Iran and the West's Structural Power

This article tries to explain the West's (the U.S. and EU) approach to Iran during the past eight years (2005-2013) under the ninth and tenth cabinets. The authors explore the issue that how the West affected heavily by economic crisis and experiencing the decline of its relative power, is able to put strategic pressure on countries such as Iran? Since international politics is the scene of power play, the authors argue that the west in that period applied its structural power – that is being able to determine other's rules of the game and to shape other's choices – which is a unique and rare kind of power, against Iran. In this context, the west has tried to limit or in some cases, cut Iran's access to its needed resources in the fields of financial affairs, knowledge, security issues and production by imposing sanctions. From author's point of view, financial and productive structures more than other structure have been the target of sanctions. Finally, the authors argue that given the nature of structural power and inefficiency of traditional instruments to confront it, the possible and desirable option for Iran is to maximally use diplomatic instruments and to adopt a "constructive interaction" policy aiming at persuading the international community of Iran's strategic gals.