M. Javad Zarif and Amir Parsa Garmsiri
The Islamic Republic of Iran serves as a perfect illustration. Over the last two decades, Israel and the United States have tried to persuade the world to stop treating Iran as a normal country and to instead treat it like the international system’s leading danger. The result has been constant denunciations, crushing sanctions, threats of military action, and, most recently, military operations against its territory—carried out during diplomatic negotiations between Tehran and Washington. Iran, in response, has been forced to devote more resources and attention to defense. It also increased uranium enrichment in defiance, to show that it would not be pressured into submission. The external securitization of Iran has fed into a parallel dynamic at home, as the state adopted a stricter approach in dealing with domestic social challenges, responding to these challenges with tighter restrictions.
The result is a securitization cycle: a vicious spiral in which Iran and its adversaries feel compelled to adopt more hostile policies in response to each other’s behavior. This phenomenon is somewhat like the security dilemma, in which one government’s decision to bolster its capabilities prompts others to do the same. But with the security dilemma, each side is reacting to material increases in the other’s capacity. This cycle begins with rhetoric. The target country is portrayed as a threat, and then is treated as a threat. And in response, it turns to activities—such as bolstering its missile capabilities or increasing enrichment—that can be used to corroborate the initial allegation. The cycle, in other words, produces a self-fulfilling prophecy. The securitized country gradually distances itself from independent agency and becomes trapped in a series of reactive behaviors.
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