Iran, arms control, and foreign policy

Iran is currently regarded as a "rogue" nation due to its overt ideological hostility towards the United States and Israel, and the perceived threat it poses to regional stability in the Middle East by pursuing ambitious conventional rearmament and weapons of mass destruction programs. This thesis explores Iran's foreign and security policies through the prism of its involvement in a host of arms control initiatives. The thesis classifies Iran's behavior as either radical, conservative, or pragmatic. This effort attempts to strike a balance between assessing the sincerity of Iran's arms control positions and broader approaches to reintegrating itself into the global order, and the serious evidence that, despite these commitments, Iran is continuing to advance its strategic objectives through weapons acquisitons. The thesis concludes that Iran's foreign and security policies will most likely reflect the conservative approach, which straddles the line between adherence to and violation of those commitments.