The Kennedy Doctrine from Theory to Practice: A Study of Its Consequences for Latin America and Iran

John F. Kennedy came to power in the United States on the promise to promote “freedoms”. His pronounced objective for Latin America and Iran was to promote freedoms through reforms. However, since his proposed reforms did not aim to protect the interests of the target countries, they faced the opposition of the people in Latin America and the protest and opposition of Imam Khomeini in Iran. The main objective of this article is to study the objectives and the reasons for contradictions that surfaced between the objective and practice of the Kennedy Doctrine. The main question of this research is: What were the objectives of the Kennedy Doctrine and why did its practice contradicted its objectives? The hypothesis of this research is: The Kennedy Doctrine was formulated for the protection of the capitalist system within the paradigm of the Cold War, hence, in the course of its implantation, the geopolitical situation of the US allies, on the one hand, and, the opposition of the nationalist in Latin America and that of Imam Khomeini in Iran, on the other hand, caused the doctrine to fail in achieving it objectives. Documental and text analysis has been employed in this research and the necessary data were collected from Kennedy’s speeches and messages. The findings of the research indicate that since the Kennedy Doctrine did not take the interests of the target countries into consideration, in practice it sacrificed freedom to protect the interests of the capitalists system and the US geopolitical interests.