Imagining Iran

Jonathon Whooley

Imagining Iran

Orientalism
and the Construction
of Security Development
in American Foreign Policy

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Whooley, Jonathon, author.

Title: Imagining Iran: Orientalism and the construction of

security development in American foreign policy / Jonathon Whooley.

Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017043355 | ISBN 978-1-4331-5022-7 (hardback: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4331-4891-0 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4892-7 (epub) ISBN 978-1-4331-4893-4 (mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: Orientalism. | Iran—Foreign relations—United States. United States—Foreign relations—Iran.

Classification: LCC E183.8.I55 W48 2017 | DDC 327.55073—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043355

DOI 10.3726/b12142

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover image: G. Mohammadi, 2017, Jameh Mosque, Yazd.

Permission granted by photographer.

© 2018 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006

www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.

Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

About the author

Jonathon Whooley is a full-time lecturer at the University of San Francisco and San Francisco State University, where he teaches human rights, strategy and war, American foreign policy, gender, critical security studies, and global politics. His research interests include the historical construction of American foreign policy as related to the Middle East, identity, gender, human rights, and security. Dr. Whooley earned his PhD from the University of Florida in 2015 with a successful dissertation on the securitization and construction of American foreign policy toward Iran from the administrations of Lyndon Baines Johnson through Ronald Reagan. He has also co-authored book chapters with Laura Sjoberg in The Arab Spring and Arab Thaw (2013) and with Mahmood Monshipouri in Human Rights in the Middle East (2011).

About the book

Imagining Iran constructs and assembles American foreign policy through critical security studies discourse analysis and Orientalist descriptions of key actors within the presidential administrations of Lyndon Baines Johnson through Ronald Reagan (1965–1989). This book is essential reading for those who are interested in learning about how foreign policy making is conducted, how theories directly affect the process of foreign policy making, and how the shah and Iran served US interests. It also discusses the larger question of why the US uses autocratic proxies to pursue its nominally human rights and democracy-based goals.

Students of foreign policy, Middle East studies, and critical security studies, as well as Iran experts, can benefit from this historical deep dive on policy making. The internal conversations, diary entries, and previously classified documents and briefings tell the story of how the US imagined Iran, and why that ideational construction proved to be such a dominant and pernicious image for 26 years, the reverberations of which are still felt today in our modern conception of what Iran is and what Iranians can do through the lens of American foreign policy.

Advance Praise for Imagining Iran

“Jonathon Whooley boldly confronts, with careful and rigorous archival analysis, one of the most important issues of US foreign policy toward the Middle East. He presents a rare and perceptive combination of the construction of American foreign policy toward Iran by deploying the use of specific aspects of foreign policy discourse. By providing a cogent post-structural discourse ontology—deeply rooted in the language of key actors involved—this volume makes a vigorous contribution to critical security studies. Imagining Iran is a must-read for anyone concerned about the possibilities of change toward and/or rapprochement with Iran in the region’s highly complex and evolving political context.”

Mahmood Monshipouri,

San Francisco State University,

Visiting Professor of the University of California, Berkeley

“Imagining Iran combines rich historical research with insightful analysis from security studies and postcolonial theory to make sense of US Cold War–era policy toward Iran. Well-written, easy to follow, but importantly controversial—it is a must-read for scholars and students alike.”

Laura Sjoberg, University of Florida

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Table of contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Security Narratives and American Foreign Policy

Chapter 2. Research Design

Chapter 3. Foreign Policy and Ideational Construction within the Johnson Administration

Chapter 4. Foreign Policy and Ideational Construction within the Nixon Administration

Chapter 5. Security, Foreign Policy, and Ideational Construction within the Ford Administration

Chapter 6. Security, Foreign Policy, and Ideational Construction within the Carter Administration

Chapter 7. Foreign Policy and Ideational Construction within the Reagan Administration

Chapter 8. Conclusion: The ‘Good Oriental’ and American Foreign Policy toward Iran

Appendix: Archival Documents

Bibliography