Analytical Framework for Study of the Imam Khomeini's Foreign Policy Discourse

After the Islamic revolution and the rise of the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran over the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, a new wave of ideas and opinions entered Iran's foreign policy domain and the international relations structure. The principles and concepts of this revolution and the newly emerged political system are generally affected by Imam Khomeini's thought and action as an ideologue and a leader. This article questions the semiotic structure and articulatory system of Imam Khomeini’s foreign policy and about to give a descriptive framework for analyzing it. According to the hypothesis, from the writer's viewpoint, the articulating system of his foreign policy discourse is describable in a three-dimensional framework of ideology, strategy and diplomacy. Ideology beholds some principles and belief-related standards that generally nurture from Islam's revolutionary-critical source. Strategy involves the security-based calculations and the hardware policy. Moreover, diplomacy includes the accepted diagrams of conversation and negotiation for achieving national interests. The results of this discourse are represented in propositions that are based on concepts of the revolutionary-critical, pragmatic-realist, and prudent-modernist Islam.