Introduction: Everyone acknowledges that Iran is locating on the edge of the world’s political map with its unique (but not unique) geographical features which entangle the territory with politics and economics in the framework of power and turn the (full-)neighborhood environment into an important variable in its foreign policy. This entanglement requires that Iran’s geography-based foreign policy find a new meaning in the new conceptual framework of geopolynomics (instead of geopolitical/geoeconomics). Being aware of the need to avoid getting caught in the “geographic trap” that implies exaggerating and disregarding geographical coordinates, it must be acknowledged that Iran’s unique geographical features act like a double-edged sword; they create both opportunities and challenges. Iran’s neighbors are not only numerous but also diverse, with different historical and geographical opportunities and limitations, political tendencies, security concerns, economic structures and capabilities, and cultural tendencies. This plurality in the field of foreign policymaking requires implications that are reflected in the framework of neighborhood policy.
The article, emphasizing the feature of Iran’s abundant-neighborhood, selects the concept of multi-neighborhood policy. This policy has strategic implications that include, on the one hand, the number of target countries in the neighborhood and, on the other hand, the issue of inter-neighborhood interaction. In other words, multi-neighborhood policy is based on the idea that Iran, due to its long borders with a large number of countries, is a member of several regions and sub-regions, and this feature gives it a multi-regional position. Based on the multi-neighborhood and multi-regional situation, the multi-neighborhood policy is defined not only in the center of the capital, but also in the four corners of Iran’s geography. In addition to the target countries of the multi-neighborhood policy, the issues that are the focus of inter-neighborhood activism are also important. The geopolitical and geo-economic situation causes Iran to specify the subject of its activism towards its neighbors.
The aim of the article is to show the trajectory of Iran’s foreign policy from the current situation to the desired situation and the operationalization of the (multi)neighborhood policy through a geopolynomic strategy.
Research question: Accordingly, in order to achieve its goal of showing the trajectory of Iran's foreign policy in the peripheral regions from the current state to the desired state, this article focuses on two related questions, namely why and how the geopolynomic strategy is applied in Iran's (multi)neighborhood policy?
Research hypothesis: The hypothetical answer is that the element of requirement in the geopolitical network and the element of opportunity in the geoeconomic network of Iran's neighborhood make the geopolynomic strategy in the context of the multi-neighborhood policy necessary.
Research method: hypothesis is tested within the conceptual-theoretical framework of geopolynomics and using a descriptive-analytical method, which makes the subject of Iran's foreign policy a combination of the using geoeconomic opportunities and the management of geopolitical challenges. In this article, the combined word of geography-based geopolynomics is used as an analytical tool for political issues affecting Iranian foreign policy to blend political and economic processes with the spatial manifestations of Iranian power and at the same time to show the mutual influence of geography, politics, and economics on each other in the context of national power. This analytical tool based on the descriptive-analytical method allows for the further expansion of Iran’s political economy through the centrality of territorial communication networks.
Results and discussion: By considering the economy as the focus of foreign policy in general and the (multi-) neighborhood policy in particular, we can speak of the necessity of regional geo-economic activism. On the one hand, the Islamic Republic faces regional and international geopolitical challenges and limitations due to international structural confrontation; the challenges that inevitably impose themselves on Iran’s geoeconomic activism at regional levels. This dual situation, which includes a combination of geopolitical constraints and geoeconomic opportunities, has prompted the author to utilize the concept of geopolynomics, which encompasses both considerations, and elevate it to the level of a (multi)neighborhood policy strategy.
Iran’s geography, including its location, size, access to the sea, and long and problematic borders, gives its foreign policy a geographical character and is influenced the country by its multi-neighborhood, multi-regional, or inter-regional position. The article, which aims to deduce the implications of foreign policymaking in the regional environment, replaces the concept of multi-neighborhood with the concept of neighborhood in order to more accurately reflect Iran’s specific situation. Multi-neighborhood policy is considered to be a companion to the geopolynomic strategy. Geopolynomics is a multi-layered term that refers to Iran’s geopolitical requirements and constraints and geoeconomic opportunities and capacities.
Conclusions: In the approach of the paper, Iran’s geopolinomic position and situation are not only tied to intra-regional trends and events but also to an interwoven network of inter-regional and trans-regional trends and events. Therefore, multi-neighborhood policy requires networking of regional relations within network diplomacy corresponding to this geopolitical context. Therefore, multi-neighborhood policy has been used in a broad way to include beyond the immediate geography that includes neighbors with direct borders, also peripheral neighbors and trans-regional powers that have borders far from Iran. This macro analysis is a consequence of the algebraic logic of Iran’s geographical structure, which links its foreign policy to both regional power cycles, both intra-regional and inter-regional, and to global power cycles.
In such a broad environmental context, the geopolynomic strategy cannot pursue a multi-neighborhood policy bilaterally, nor can it design a unidirectional and linear one, but must be a multi-issue multilateralist policy, which has been interpreted as network relations. The main content and nature of a networked multi-neighborhood policy is to make others (neighbors) dependent on Iran and Iran’s geopolitical and geoeconomic position so that ignoring or breaking it would be costly for its neighbors.
A multi-neighborhood policy based on network diplomacy in a formal dimension should, in addition to deepening bilateral relations with neighbors, also undertake effective multilateral initiatives and implement them at various regional-oriented layers and levels, including intra-regional and inter-regional. Iran's geopolitics is fraught with challenges and limitations, and this characteristic makes tension and conflict a constant companion of the country's foreign policy. However, today's Iran needs economic exchanges, especially in the macro-neighborhood environment. Therefore, the geopolynomic strategy of Iran's multi-neighborhood policy will be a mixture of cooperative to competitive and conflictual patterns, and its mission is to strengthen the integrative aspects of Iran's regional relations.