The framing of Iran became the quintessence of negotiations on Iran's nuclear program, while the image of the Islamic Republic as both a champion and example of Orientalist ``Middleeasterness`` political, cultural, and religious traits contributed to Tehran's perception as an untrustful player on the global stage, an irresponsible, unworthy actor due to its own ideological and socio-cultural peculiarities to be equal to other states in terms of nuclear program.[1] But this framing has not always been placed on Iran, but rather on the Islamic Republic per se. It was the Iranian Revolution of 1979 the breakthrough moment that created this framing, the line between an Iran within the "civilized world" and an Islamic Republic outside of it, while it was America`s own bad memories on that Revolution that set the trend worldwide.[2] [3]

The Iranian nuclear program was the birthchild of a non-conventional marriage between the Iranian Shah and the West (mostly the US).[4] [5] In 1957, Imperial Iran signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States by which Washington undertook to provide technical assistance and know-how in the peaceful development of the Iranian nuclear program as well as assistance in research on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, followed by agreements with France and Germany on the construction of nuclear reactors.[6] Beyond the agreements with the West, the Shah was interested in developing an indigenous nuclear program. Iranian nuclear scientists were to be sent to the West for the accumulation of expertise and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was to be established in 1974 following Iran's signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 and its ratification in 1970.[7] But the nuclear joint venture between Iran and the West would come to an end in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini believed that the nuclear nature of the program contradicted the principles of Islam. The nuclear scientists were to leave Iran and the joint ventures with the western companies have been frozen.[8] But as the Hobbesian theory on Realist International Relations put forward, states seek to arm themselves when they feel the perception of insecurity.[9] This was the case of the Islamic Republic which under the insecurity perceived by the Ba'athist regime in Iraq decided to relaunch the dormant nuclear program in the mid-1980s by encouraging nuclear scientists to come home and Western companies to reinvest in Iran's nuclear program.[10] [11] But with the Iranian revolution, Iran was already framed in a degrading manner in the West and under American pressure, Western investment would never return.[12] Behind this change of perception is the nature of the newly created Islamic Republic and its ideology. The ideology of revolution feeds on its export beyond national borders. According to the 1979 Islamic constitution, "in the development of international relations, the Constitution will strive with other Islamic and popular movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community ... and to ensure the continuation of the struggle for the liberation of all deprived and oppressed people in the world.”[13] In the words of the Islamic revolution’s first theorist of international relations, Mohammad Javad Larijani, "after the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran ... Iran became 'the Mother of the Cities' of the Abode of Islam ... According to the theory of Mother of the Cities, export of revolution and the defence of the Islamic Umma as a unified community is essentially engrained in the prestige of the Mother of Cities.”[14] Therefore, the export of revolution beyond the national borders became Iran`s priority in foreign policy in the aftermath of the Revolution, but, like any revolution in its early stages, the state was fragile as transition takes time for the new revolutionary institutions to begin functioning.[15] [16] [17] This is how the new framing was set in motion. On the one hand, the Iranian nuclear program was perceived in the West as an attempt to create a strong national identity around the status of a nuclear power, while using the nuclear weapons as a systematic tool to export its revolution.[18] [19] On the other hand, the Islamic Republic has been perceived as a weak state whose theocratic regime is still unstable (therefore unpredictable and irresponsible) and thus wants to use the nuclear program to project its power and authority on the regional and global stage.[20] In the West, Iranian revolutionary weakness possesses instability and irrationality, and an advanced nuclear program in the hands of such an undeterred political actor would be a threat to the region (especially Israel).[21] The aggressive and revolutionary zeal of the Islamic Republic where ideology, not reason, has the upper hand, would represent a threat in terms of the export of such nuclear weapons to non-state actors considered terrorists.[22] But these western-framed threats are fueled more by a bad image of Iran in the West, rather than the reality of these threats on the ground.[23] Iran proved to be a responsible and rational shareholder on the global stage. Iran has been part of the NPT since the time of the Shah and remained so even after the establishment of the Islamic Republic.[24] Iran signed the NPT Additional Protocol in 2004 following negotiations with the European Union and made substantial concessions following the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement in 2015.[25] [26] [27] No other NPT signatory has been subject to similar conditions placed on Iran following the signing of the JCPOA, while Israel, Pakistan, and India (old and new US allies) possess nuclear arsenal despite their non-participation in the NPT.[28] [29] Iran was responsible enough to (unsuccessfully) try to get to the US several times during presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami tenures, while the latter argued that producing nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes is Iran's right under Article IV of the NPT, a similar virtue that Japan (another American ally) has been enjoying in order to feed its economy.[30] [31]

Iran has been framed as an ideological and fundamentalist weak state seeking nuclear weapons to export its revolution abroad and assert its power in the region, but Iran in all its ``weaknesses and revolutionary zeal`` tried to be part of the new world order, showing openness in the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s towards any state as possible partner, signed its membership within the World Trade Organization, NPT, NPT Additional Protocol and finally the JCPOA, while no Western and Israeli intelligence have ever come up with concrete evidence that Iran is developing its nuclear program for the purpose of weaponization, and the UN Security Council never found Iran in violation of the NPT.[32] [33] [34] If the framing of Iran as a ``bad actor`` has a source, it is more American as the US self-imposed  representation of the international community and even the world in the negotiations with the ``evil and uncivilized`` Iran, has been absorbed more by the bad memories on the harsh anti-American declarations of the Islamic Republic`s founding father, Ruhollah Khomeini and the 444-day hostage crisis of American embassy personnel in November 1979, rather than reason, inflicting both a sense of humiliation in American consciousness and an image of  Iran as religious ``fanatics``.[35] [36] [37] Nothing similar happened in the past to the nuclear-power US allies such as Israel, Pakistan, and India.

[1] Shampa Biswas (2018), Iran v ‘the international community’: a postcolonial analysis of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26:3, 331-351, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2018.1481441, pp. 336-337.

[2] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, pp. 308-309.

[3] Amir Arjomand, After Khomeini, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 134.

[4] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, pp. 308-310.

[5] Shampa Biswas (2018), Iran v ‘the international community’: a postcolonial analysis of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26:3, 331-351, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2018.1481441, pp. 335-336.

[6] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, pp. 308-309.

[7] Ibidem, p. 309.

[8] Ibidem, pp. 309-310.

[9] Shampa Biswas (2018), Iran v ‘the international community’: a postcolonial analysis of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26:3, 331-351, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2018.1481441, p. 333.

[10] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, p. 310.

[11] Amir Arjomand, After Khomeini, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 134.

[12] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, p. 310.

[13] Amir Arjomand, After Khomeini, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 133-134.

[14] Ibidem.

[15] R.K. Ramazani, Reflections on Iran`s Foreign Policy: Defining the ``National Interests``, pp. 214-216.

[16] Amir Arjomand, After Khomeini, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 134-135.

[17] Ibidem, pp. 137-138.

[18] Shampa Biswas (2018), Iran v ‘the international community’: a postcolonial analysis of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26:3, 331-351, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2018.1481441, p. 334.

[19] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, p. 323.

[20] Shampa Biswas (2018), Iran v ‘the international community’: a postcolonial analysis of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26:3, 331-351, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2018.1481441, p. 334.

[21] Ibidem, p. 335.

[22] Ibidem.

[23] Sam Fayyaz & Roozbeh Shirazi (2013) Good Iranian, Bad Iranian: Representations of Iran and Iranians in Time and Newsweek (1998–2009), Iranian Studies, 46:1, 53-72, DOI: 10.1080/00210862.2012.740899, pp. 56-64.

[24] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, p. 309.

[25] Walter Posch, The EU and Iran: a tangled web of negotiations, Chaillot Paper, no. 89, May 2006, p. 104.

[26] Mark Fitzpatrick (2015) Iran: A Good Deal, Survival, 57:5, 47-52, DOI: 10.1080/00396338.2015.1090123, pp. 47-52.

[27] Adam Tarock (2016) The Iran nuclear deal: winning a little, losing a lot, Third World Quarterly, 37:8, 1408-1424, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2016.1166049, pp. 1408-1424.

[28] Ibidem, p. 1412.

[29] Ibidem, p. 1410.

[30] Amir Arjomand, After Khomeini, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.143-147.

[31] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, pp. 323-324.

[32] R.K. Ramazani, Reflections on Iran`s Foreign Policy: Defining the ``National Interests``, pp. 217-221.

[33] Gawdat Bahgat (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102, p. 321.

[34] Adam Tarock (2016) The Iran nuclear deal: winning a little, losing a lot, Third World Quarterly, 37:8, 1408-1424, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2016.1166049, p. 1409.

[35] Sam Fayyaz & Roozbeh Shirazi (2013) Good Iranian, Bad Iranian: Representations of Iran and Iranians in Time and Newsweek (1998–2009), Iranian Studies, 46:1, 53-72, DOI: 10.1080/00210862.2012.740899, pp. 56-64.

[36] Shampa Biswas (2018), Iran v ‘the international community’: a postcolonial analysis of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26:3, 331-351, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2018.1481441, pp. 336-337.

[37] Amir Arjomand, After Khomeini, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 134.

Bibliography:

Arjomand, Amir, After Khomeini, Oxford University Press, 2012.

Bahgat, Gawdat, (2006), Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, 39:3, 307-327, DOI: 10.1080/00210860600808102.

Biswas, Shampa, (2018), Iran v ‘the international community’: a postcolonial analysis of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26:3, 331-351, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2018.1481441.

Fayyaz Sam & Roozbeh Shirazi, (2013), Good Iranian, Bad Iranian: Representations of Iran and Iranians in Time and Newsweek (1998–2009), Iranian Studies, 46:1, 53-72, DOI: 10.1080/00210862.2012.740899.

Fitzpatrick, Mark, (2015), Iran: A Good Deal, Survival, 57:5, 47-52, DOI: 10.1080/00396338.2015.1090123.

Ramazani, R.K., Reflections on Iran`s Foreign Policy: Defining the ``National Interests``.

Tarock, Adam, (2016), The Iran nuclear deal: winning a little, losing a lot, Third World Quarterly, 37:8, 1408-1424, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2016.1166049.