Understanding Iran’s policy towards the Ukraine war: the significance of ideational factors and factional rivalries

This study examines the role of factional and ideational factors in shaping Iran’s foreign policy towards the Ukraine war and its alignment with Russia. It addresses two key questions: Why did Iran side with Russia instead of remaining neutral or using the war to improve relations with the West? And how did the influential conservative factions justify this policy as serving national or factional interests? To answer these, the study adopts a constructivist neoclassical realism framework that allows for a nuanced analysis of how domestic and systemic stimuli interact within a social context shaped by material and ideational factors. This theoretical approach enables the use of critical discourse analysis to examine conservative media narratives and factional discourses. The findings reveal that conservatives perceive the war as a geopolitical struggle between Western and anti-Western blocs. While they anticipate that a Russian victory will weaken Western hegemony and bolster Iran’s regional influence, they also fear that a Russian defeat could strengthen Western liberal values and empower domestic opposition. The study underscores how competing interpretations of global events shape divergent perceptions of risk and opportunity, highlighting the necessity of incorporating both material and ideational dimensions when analysing the foreign policy of revolutionary states.