror in the region and beyond. The project also analyzes the struggle between Normalizers and their hardline opponents with regards to global and regional issues and Iran's foreign policy towards global powers including the U.S., Russia, EU, and regional countries including Iraq, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.


This book analyzes the historical quest of the Islamic Republic of Iran to export its revolution to the Muslim countries in the Middle East and beyond. The authors argue that Iran exported its revolution by using proxies such as Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shite militias, and the Houthis. The study unravels the casual chain behind less-known cases of Iranian sponsorship of al Qaeda (Central) and al Qaida in Iraq. It combines rigorous theory with detailed empirical analysis which can add to the current debate about ways to roll back Iran's revolutionary export.