Ahmadinejad and the Doctrine of Madness in Foreign Policy

2011 Joint Area Centers Symposium
Session 2: Iran in Global Perspectives

"Ahmadinejad and the Doctrine of Madness in Foreign Policy"
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Chair: Colin Flint (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

In the global scene, the Iranian President often appears confrontational and provocative. Western powers understand his outlandish statements, such as wiping Israel off the map, and his cautionary Messianic threats as tirades of a mad man. In this presentation, I would argue that neither President Ahmadinezhad is mad nor is his foreign policies uncalculated. I argue that there are two kinds of madness in his policies: one is situational in response to specific threats and only appears crazy when presented outside its contextual frame; the other is doctrinal based on the principle of “the rationality of irrationality,” with very strong precedence in the Cold War politics. President Ahmadinezhad has adopted madness in the same vain that the Cold War hawks used it as the foundation of their deterrence policy. He intends to make his adversaries believe that he is capable of any inconceivable acts to protect his perceived Iranian interests.