State Studies of Contemporary Iran

State Studies of Contemporary Iran

Analysis of relations between Iran and the Zionist regime during the second Pahlavi era from the perspective of the theory of Offensive realism; with emphasis on foreign documents and sources

Document Type : Contemporary history of Iran

Authors
komeyl Naderimahdi 1
Moin Zabeti 2
sajjad chitforoush 3
1 PhD student, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran.
2 Assistant Professor of Political Science, Department of Social Sciences, Payam Noor University, Tehran, Iran.
3 Assistant Professor, Department of History of the Islamic Revolution and Sacred Defense, Imam Hussein (AS) University, Tehran, Iran.
10.47176/irsj.2025.1353
Abstract
The Pahlavi government and the Zionist regime, due to their great dependence on world powers from the very beginning, and because of the bipolar world conditions developed a close and secret relationship with each other. By examining the existing works on the relations between the Pahlavi government and Israel, it is observed that, due to the dispersion of documents and the fact that current research is based on domestic documents, the need to analyze the history of Iran-Israel relations and its theoretical study to predict the future of current confrontation is felt more than ever. This study seeks to analyze Iran's relations with the Zionist regime during the second Pahlavi era from the perspective of the theory of Offensive realism, using a documentary approach and descriptive-analytical method and using reliable foreign sources to discover the causes and grounds of this cooperation with regard to the aforementioned theory. At the end of the study, it was concluded that the main components of the theory of Offensive realism, such as the anarchic international system, the effort to survive and maintain security, hegemony, and the balance of power against enemies, were completely consistent with the behavior of the Pahlavi and Zionist regimes in the international arena and justified their alliance and cooperation with each other. Therefore, it was suggested that the Islamic Republic of Iran should pursue a structured plan to confront Israel, increase deterrence by strengthening military force and acquiring nuclear weapons, take surprise actions that disrupt the enemy's calculations, strengthen the economy against external threats, create an international coalition and support resistance groups.
Keywords
Pahlavi government
Zionist regime
Israel
Offensive realism
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State Studies of Contemporary Iran
Volume 11, Issue 3 - Serial Number 3
autumn 2025
Autumn 2025
Pages 89-109

  • Receive Date 02 June 2025
  • Revise Date 29 July 2025
  • Accept Date 30 July 2025
  • Publish Date 23 September 2025