TEHRAN- The new war imposed on Iran by the U.S. and Israel has changed the international role of the countries to a great extent. In this analysis we are going to revisit this new role projection from a scientific point of view in the light of role theory in international relations.

A role is formed and then projected based on the following components:

A. Role taking: National leaders interpret their state's position in the international system by looking at historical legacies, geographical position, material capabilities, and institutional memberships such as UN, NATO and BRICS. Amid the war, Iran established its historical legacy by saving territorial integrity, controlling the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, and preserving its regional and international membership by cooperating with Russia and China in BRICS, while staying in the NPT.

But the U.S. weakened its own obedience to the UN, NPT, etc., lost its NATO support through extending threats to Europe and other spots of the world, and lost its military bases as its Cold War legacies in the region while threatening security alliances with Arab states. In other words, Iran consolidated a defensive and sovereign role through tangible geostrategic assets, whereas the U.S. progressively dismantled its own institutional credibility and alliance structures.

B. Role conception: This is the self-image of the state revealing the way policymakers believe their state should act. Unlike the U.S., which projected itself as a great power against China and Russia, the war proved the reverse because its military campaign totally failed. Also, its conception as an honest broker to Arab states has faded away.

On the other hand, Iran - formed through political discourse, national identity, ideology, and past foreign policy traditions of resistance - proved itself a faithful ally to the Axis of Resistance and a mighty confrontation to arrogance’s hegemony, and thus expanded and enriched its conception of self. Others also recognized this conception as well. This internal role conception, therefore, did not emerge in a vacuum; it was actively reinforced by consistent behavior under extreme external pressure, turning a narrative of resistance into a demonstrable strategic reality.

C. Role expectation: Other states' expectations about what a given state should or should not do are communicated through diplomacy, multilateral institutions, alliance commitments, economic interdependence, and even public statements. While Iran could predict U.S. expectations and prepared for them, the U.S., due to Israel’s misinformation, could not predict Iran’s behavior, and this turned into a tragic failure for it both in military, economic, and political arenas.

This asymmetry in expectation management explains much of the divergent outcomes: Iran operated within a predictable retaliatory framework it had signaled over years, while Washington remained captive to miscalculated intelligence and unexamined assumptions about Iranian passivity.

In sum, if we consider that role formation is added to external expectations, this conclusion results in Iran’s expanded conception of “self” as an emerging regional power which is at the threshold of becoming a great power, while the U.S. has descended to the verge of losing its superpower image. The recent positions of the EU and regional countries are proof of this fact. Just the reverse, Iran, amid this war, is projecting its new norms of the international system (sovereignty in the Persian Gulf and Hormuz Strait, while at the same time keeping diplomacy and peace negotiations) through interaction with others.

Besides, powerful states such as EU countries and international organizations have assigned a new role to Iran as a legitimate actor for controlling its vicinity (the Strait of Hormuz more specifically). Accordingly, the state behaves in ways consistent with its role conception; feedback from others reinforces its position. For instance, Pakistan and Turkey’s views regarding Iran’s role and stability have drastically changed. Of course, future events such as the continuation of the war might modify Iran’s new role, but evidence suggests that even future events might strengthen this role to a more legitimate and established extent. Thus, what we are witnessing is not merely a tactical shift in foreign policy but a structural reordering of role relations in the Persian Gulf and beyond - one where an emerging “self” replaces a tarnished image at the core of regional order.

By Dr. Sajjad Farokhipour is Associate University Professor